How Do You Stay Motivated To Workout At Home (Or At The Gym!)
I hear people asking a lot of the time how I stay motivated to work out. How do I do it at home so consistently? Some people even say they can’t keep the motivation to work at home because they can barely summon the motivation to go to a group class workout – when there is peer pressure to show up.
It is not easy to find the motivation every day. Some days, I have no motivation to work out. But I have created an environment that makes putting my shoes on and moving easy.
To help all those with the same questions or looking to refine their motivation techniques, I put together the top things that help me stay motivated. This is part 3 of 3.
How To Stay Motivated To Workout Part 3: GIVE Yourself A Goal
Going to the gym. Working out at home. Going for a walk after dinner. Just moving, in general, is a great way to get and keep fit.
Sometimes that gets boring. And bland leads to a lack of motivation.
If you have no drive or purpose as to why you are working out, that can cause a rut in your motivation and lead you to find something else to do instead of exercising.
We are creatures of dopamine chasers, and if something isn’t exciting enough, we will not continue to do that. It is nature.
What I do to help starve boredom is to GIVE myself a goal.
A goal that I will concentrate on is doing better at giving myself something at the end.
It is a positive mindset goal.
Working up to doing ten unbroken Strict Pull-ups. Increasing the amount of time I hold a plank. Building endurance to run 20 minutes straight.
Positive thoughts. A Positive goal. You are adding to your foundation or skills in the gym.
The opposite of that would be a goal that you would need to concentrate on ‘taking something away.’
It’s an opposing mindset goal. You are always focused on taking something away from yourself. The biggest opposing goal is losing weight. To lose weight, you need to concentrate on not eating (the foods you want), not going out with your friends (no adult beverages for you), etc.
So I concentrate on the happy and the positive—something I need to work on every day to GIVE more to myself.
I start by writing it down. Something I want. In detail. And look at it every day.
I give myself a time frame—that way, I want to work now. I want to get to my goal now.
The trick is to pick one goal at a time.
“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.”
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I pick my goal. And work on it a little bit every day.
There was a time when I wanted to get better at push-ups. I could MAYBE do three ‘snake-like’ push-ups in a row before needing to lay down or go to my knees.
I set my goal to be able to do ten perfect push-ups in a month.
(Need Help Setting A Goal? Read This Article On How To do That!)
When I started, I would do 1-3 good push-ups, then finish out the ten reps the best I could every day.
After about a week, the 1-3 started growing to 5-7.
Then, I added extra sessions. I would try to do ten push-ups in the morning and then again in the late afternoon.
Adding the extra session made me extra sore. But I could tell it was working. I was doing 20 push-ups a day in one form or another.
What else was helping was that on top of my 20 push-ups a day, I was lifting weights and running on the treadmill. So, during my workouts, I concentrated on movements that would help me strengthen my push-up form.
It would be best to have a solid plank to break it down and do a proper push-up. Hold your body straight while holding yourself up on your hands and toes. Your abs & back (core), glutes, and quads must all be strong enough to support this position. Your shoulders, triceps, and biceps must be strong enough to keep your weight while controlling you down to the floor and pushing you back up.
In short, you need your entire body to be strong, not just your arms, to do a push-up.
(Need Help Setting A Goal? Read This Article On How To do That!)
So now I was lifting with a purpose. I wanted to be more robust to do the ten perfect push-ups.
And oh, the soreness!
Lifting weights breaks down your muscles. The breaking down of muscles and their re-growing is how your muscles get stronger. So, the more sore I became, the more I knew I needed rest days. The rest of the days are about how you recover and get stronger.
So, my workouts were about three days a week with 20 push-ups a day. And it felt like I was working out less.
But I was working with a purpose. With a goal in mind.
With the intensity I was putting in. The purpose behind each lift. The drive to get to my goal. It all helped me supersize my motivation, and it was SO easy to go to work out.
By the end of the month, I was doing more than ten perfect push-ups.
To stay motivated to Work out at home or in the gym, give yourself a goal!
To help you stay motivated to work out, GIVE yourself a goal. Focus on a positive outcome. Give yourself a purpose—some excitement. And work with intensity to get there.