Ripped Fitness Tips

How to Stay Motivated for Fitness:  3 Steps

For many of us, embarking on a fitness goal is the easy part.  We are excited to start the journey and we look ahead with anticipation.   For the sake of this article, I’m going to assume that you’ve done this already; you’ve started down the path of your fitness goals.

Oftentimes however, the novelty and the excitement of our training program wears off after a few weeks and it becomes much more difficult to stay motivated.  Training can start to feel like a “grind” after a while.  We’ve all seen how many people are at the gym on February 1st compared to January 1st.  So how do we remain driven?  I have found that there are 3 steps to keeping yourself motivated and excited to reach your goal.

1. Remember why you started.
   Maybe you want to fit into a smaller pant size; maybe you want to look good for a pool party; maybe you want to decrease your body fat percentage to a certain level.  Whatever the reason is, keep this thought in your mind as you are training (and on days when you feel like you don’t want to train).   Think like this for example:  “If I don’t go to the gym today and push myself, I am going to be further away from getting down to 10% body fat” or “If I slack on my workout today, I will push back the date of when I will be ‘beach-body’ ready.”Fitness is a lifestyle.  We don’t just go the gym once and reach whatever goal we’ve set for ourselves.  It takes time, dedication, and focus.  Keep the reason you started in mind as you make your daily decisions about fitness and training.
2. Visualize success.
   How great will that day be? –  The day you reach your goal.  Maybe your goal is to have a visual 6-pack.  Visualize yourself standing on the beach with your shirt off with your ab muscles shining for everyone to see.  As you may know, visualization is a very powerful thing.  If you can clearly picture yourself achieving your goal, you are that much closer to achieving it.  If you can visualize it; it means you BELIEVE you can achieve it.
3. Align yourself with others on the same path.
   Workout partners can be a huge asset.  If you have a friend with a similar fitness goal as you, train with him/her.  Push each other.  A workout partner will keep you accountable and you will keep him accountable in turn.
   If you don’t have a workout partner, that is fine.  Many people actually only want to workout alone.  If you do this however, find a “workout partner” online.  This could simply be someone on YouTube who you admire or who has a physique you want to achieve.   Watching someone else achieve goals gives us motivation and permission to achieve our own objectives.

Ultimately, keeping yourself motivated is a journey in and of itself.  Learning how to keep yourself inspired is a big part of the fitness lifestyle.  Actively take notes about what works for you.  Maybe you get motivated by watching those “pump up” YouTube videos right before you go to the gym.  If that works for you, great – do that.

Fitness, as I mentioned above, is a lifestyle and a journey.   Try to learn something new about fitness daily if you can.  As we all know, there is always something new to learn about form, motivation, and mindset.  Always be conscious of your goals and do whatever you can to achieve them.  CRUSH IT!

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