Find your fitness motivation

Are you finding it a little hard to find motivation to exercise during winter… or all year round?

When you are feeling good about yourself through being active you will find yourself making healthier choices as well as making better decisions through all aspects of your life, whether it be family, financial, work or friends.

Below are 5 tips to finding motivation and keeping on track with your fitness goals – all year round.

1. Be realistic

If you’ve never donned a pair of sneakers in your life, it’s probably not a great idea to start out with a 10km run! Be realistic about your current fitness levels, and take it easy in the beginning if you haven’t been exercising in a while. If you have been keep up with your fitness, you might want to consider increasing activity levels – slowly. By ensuring you will succeed in each session, you’re twice as likely to keep on going.

2. Get it out of the way

If you can train first thing in the morning, it can help to wake you up and release those beloved endorphins as an awesome kick-start to your day. This can leave you feeling fit, energised and motivated for hours following your workout.

3. Focus on feelings

Focus on how exercise makes you feel, rather than what ‘fit’ looks like. This makes it extra important to choose exercise activities that you enjoy, and exercise partners who will help to motivate you in a positive way.

4. Do it for YOU

Be your own inspiration and motivation. A pitfall lots of people fall into is comparing their achievements with others – but the only person you’re competing with is the person you were yesterday. Keep your own goals in sight, use your own results as your motivation to stay on track to achieve these goals. Focus on you!!

5. Brainwash yourself to success!

Have 1-2 positive affirmations that you repeat over and over to yourself throughout your training session, e.g. I am strong, I can do this, Just one more, It’s supposed to hurt, I will feel amazing if I keep going. You may feel silly at first, but you’ll be amazed to discover how motivating these sayings can be once you find the mantra that works for you.

Good luck!

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Lauren Hannaford is a former elite gymnast, The Wiggles performer, and founder of FHIT by Loz.