Motivation, without it you are motionless. Newton’s law states that “an object in motion will stay in motion at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an outside force.” if we apply this law to fitness, the thing that keeps us in motion is motivation. Motivating others serves great importance especially with people of low self-esteem and can prove very helpful in the initial stages of short term belief in oneself, but even more important than motivating others, is self-motivation.
To inspire and drive yourself can be one of the most challenging tasks you’ll face in life, but if you can manage to accomplish a stable method of self-motivation, if you are able to strike nerves, if you can give yourself enough of a reason, you will achieve self-motivation. To help you with your journey to self-motivation FFUK have compiled a list of tips to self-motivation, please enjoy!
1) MUSIC
Whatever genre makes your heart race with energy, whatever music makes your mind explode with joy, you have to have one incredible playlist that sets you on a musical journey. When a playlist hits every nerve in your body, it can take you places mentally. Exercising to music can help motor and movement coordination e.g. moving in time to the beat of the music during a fitness class. When the body is coordinated with music, people often experience a dramatic increase in self-confidence, and this in turn creates a positive association with exercise. So create your ideal music playlist, and you can inspire the self-motivation you’ve been looking for.
2) REPLACE “PROBLEMS” WITH “CHALLENGES”
When you label the obstacles in your life as “problems”, you give them an metaphorical barricade that makes them almost impossible to tear down. As a result, you become demotivated to move forward and instead of finding a solution, you either find a way around them or find a way to ignore them. When you change the word problem to challenge, you begin finding a self-motivated way to persist through the impeding obstacle rather than trying to avoid it.
3) TRACK PROGRESS
Don’t just leave it to chance for your results to kick in, you need to monitor your progress, whether that be a written or a mental note (whatever is most effective for you). When you monitor and track progress this way, you are reassuring your mind there is positive improvement (if that is the case), if not then you now know where to improve. The idea is that you are not so distracted by the big end goal that you lose sight of the small accomplishments, which play a significant part in your journey.
4) CELEBRATE
It is okay to celebrate your personal records with cheat meals, but if you are setting new personal records daily then maybe find a different way to celebrate! You can at least celebrate a new weigh in every month or so if there is positive improvement, perhaps with a favourite meal for dinner that night or a weekend away to a city of your choice giving you some time away from the gym, which might also be great for your body’s recovery too. Whatever your choice of merit, keep it limited to bigger accomplishments that way they seem like exclusive rewards. Remember rewards are crucial for a positive mental state and facilitates your mentality to strive higher, important when reaching for your long-term goals.
5) SWITCH IT UP
A new exercise, exercise routine, training system or even a new style of training, any aspect of your training might be becoming a little dull, so switch it up. By this we mean temporarily change a crucial part of your training to something that is slightly foreign or different to you. For example, if you are currently training your chest on Mondays, change it to Saturdays, or for something a bit more adventurous try out yoga a few days a week. Yoga is great for increased mobility and flexibility which can heavily compliment your training. Altering your training is also great for your mentality, mainly because it helps break plateaus and thus avoids demotivation when training can feel repetitive and monotonous with little success. If you are looking for new exercises to try out, check out our advent post for 24 new exercises.
If you found this post insightful, why not check out some of our previous posts on our blog page or if you are interested in becoming a qualified personal trainer check out our main page for course information.
Written by Daniyal Siddiqui.