Following up on her previous post on how to be the best version of yourself for 2024, our life coach expert Suzanne Griffiths shares her thoughts and advice on motivation and setting clear goals for your fitness and wellbeing journey.
It goes without saying that motivating yourself isn’t always easy. There’s often a lot of frustration around the idea of not being motivated enough, leading people to pressure themselves to try even harder. This doesn’t always have the desired outcome!
As I said in my previous article, I can’t stress enough that everyone is unique. We are all complex beings, and each of us will have a totally different set of motivators. That said, here are some ideas that may help to kick-start you if you’re feeling a bit stuck:
What’s Your Why?
What do you want to achieve with your fitness and well-being journey? It’s unlikely that you’ve randomly decided to work out and push yourself harder – there’s always a reason behind this. It could be wanting to feel mentally and physically fitter, play better for your team, increase your speed, or lose those extra kilos – it doesn’t matter what the reason is, as long as you’re totally aware of it and can use it to think, YES that’s why I’m doing this!
Having Clear Goals
So now you know your why, and it’s galvanising you to jump out of bed, ready to get straight on it, then it all falls a bit flat because you’re not sure what to do next - guaranteed motivation killer! You must have clear goals and a plan of action, e.g. if your current goal is to be able to run 5k without having to stop to catch your breath, your plan of action could be to use the ‘Couch to 5K’ app. So, you jump out of bed and do your pre-run exercises, followed immediately by your planned app session. And lo and behold, you’re done for the day!
Forming Positive Habits
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear discusses how making small changes can transform your habits and deliver amazing results. He shares the four laws of behaviour change: 1) make it obvious, 2) make it attractive, 3) make it easy, and 4) make it satisfying. Instead of letting yourself down due to a lack of motivation, think about small changes that will help you transform your habits and behaviours to totally deliver your aspirations!
So next time you want to scream in frustration due to lack of motivation, take a deep breath and remind yourself of all of the above – you’ll soon be jumping out of bed and bish, bash bosh, you’ll be done before you know it!