Motivation – the desire or willingness of

someone to do something

Getting motivated is typically easy in the beginning.  You find yourself making progress and checking off your goals.  Once you have reached a milestone (not just a goal), how do you continue to stay motivated and keep moving forward?

Recently, I had a conversation with one of my co-workers.  He is an avid CrossFit guy and he runs.  He asked me if I had thought about what makes us stay motivated on our path to health and fitness.  With healthy lifestyle goals, when you reach a milestone, your work is not complete.

I have thought a lot about our conversation.  It’s not easy but it is certainly doable.  Below, I am sharing tips with you to stay motivated.

5 Tips to help you Stay Motivated

• First and foremost, having a healthy lifestyle is not a one-time goal.  Losing 5 pounds is an action step on your way to a healthy lifestyle but it is just a small step on the path.   If having a healthy lifestyle is your goal, then it needs to be a lifetime goal.  Make an action plan or as I prefer, a series of small steps that will keep you on the path.
• Set yourself up with some smaller goals along the way and reward yourself for doing it. Examples for this:

You increase your water by 1 glass per day for a week.  Treat yourself to a new, cool water bottle

You increase your exercise by 1 hour per week – perhaps you need some new workout clothes.

• Take assessments along the way. Use measurements and how your clothes fit to gauge some  of your health goals.  Measure how much you have increased  your exercise, what new programs have you tried?  Pay attention to the food you eat – how does it make you feel?  When you work on staying in tune with your health goals, you can take them in any direction you want to go.  A good rule of thumb here is to give yourself 4 t 8 weeks to develop a new habit.
• Never stop learning.  Stay on top of new health trends and advances in medicine. Always be willing to try something new.  New information comes in the form of books, podcasts, articles and blog sites.
• Know your why and always work toward a goal.  That goal should be something you want to accomplish rather than a number on the scale or a dress size.  For me, I want to feel and look healthy.  I also want to be able to do things that I couldn’t before like lift heavier weights!

Let me know how you stay motivated!

Kim