It’s not always easy staying committed to your health and fitness goals, so here are four tips to help you stay accountable and enjoy the process along the way.
Sign up for an event
Putting your money on the line by signing up for a race or event can be an excellent motivator to begin your training.
Maybe it’s an event 3-6 months from now.
It should be something big and exciting and that is currently out of your reach.
Your journey of transformation begins…
2. Let others know about your goal…or join Strava
Once you set a goal, it’s important to find other like-minded people for accountability.
If you set a goal with a friend, you can hold each other accountable with regular training sessions.
The power of social support can be huge and shared training experiences can enhance our individual training and performances.
If you do a lot of training on your own, the Strava app can be a way to connect you to a great community.
3. Write down your ‘why’ and all the benefits of achieving your goal
Stick it on your fridge so when the tough gets going a few weeks down the track, you have a strong reminder to push you through the times of low motivation and when life tries to get in your way.
It can also be helpful to write down a list of things that would happen if you don’t achieve your goal.
4. Focus on the process & use your motivation to plan the journey
Setting the goal is the first step, but then you need to break the goal down into the smaller steps that will help to achieve your goal successfully.
Work backwards from your goal, writing the weekly and daily training you will do to gradually build up.
80% of the fuel to get a rocket off the ground is used in the first 10 seconds, meaning that your initial motivation should be put into setting up your schedule to make your training easy and natural, without having to think about too much or continually generate motivation.
Putting your energy and motivation into setting up good training habits can pay big dividends later on in the journey.