Staying on track when our motivation fades

This was a great question as the person had previously been in one of my seminars and had taken action on the message and started her health and fitness plan. She said that the question needed to be answered for her because she was currently struggling to continue to stick to her plan after beginning over 8 weeks ago.

I asked her how had she started her program; she was a good student – she said she had sat down and really thought about what her reason for change was and then really looked at how she was going to fit health and fitness in to her lifestyle so it was sustainable for life. She received two big ticks from me – firstly, she had her reason, she had direction with her plan and she had adjusted things in her life to make the changes easier (such as workout clothes packed in her car each morning to do her workouts after work twice a week and twice a week walks during her lunch hour). Secondly, she had begun to eat breakfast each day and had committed to three alcohol free days per week.

I asked her what the problem was – after all, she was a star student so far! She said in the past fortnight she had twice driven straight past the fitness centre on her way home from work, and was struggling to stick to her morning breakfast because of the time involved and she could just feel everything slipping.

 I asked her how she felt when these things happened and she replied that it was just all felt too hard at these times; for example, when she drove past the gym she just felt too tired to make the effort and it was getting boring. I asked in these periods “Did you ever refer to your original reason for change?” and she replied “No”. This was where she had started to go wrong.

 Once we have our reason we need to constantly refer to it to continue our journey of change, for our reason is our anchor that brings us back on track. Our reason is what frames the way we speak about our journey. Our reason is what changes our thought processes from negative to positive. We get what we focus on and the client had fallen back to linking her health and fitness plan always to the content – the doing, rather than the process – the why!

Let me explain: Rather than driving past the gym in the afternoon with negative thoughts of being tired, refer to your reason for change to frame your thought patterns into: 

“I sweat it out on the treadmill after work because exercise for me means I can have more energy to enjoy time with my family”.

or

“I spend time with my trainer twice a week because exercise for me means I work and create with boundless energy”.

or

“I spend time exercising in the morning on the exercise bike because exercise for me means I can keep up with my young family”.

or

“I push the limits in my workouts so I can chase my dreams; exercise for me means adventure”.

Your reason for change is not just there to make you feel warm and fuzzy at the start of your journey of change – it is something to refer to each and every day. If you haven’t started your journey yet, start today with the action plan below. If you have started, continue to refer to your action plan to keep you on track.