How to Motivate Yourself to Work Out

How to motivate yourself to work out

It is a well-known fact that sport activities such as jogging, stretching, practicing yoga help us to maintain a good health. Moreover, thanks to physical activities, we may relieve stress or get out of depression.

Physical training provides an enormous amount of benefits. However, oftentimes we may lack motivation to do any form of exercises. Watching another episode of our favorite TV show or chatting on a social media may seem more fun compared to a work out.

There might be several reasons for us to have a lack of motivation to be involved in physical training. If you are having problems motivating yourself to exercise on a regular basis, this article should help you to overcome the struggle.

Set Proper Goals

Achieving goals that we have set for ourselves is one of the key factors that encourage us to be motivated for new challenges. We enhance our self-esteem by acquiring the desired results that we have identified before going to the training session.

Failing to accomplish the goal, on the other hand, demoralizes us and shatters our confidence. Thus, it is crucial to set smart achievable goals in order to keep ourselves motivated for training.

Imagine the following situation. The person has had a sedentary lifestyle for a long time. As a result, even small forms of physical activities become a challenge. In order to get back into shape quickly the person decides to go through one of those popular 30-day challenges on internet. The goal here is to complete the full 30-day circle without having prior preparation. It is true that there are people who successfully go through the whole program. However, for a beginner this might be too overwhelming, as the body needs rest after each training session. If your body does not recover within a day, it will be hard to complete the challenge that follows the next day. Lack of rest may cause you to fail the challenge. As a result, you will lose the motivation to train and finish the program with failure.

Motivate Yourself to Work Out: Train with a Partner

If you have a friend to train with, it is easier and more fun to go to the gym. Throughout the session, you may help each other to complete the sets. Moreover, it could be more comfortable to try something new at the gym with a friend.

Training with close friend may help you to reduce the feeling of bizarreness when you making inappropriate attempts to perform new exercises. Rather, all the improper attempts can be the reason for having fun. As a result, you may increase your confidence and feel more relaxed during workout session with a friend.

Apart from that, when you are agreed to a joint training with your friend, you will feel more responsible. Responsibility in turn, gives you additional motivation to go to work out as you should not break the agreement you made with your friend. 

Motivate Yourself to Work Out:  Give Yourself a Reward

One of the most useful tricks that may help you to gain motivation is rewarding yourself. You should divide your training session into several steps and reward yourself after successfully completing each step.

For instance, let us say that your goal is to do 100 push-ups (it could be 50 or even 200) on your training day. You may divide it into 5 sets of 20 and do them throughout the day. The idea is, every time you do 20 push-ups, you give yourself a reward. Reward does not have to be big, but should be appealing enough to motivate you.

For example, if you restricted yourself from using social media, you reward can be – allowing yourself to check your accounts for 5 minutes every time you successfully do 20 push-ups.

Motivate Yourself to Work Out: Visualize the Benefits

Visualizing positive changes in your body can be a good source for motivation. It does not matter whether you are trying to lose weight or gain muscles. You can achieve noticeable results via consistent physical activities.

Think about how your body will change within a year if you do not miss any workout sessions. Imagine what type of cheerful feelings you will have when you achieve the goals that you set for yourself.

Visualizing the benefits that can be acquired through consistent training should give you motivation to make your next step towards your goals.

Motivate Yourself to Work Out – Purchase Sportswear

Good sportswear allows you to workout in comfort and enjoy the training session more. Moreover, if you are in a sportswear, it is easier to set your mood to upcoming challenges in the gym.

If you have unsuitable clothes during your training, it may cause inconveniences. With uncomfortable sportswear, you will not be able to put your whole energy to exercises. In turn, it may cause you losing motivation for your next session. That is why it is important for you to be dressed comfortably.

You do not have to wear a sweatshirt or yoga pants only when you go to the gym. Even if you exercise at home, sportswear helps you to make workout session more natural.

After few trainings in sportswear, you will start associating your clothes with physical activities. Thus, in order to motivate yourself, sometimes you just need to wear your sports clothing.

Use Music for Motivation

One of the most obvious source of motivation is music. According to Mark Fenske, associate professor in neuroscience at the University of Guelph, music provides us energy and increases our endurance.  

Mr. Fenske declares that involvement of our sympathetic nervous system causes energizing effects while we listen to the music. As the result of activation of the sympathetic nervous system, our body becomes ready to take an action when we come across a challenge.

Moreover, professor Fenske claims that by listening to our favorite songs, we may stand against the “de-motivating brain signals” that are related to exhaustion and boredom.

In other words, by listening to motivational music, we may get rid of negative feelings that are preventing us from going to the gym.

Keep Logs of Your Trainings

Make a habit of recording the results of your workout sessions. Write down the distance that you covered by jogging or the weight that you’ve lifted at the gym. This will give you an opportunity to keep track of your progress.

Then, when you do not feel like going to the gym, you can take a look at your records. You will observe the positive changes that your body has from physical activities.

Seeing recorded improvements can boost your confidence and inspire you when you are demotivated. Use those logs to tell your brain what type of positive emotions it can have with the help of s workout.

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