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Enhancing exercise motivation

Motivation, we all need it. When it comes to exercise it can be very easy for us to make excuses as to why we skipped a session. One of the most common reasons we hear is “I just couldn’t motivate myself”. If this is something you have been struggling with you are definitely not alone. The good news is, you’ve come to the right place, here are 5 key things you can do to enhance your motivation.

1. Choose what you enjoy

Something we tell a lot of people is to do the things you enjoy. You are less likely to adhere to something long term if it’s something you hate. We want to establish a good relationship with exercise to promote consistency in our training. There are always going to be things we don’t love to do, but we know they will have a great effect on our health. It’s OK to add these to our program once we have established a regular routine through increased motivation, but make sure we still find time to complete the things we enjoy in our training.

2. Track your progress

When we fail to track our progress, we can often become complacent with our training. Seeing the little wins, we have along the way is a great motivator. The use of an app is an easy way of checking our progress. These can source a whole host of information such as heart rate, steps taken, weight, physical exercise completed and nutrition. Studies have shown, that something as simple as a step counter can significantly increase someone’s motivation to become more physically active. What better motivation than seeing how much you’ve already achieved and how far you’ve come.

3. Set achievable goals

Make sure your goals are within your reach. Achieving success with your training is fantastic motivation to keep going. When developing goals make sure you consider the acronym SMART; specific, measurable, achievable/attainable, relevant and timely.

4. Train with a friend

Training is always more fun when you have someone to train with. Even though the session could be extremely difficult having someone there to support you and laugh with can make it seem easier. There’s something about committing to training with someone that prevents them from pulling out of a session. That feeling of not wanting to let someone down can be a huge motivational driver in staying consistent with training.

5. Mix up your training

Don’t let your training get boring, mix it up, keep it fresh and most importantly keep it fun. We’re more likely to continue training if it’s new and exciting. So, if your finding your motivation weaning, do something different, there are so many ways to train.

If you’re looking to increase your motivation or need guidance on where to start with exercise, please consult your Accredited Exercise Physiologist.