How to Stay Motivated to Reach Your Fitness Goals

Perhaps you have been through this type of thing before where by you have decided to improve your health and fitness and in the beginning you felt really motivated. Perhaps you saw an inspirational movie that caused you to take action, maybe a friend of yours you hadn't seen for a long time showed up having lost a heap of weight or having piled on muscle mass or maybe you are just sick of feeling lethargic and overweight. Whatever the initial stimulus was, you began exercising and then continued to exercise for a while.

However after sometime your motivation dropped off, you allowed your work to takeover, you got frustrated at your perceived lack of progress and gradually bit by bit you quit your healthy lifestyle. If that all sounds familiar then here are a few easy ways to help regain and sustain your motivation for a healthier lifestyle:

Try setting an enjoyable goal. For example how about planning a walking holiday to the canadian Rockies, the himalayas or a mountain biking or kayaking trip to some other similar exotic adventurous destination. Now with this trip in your future plans you really do have something to aim for. In order to enjoy your trip to the fullest you really need to be in good physical shape. If you plan your trip for say 5 months in advance then straight away you have a sensible goal to hang your fitness plans around.

Join in with a local event. I bet there are plenty of local events that you can get involved with simply have a look on line. Choose one of these events as a target to shoot for. consider telling a friend of yours so they can come and support you on the actual day and support you in the mean time.

Take up a sport or hobby, this doesn't have to be an ultra serious thing just a light hearted game of soccer or hockey at the weekends but it gives you an easy and enjoyable way to monitor your fitness levels. Of course the initial couple of sessions may be very taxing but you will soon notice an improvement and start to look and feel better.

Visualise. Ok this might sound a bit odd at first but try and find a bit of time each day to sit and visualise in your minds eye exactly how you wish to feel and look. Doing this sends a powerful mesage to your sub conscious about what decisions you should be making during your day. Continue to do this and your behaviour will begin to modify itself naturally to lead you towards your goals. This technique is proven to work and used by many top athletes.

Get your pet dog, friends and family involved. Getting more people involved makes it less likely for you to get bored and lose motivation. You are far less likely to be lazy and stay at home if your friends are calling and texting you to get you to join them.

Teach yourself more. Be curious find out how to build muscle, find out how to get a 6 pack, find out how to shed pounds, find out what muscle building nutrition you need and so on. By improvingyour knowledge you are more than likely to increase the rate of your improvement and therefore maintain motivation levels.

Never compare yourself to other people. No matter who you are there is always going to be someone bigger stronger fitter, leaner sexier or whatever. Acknowledge this fact and realise that we all travel through this life process each from our own different perspectives. Only make comparisons with your self and your own progress by taking measurements such as bodyfat percentage but the most important thing is that you feel good about what your doing and yourself this is a much better indicator of your improvement in health.

So, with those tips in mind go hit the gym and do whatever it is that you enjoy doing to keep fit, build muscle mass or whatever else you want to do, you can do it, just keep it fun.