Getting into shape and improving your fitness requires consistency, commitment, and effort. And, while motivation starts off high when undertaking a body transformation journey, we all suffer from periods of low energy, drive, and desire to work out and eat right.
Here, we’ve got 10 great tips to help keep you motivated along your journey to get healthy, lean, and toned.
Top 10 Ways to Stay Motivated
#1 Visualize Success
One of the easiest ways to motivate yourself to eat right and exercise regularly is to visualize how you will look and feel at the end of your transformation journey. Imagine throwing out your old, baggy clothes that won’t fit anymore and thinking about how great you’ll feel when you look in the mirror.
All successful people visualize accomplishing their goals before they ever complete it, and use it as motivation to keep working hard day after day. If it works for corporate CEOs, inventors, and high-level athletes, it can work for you too!
#2 Get Support
The human mind is an incredibly powerful entity, but as strong as it may be, it too suffers from low energy, fatigue, and lack of motivation. Having support from family, friends, and even social media groups can do wonders to help uplift your spirits on those occasions when you’re feeling down and out.
Tell those around you about your goals as well as the steps you are taking to accomplish it. When you chat with them, they’re likely to ask you how you are doing with your quest to get fit. This serves as added motivation and encouragement for you to keep on your journey towards health and wellness.
#3 Divide and Conquer
Having big goals and ambitions is a good thing. However, the reason many people fail to realize their aspirations is that they fail to outline a plan that ensures success. In other words, setting a lofty goal without an organized plan of attack is doomed to failure.
The way to have big goals and accomplish them is to create smaller “mini goals” that align with your big goal. Every time you accomplish one of these small milestones, it serves as a source of motivation and encouragement, propelling you onto the next mini milestone and ultimately your end goal.
For example, let’s say your end goal is to eliminate added sugars and processed foods from the diet.
Small goals you can lay out each week to accomplish could be:
- Week #1: Add a serving of vegetables to your dinner
- Week #2: Add a serving of vegetables to lunch
- Week #3: Meal prep breakfasts for the week
- Week #4: Reduce intake of sugary beverages
With each of these small goals, it makes the end goal of cleaning up your diet much more manageable and significantly more likely that the changes you institute will stick for good.
#4 Reward Yourself
u accomplish a smaller goal, it's important to reward yourself for the work you've put in. But don't reward yourself with food. Instead, treat yourself to a day-trip to your favorite spot, get pampered and a massage, buy some new workout clothes, or buy that ticket to your favorite show you've been eyeballing. It's important to not choose something that will adversely affect your goals
#5 Buy Some New Training Gear
Whether it be a new pair of cross-trainers, leggings, or tank, buying yourself some new training gear and apparel can do wonders to reignite your fitness bug.
Building off the previous point, if you’re recently accomplished one of your “mini-milestones” en route to your larger fitness goals, you can reward yourself for your accomplishments by purchasing some new gym swag.
And, to make things even better, you’ll also get an additional motivational boost when you see how great you look in the gym mirror wearing your new apparel.
#6 Have a Workout Buddy
A key to success in life, fitness, and business is surrounding yourself with positive, like-minded people who share the same goals as you. In the case of body transformations and fitness, this is having a workout buddy or accountability partner at the gym.
Training partners are there to help you push harder in your workouts (thereby burning more calories and lifting more weight) as well as to help motivate you during times when you just don’t feel like hitting the gym.
If you don’t already have a training partner, consider trying some group fitness classes at your local gym to find a prospective training partner and accountability buddy. And, if all else fails, you can hire a coach or personal trainer to work with you. Similar to workout buddies, coaches will also help challenge and motivate you to workout harder.
#7 Be Specific
When beginning their fitness transformation, so many people simply have a goal of “getting fit” or getting “healthy”. Unfortunately, having such a broad, generalized goal does little to spark motivation or drive.
The solution is to create a specific goal. This creates a sense of urgency and helps light the proverbial “fire under your butt” to get moving and grooving.
Specificity applies not only to the goal, but also the timeframe which you allow yourself to complete your goal.
For example, rather than say, “I want to lose weight” a more effective strategy may be to say “I want to lose 5 pounds in 5 weeks.” The second goal defines a set amount of weight loss and a deadline. Having both of these allows you to better track progress and make any adjustments to your diet and training plan to keep you on pace to accomplish your goal.
#8 Write Down Your Goals
Building off the last point, it’s important to not only visualize and say your goals, but also to write them down on a piece of paper. This act of writing down your goals helps reinforce what you are trying to accomplish as serves as another reminder and motivator to help keep you going even on the days when all you want to do is lay in bed and watch Netflix.
It may also help to write down your goals multiple times and hang those pieces of paper in various spots of your house such as the bathroom mirror, refrigerator, and/or pantry. Seeing your goals frequently helps “fuel the fire” inside of you and may also help you to avoid those temptations to skip your workout or cheat on your diet.
#9 Commit to a Specific Training Program
Specificity, as you’ve come to realize, is a HUGE part of success regardless of the venture you undertake. A big part of success when it comes to training in the gym is having a specific goal in mind, and tailoring your workouts to accomplish that goal.
Having a set workout structure and organized training sessions during the week helps fill you with a greater purpose when you hit the gym. Each workout you go in with a set plan of attack and know what you need to do to take another step on your path to success.
While the occasional random workout is ok when you need a mental break from your training program, constantly winging your workouts is a quick way to stall progress, lose motivation, and never fully achieve your end goal.
#10 Change Your Mindset
So many people take the view of fitness that they “have” to workout and exercise to be healthy. This creates a negative connotation with exercise, puts you at odds with training, and decreases your motivation and willingness to work out.
Instead of thinking you “have” to exercise, approach your fitness as an opportunity. You “get the chance” to exercise, and in doing so, you’re building a stronger mind and body. One that is more resilient to the rigors of the outside world.
Not everyone has the fortune to have the opportunity to move and exercise as they would like. Having a greater appreciation for your abilities imbues yourself with renewed fervor to attack each workout and give it you all.
BONUS Prize Money!!!
Money is a great motivator. This has been shown time and time again.
When there’s a big cash prize on the line, your dedication and desire to accomplish a goal is significantly increased. It’s that simple.
1Up Nutrition gives away $50,000 in cash prizes to 1UP Transformation Challenge Winners.
Our mission is to help motivate and support you during your fitness journey, and in addition to providing you with helpful training and nutrition tips, we’ve sweetened the pot by offering cash and prizes too!
If none of these other tips help keep you going, then perhaps a big payday will!
