No Motivation to Exercise or Eat Well? Here's a trick...

Let's be real, motivation is elusive. It comes and goes, sometimes it hangs out for a while and other times it disappears all together. We've all experienced motivation's fickle nature. It's frustrating. And it's one of the biggest barriers when it comes to starting out and sticking to a new exercise or healthy eating regime.

Here's the trick: Act.

Do the thing. Motivation comes after action, not before. Choose an action, one that takes 5 minutes or less and moves you towards your goal.

For example, if you need to exercise but you don't feel motivated, put your leggings and sports bra on and go from there. Or say you have no motivation to go for a run, leave the house and start walking, tell yourself you're going for just a 5 minute stroll around the block and see what happens. The more you act, the more motivated you feel. That's the trick I promised you in the title. It works but don't stop reading now, if we dig a little deeper you'll see that there is more to it.

Taking action isn't always easy, I get that. Which is why I say begin with something that takes 5 minutes or less. Small achievable tasks. Think of it as getting the ball rolling (or rather getting that massive boulder rolling) you come up against some initial resistance but if you push through it, it soon starts to move and you're rolling with momentum.

Let's go even further to say that we can make taking those actions easier too. Once we accept that we can't rely on our motivation alone, we can see that it's better to rely on our routine actions to get us where we want to be. Practising the daily actions we need to develop the skills that become second nature is how we make a solid routine to fall back on. New routines and habits don't happen overnight but with planning and preparation you can alter your mindset and environment to come up against less resistance each time you act.

For example: If you lack motivation to make a nutritious breakfast in the morning and end up opting for a fast food option - your 5 minute action could be to prepare some overnight oats the night before that you can grab on your way out the door instead of stopping at the garage to pick up a pastry.

OR

If you don't feel motivated to exercise at home in the evenings but it's the only time of day you can get it done - make it easier by setting a reminder on your phone to change, letting your family know you'll be needing the space to workout in and/or having your equipment and laptop ready to click 'join' or 'play' .

These are just examples and you'll need to figure out which actions are going to get you moving towards your goal whether it's health related or otherwise.

You'll feel more motivated the more you act but you have to act first if the motivation isn't there already.

Through these small daily actions you'll find that you rely less and less on that elusive motivation to get you started. It becomes something that you just do because it's such an ingrained part of your routine. You know my jam is not a quick fix and yes it takes time and consistency but little by little those 5 minute actions will build up into a pretty robust system that keeps you moving towards your goal whether it's staying healthy, losing weight or bettering your mental health.

If you're interested in developing the skills you need then contact me about 1:1 Personal Training Packages and 1:1 Nutrition Coaching. Together we can build the systems that work for you.