4 ways to motivate yourself to exercise regularly

4 ways to motivate yourself to exercise regularly

Does this sound familiar: you’re excited to start a new hobby, and for the first couple of months you have the energy to stay excited until the number of training sessions starts to decrease gradually? This is a common problem with people. After the initial burst of excitement, the new active hobby doesn’t get you to get moving as often as before; over time, you might drop off exercise completely and return to where you started. Where can you find motivation for regular exercise? I will tell you my tips for finding motivation and at the same time give you a couple of exercises that will help you on your journey towards training regularly.

What is important to you?

The first and most important question is: what is important to you? If we don’t recognise our own real reasons for exercising, motivation is easily lost. Today it’s easy to get carried away by external motivations: we might see an inspiring image of an athlete on social media and would like to have a similar body, or we want to be as strong and active. This might motivate you in the beginning, but if you haven’t thought about the real reasons for changing your body composition or increasing your strength levels, it won’t go on for long. This takes us to the first exercise. 

Write down your own goals for wellbeing and exercise. Continue reading after you are done. Now that you have written down your goals, think about why your goals are important to you? Do you want to have more energy even after work, so you can play with your children or grandchildren? Or do you want to prevent back pain? When you think about your goals for a moment and ask yourself the question “why do I want this?” you will find the real motives. 
For each goal, write down 3-5 reasons why you want it to happen.
The deeper reasons will motivate us to continue on the journey even when we want to give up.

Set yourself sub-goals

Remember that you don’t have to achieve everything immediately with the snap of a finger, but you have your whole life to enjoy the journey ahead and the achievements that come with it. 

Start from a level that fits your current fitness level. If you haven’t been exercising much before, a few short exercise sessions a week will be enough. This allows your body to recover from the stress, and you won’t overstrain yourself. At the same time, you’ll be able to develop routines when you build up from small pieces of the puzzle.

See how your body feels during exercise. It should feel pleasant. When your fitness level increases, you can add more intensity and exercise more often, because your body won’t be as stressed as before.

Set yourself small sub-goals, that motivate you even more. For example, if your goal is to run a marathon, it’s not sensible to run your first marathon after training for a couple of months. Start training by increasing your basic fitness level through LIIT training, where your heartbeat stays at around 60-70%. Gradually you can include also higher intensity speed endurance training. 

Remember to take care of stability and mobility training in addition to other training. The stabiliser muscles, mobility, and basic fitness form the basis for overall fitness, and we need these three things in order to exercise without pain and injuries!

Book time in your calendar

Modern life is busy, and it’s easy to get caught up in thinking, “I don’t have time”. For me and many of the people I coach, the following works well: book time for exercise in your calendar.

When you have marked the planned exercise in your calendar, it’s easier to stick to it. On busy days it’s fine to do a shorter mobility session at home combined with a relaxation exercise, which allows you to let go of the busy day for a moment and gives your nervous system the chance to recover.

Picture your success

The last tip that I will give you is related to positive thinking. In the beginning, you wrote down your own goals for wellbeing, and now I would like you to do a short mental exercise:
Imagine in your mind how you feel and how you look when you have reached your goal.

Are you more energetic, do you have better posture? Have you gotten rid of back pains? Is your running effortless when you go jogging?

Enjoy the feel of that image and the feelings you might have for a moment and remember, in this exercise, anything is possible!

End the exercise with a couple of deep breaths. Count to five as you breathe in and again when you breathe out. Open your eyes, and you’re ready to face new challenges!

Check Anatomic Functional Training FREE PROGRAMS