If “the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” that must also apply to fitness hell! There is a plethora of information out there on how to get fit, loose weight, eat healthy, burn fat, and build muscle. But none of it matters if you don’t do something with that information! Getting – and keeping – motivated to workout and eat healthy is possibly the biggest obstacle you need to overcome if you want to get fit! Want to know how to get motivated to get fit? Here’s how!
We do have an advantage here, though. The study of what motivates us to do things does also apply to fitness motivation as well. Economists and psychologists have been studying how to crack the code of what compels us to repeatedly do something we don’t always want to do – and how to change that. Their suggestions include:
Reward yourself with real rewards!
When you set a fitness goal, you need to make it an acheivable goal – and then set a tangible reward for yourself once you accomplish it. Why does this work? Extrinsic rewards allow your brain to lock onto something and make the link that this new behavior is worth doing. This creates a neurological “habit loop” – and over time, the behavior becomes a habit. Once that happens, and your brain begins to associate your workouts with something “good” rathar than “bad”, your brain will look at your workout as its own reeward!
Sign a Commitment Contract
We make promises to ourself all the time. And, we also make excuses to ourselves as to why we don’t follow through on those promises. And, nobody but you knows about those failures. But, when you promise someone else something, it’s much harder for you to make excuses – it’s much less painful to you to follow through on a promise to someone else than it is to make excuses that could damage that relationship. Research shows we’re more likely to follow through with pledges when we make them in front of friends. So, rather than making a contract with yourself, get a friend or family member involved. And, put a penalty in place for yourself for when you fail, like agreeing to pay your friend $20 when you miss a workout. We all want to avoid pain – so if you can make the pain of missing a workout greater than the pain of doing one, you’ll be on your way to getting in shape quickly!
Rethink Positive Thinking
Visualization stragegies do have their benefits. Rather than laying in bed, imagining how nice that bed feels, if you imagine how good you’ll feel with the wind in your face, enjoying a sunrise, can help get you out of bed and out to your workout. Once you can imagine the obstacle that keeps you from working out, your brain wants to find ways to overcome that obstacle.
But there’s an additional step you need to take as well. Don’t just imagine how good it feels to do your workout. Also identify what’s holding you back (this is a technique called “mental contrasting”. So, don’t just think about “the good”, also think about a plan to “avoid the bad”. For example, you can switch to morning or lunchtime workouts or go straight to the gym instead of stopping at home first.
The best part is – you know you’ve succeeded once the day arrives when you can’t imagine skipping your workout. You can call it an addiction, a pleasure or an escape. But the important thing is that you’re doing it on a regular basis, and that you’re doing it for you.
Looking for home fitness equipment to help you on your way to total body fitness? Stop into any of our 3 locations here in Phoenix, Scottsdale, or Chandler. Our team here at Fitness 4 Home Superstore would be happy to talk to you about what you’d like to accomplish with your workouts. So whether you want to improve your cardio workouts, or add a strength training component to them, we can help you find the equipment to accomplish that!
