5 Ways to Keep You Motivated to Achieve Your Body Goals

It can happen to anyone. You promise yourself you’d lay off the junk food, and exercise regularly. Everything goes according to plan for a couple of days, but then you end up losing interest. Your two-day rest from working out becomes a week. It snowballs into a few weeks, and you fall back into your old sedentary lifestyle.

Keeping yourself motivated to work out is tough. Period. But enter a global pandemic, and it can be extra difficult to find the drive to achieve your fitness goals. However, no matter how off-track are right now, you can still bounce back. Here are some ways to motivate you to achieve your #bodygoals:

Give yourself a good pep-talk

Before you start working out, tell yourself the words of encouragement you’d want others to say to you. It may sound a bit weird, but being your own hype person will help you get pumped up. If you’re having a hard time with certain moves, cheer for yourself. Tell yourself that you can do it. If you’re exercising by yourself, no one else can do it for you anyway. After all, a little self-love doesn’t hurt, right? 

Focus on quality, not quantity

According to Entrepreneur Magazine, you don’t have to log in hours at the fitness center or during your home workout. It’s better to get in 30 minutes of exercise religiously rather than an hour of working out with bad form. Instead of boring yourself by running for an hour on the treadmill, why not try high-intensity interval training (HIIT) for twenty minutes with full dedication? Make every minute dedicated to exercise count.

Treat yourself first

As per research by the University of Buffalo, watching re-runs of your favorite TV shows may have restorative powers to help you tackle difficult tasks such as exercising. While it may sound counterproductive at first, treating yourself to something your brain associates with relaxation can give you the mental boost that you need. This tactic is also a great excuse for you to chill out and watch an episode of Friends. Wink wink!

Find a fitness buddy

Keep yourself accountable by working out with your friend who leads an active lifestyle. It will trigger your competitive side. A phenomenon called the Kohler effect, exercising with someone who’s more capable than you makes us try harder than you would alone. If you’re hesitant to see each other in real life, you can schedule Zoom sessions or video calls for you to exercise at the same time. 

Make your workout fun

While you should be serious about getting in your workout regularly, you shouldn’t be serious while working out all the time. Find a physical activity that you would enjoy like swimming, dancing, or skating. Since the plan is for you to make it part of your lifestyle, exercise should be enjoyable, not a chore you dread doing. 

Maintaining an active lifestyle can be challenging amid a global pandemic, but it’s not impossible. Above all else, you should always remember why you started. The road to achieving your #bodygoals will be tough, but it will have been worth it. After all, if it were easy, everyone would do it. 

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