We all suffer at times from lack of motivation. The alarm goes off at 6am, and you decide you would benefit more from an extra hour of sleep more than a morning workout. Or maybe you’ve had a long week at work, and barely have the energy to put your runners on? It happens to the best of us! Even as Trainers, we have times when we neglect our own training to go for that extra coffee! But with these 3 simple tips, you should be finding yourself back on track to smashing those goals!

Train with Others

Committing to a training session isn’t always as simple as just setting a time a side and going. It’s easy to bail when there’s no one to hold you accountable. That’s where having a friend, family member or partner to go with comes in; if you have someone who goes out of their way to commit time to train with you, how likely are you to cancel on them? Many studies have shown that by committing to do something with someone, as oppose to alone, you more than double the likelihood of following through. Let’s put it this way: If a movie you’re interested in is showing, would you go and see it? What about if a friend asked you to come with them to that same movie? So get others involved! Isn’t it more fun if you have someone to talk to anyway?

Realistic Goals

Setting goals is the bread and butter for getting results from training, but far too often we set goals that are too far out of reach. This can often demotivate us from the lack of progress; “why haven’t I lost the 20kg yet?” or “I can’t even do 10 push ups” are things that we might start to say to ourselves if we try and hit our main goal in an unrealistic time frame. This is where setting micro goals or short term goals come in. These are like stepping stones to the main goal, the big picture. They might start as simple as training 3 times a week, and could become specific like adding 5 more reps to all of your exercises, or cutting the rest time by 30 seconds; the point of these goals is to be achievable, if you’re achieving these, you’re on the way to loosing that 20kgs or reaching that big 10 push ups. You can’t do it in one big leap, but you can with lots of smaller steps!

“Fitness is a relationship. You can’t cheat and expect it to work.”

Consistency/Routine

Training consistently might seem obvious, but more often than not, we’re not training as regularly as we should. It may work to fit in your training on the fly, but without realising it, you may only be training once a week, maybe even once a fortnight! It’s understandable! Life can be hectic; juggling family, work, uni, are just a few of the many challenges we face when working out how to and where to fit in our workouts. Scheduling and routine are important; when you really look at it, is there any reason you really can’t commit to 45 minutes of training 2-3 times a week? That’s less than 3 hours a week, and most of us spend more than that on our phones or watching TV in a day! Set aside the time; get in a routine of training 3 times a week at your allotted time and you’ll find that you’re looking for reasons TO train, not why you shouldn’t!