life health, lifestyle, loss weight, Motivation, Nutrition, running - January 13, 2014

7 Ways to Kick Start Your Motivation

Motivation is always great when you’re first embarking on your health and fitness journey, but it leaves all too soon in the process, making you wonder how you’re going to finish what you started. To help you stay with your goals for the long haul, here are 7 ways to help you kick start your motivation when you feel it lagging:

#1: Create a visual cue for your progress

It’s easy to stay motivated when you can visually see how far you’ve come. If your goal is weight loss, for instance, you could have a glass bottle that you add a colored stone to every time you lose a pound.

#2: Create a visual cue for your goal

Keep your goal in front of you at all times and you’ll find it easier to meet it. Find a picture or slogan that represents the life you are working to achieve and look at it often to motivate yourself to keep going.

#3: Ask a friend for a pep talk

Sometimes you just need a cheerleader on the sidelines to get you going and keep your head in the game. Appoint a trusted friend or family member to give you motivation when you can’t seem to find any on your own.

#4: Visualize your success

Close your eyes and envision yourself once you’ve hit your goal every time you’re ready to walk away from it. This helps remind you why you are trying so hard to make changes.

#5: Load up on motivating music

Nothing moves you like music, so load up you iPod or MP3 with music that makes you want to do great things and play it when you’re feeling down on energy.

#6: Remove the emotion

Think of reaching your goals as something that is more business-like and remove the emotion from them. This makes it easier to take the actions you need to take without fighting with yourself in the process.

#7: Make motivation a daily habit

You can’t motivate yourself once and expect that you never have to motivate yourself again. It takes daily attention, much like brushing your teeth or showering so do something motivational every single day (like reading a passage in a book or learning a new quote) and you’ll reach your goal soon enough.

Motivation can be hard to get and even harder to keep. These seven tips help you do both.