Top tips on staying motivated with your fitness during virus lockdown
We’ve been in lockdown for over two weeks now and it’s great to see so many people making a big effort to keep fit at home.
However, if you don’t set yourself some goals and targets you may experience a dip in motivation over the next few weeks (if you haven’t already).
Having a goal is really powerful for motivation; it gives you something to focus on and a challenge to aim for. Without goals, you’ll probably get bored and lose motivation.
Imagine going to a football game and they take the goals away. The 22 players stand on the pitch and just pass the ball between themselves. Nobody can win the match because there’s no goals to score in. Would you go back? You might go back if you’re a die-hard fan, but you’d quickly get bored and give up.
It’s exactly the same with your health and fitness. You need a goal to give you some accountability, to give you something to aim for, to keep your mind focused and avoid losing motivation.
Here’s 7 tips for setting fitness goals that will keep you motivated during the lockdown, and beyond:
Decide. Think of something you want to do or work towards. Maybe you want to lose weight, or maybe you want to work towards running a 10k. It doesn't really matter what, as long as it's something you want to do - ideally something you're interested in or feel excited by. It should be something you want to do for its own sake not for something or someone else. It can be a big thing or a small thing - sometimes it is easier to get going with something small. And it often helps if it's something that's just a little bit beyond what you currently can do - goals that stretch us can be motivating!
Write it down. Carefully. Writing down our goals increases our chances of sticking with them. Write down how you will know you have reached your goals and when you'd like to have achieved it by. Ask yourself: what it will 'look' like and how will you feel when you've done it? Will affect will it have on other people close to you? Describe your goal in specific terms and timescales e.g. 'I want to run a 10km Race, without stopping, in October, rather than 'I want to be able to run.' Write your goals in terms of what you want, not what you don't want. For example: 'I want to lose 7lbsa and be able to wear my favourite jeans again', rather than 'I don't want to be overweight anymore'.
Tell someone. Telling someone we know about our goals also seems to increase the likelihood that we will stick at them. You could even share them on social media for more accountability.
Break your goal down. This is especially important for big goals. Think about the smaller goals that are steps on the way to achieving your bigger aim. Sometimes our big goals are a bit vague, like 'I want to be healthier'. Breaking these down helps us be more specific. So, a smaller goal might be 'go running regularly' or even 'to be able to run around the park in 20 minutes without stopping'. Write down your smaller goals and try to set some dates to do these by too. Having several smaller goals makes each of them a bit easier and gives us a feeling of success along the way, which also makes it more likely that we'll stay on track towards our bigger goal.
Plan your first step. Your end goal might seem a long way off, but you’ve got to make the first step. Your first step could be to buy some new workout gear, or go shopping for healthy food. Then think of your next stepKeep going. Working towards our goals can sometimes be difficult and frustrating - so we need to persevere. If a step you're doing isn't working, think of something else you could try that still moves you forward, even a tiny bit. Thinking about different ways of reaching our goals makes it more likely we'll be successful.
Celebrate. When you reach your goal take time to enjoy it. But if you’ve just reached your first weight loss goal, having a massive takeaway is going to set you back. So, think of other ways to celebrate. Maybe you could treat yourself to a new pair of jeans instead?