How many times have you made up your mind to start exercising and change your eating habits only to find that after a couple of weeks you’ve lost all of the motivation you thought you had and you end up quitting. I’m sure that most people have had this experience more than once in their life. I know I have.
In order to help you stay motivated and achieve your health and fitness goals, the following 5 techniques are very useful.
1. Use negative visioning. What is negative visioning? Typically, when we envision something, we might say something to ourselves like this: “In six months I’m going to have lost 20 pounds of fat. I’ll not only look much better, but I’ll feel great because I’ll have so much more energy.”
Instead of using this positive visioning method, with negative visioning we imagine ourselves 3, 5, or 10 years in the future. And we write down something like this: “I wish I had kept up my exercise program and followed a healthier nutritional program when I was younger. If I had done so I wouldn’t be 40 pounds overweight now, with high blood pressure and heart problems, and I wouldn’t need to be taking all of this medication.”
Although you may feel strange using this technique, what it accomplishes is helping you to think about the negative consequences now of not taking the action you know you need to take in order to achieve your goals. This is a very effective technique simply because most of us don’t give enough thought to the future consequences of our actions now. This method will help you do that.
2. Do the hardest thing first! If you find that you’re really having to push yourself to do your exercise routine, then get it out of the way first thing in the morning. Once you’re done, that’s it. You can then get on with the rest of your day. In fact, you’ll likely find that by doing your exercise first thing in the morning, you’ll have much more energy and be much more mentally alert for the rest of the day.
3. Find a reliable training partner. We all feed off of the motivation and encouragement we get from other people. Why workout and diet all on your own? Get a close friend or a relative to help you stay focused on your goals. You’ll be able to keep each other motivated and it’s a great way of strengthening your friendship with someone else.
4. Celebrate your successes. Have you lost two more pounds? Have you completed every one of your scheduled workouts for the past week or two? Then do something to celebrate. Perhaps you can buy yourself a new item of clothing. Maybe you could put five or ten bucks in a piggy bank for use later in the year. Whatever you decide to do to celebrate is fine. There is one caution here, though. Don’t make eating something ‘sinful’ your reward. Many people do this, but it can be very counter-productive to helping you achieve your fitness goals.
5. Write a list of the reasons you wish to stay on your diet and training program. Following are some suggestions for what you might include on your list:
* to look and feel better about
myself
* to have a lot more energy to do the
things I would love to do with my
wife/husband and children
* to fit into all of the clothes that
have been hanging in my closet for
the past few years.
* to live a long and healthy life
I’m sure that you have other things you’ll want to put on your list, so go ahead and write them down and then review them regularly.
You can see that keeping yourself motivated to continue your exercise and diet programs required a little thought and perhaps some ingenuity. However, you apply the tips above, you will have success.
If you would like more information on how to get into shape faster than you ever imagined, then check out Dale M’s review of The Body of F.I.R.E. Program. You can also take some time to look at the rest of his site and sign up for his FREE 12 Secrets To Fast & Permanent Fat Loss eCourse.
