Staying Motivated during the winter period
As if it's December already!?...a current theme with clients this time of year is motivation and to keep going until the end of the year.
First of all, being unmotivated is completely normal.
Especially as the days are drawing shorter, it’s getting ‘nippier’ outside and the potential increase of comfort foods are within your environment.
It’s usually around about this time also that the mentality of, ‘maybe I’ll just start again in the New Year’, creeps in.
The fact is the 3-5 days over Christmas and New Years with the occasional late night really isn’t a massive deal, and also won’t significantly harm your progress if you are being consistent and with your training/nutrition.
So the best way to approach this season is just plan for the socials as best you can (if you haven’t got your FREE Sociable Survival Guide yet), then sign up for it here , and be consistent around it these events.
In regard to staying motivated it’s usually a very easy shift that we tend to think is a bigger deal than it actually is.
Ask yourself these questions:
Do you have a goal?…like a specific goal, with a strong emotive behind it. Just wanting to tone up a bit won’t ensure you get yourself training when it’s cold, you’re tired, potentially stressed from work/life commitments. Attach a strong emotive to your goals that reminds you why it’s important to prioritise the immediate comforts over the longer term rewards.
Do you know how you are going to achieve your goal?…having a clear route, a structure in place and incremental mile stones along the way will mean you can dissect your bigger goals and reduce overwhelm. If you haven’t read a book called Atomic Habits I would give it a read. There’s a chapter that states the key to staying motivated is to make the tasks you need to do challenging enough not to fail but also not so easy that it becomes boring.
What are you focusing on?…after an accountability call today with a client who was feeling a little unmotivated, it was apparent that his focus was on the things out of his control and the areas of his life that he wasn’t making progress in. As simple as it sounds be aware of where your focus is.
The sessions that you skip right now won’t be immediately obvious in your progress, just like the ones that you make. Focusing ahead of how amazing you are going to feel by spring for instance next year; maybe it is that dress you want to wear to a BBQ, maybe it’s the way you hold yourself in a business meeting, or maybe it’s the way you perform on stage in front of a packed crowd…these will be a result of the delayed gratification of the effort you put in now.
It’s also really empowering to realise that you can change your mindset very quickly and in turn your motivation, just by shifting what you focus on.
Ask yourself the above questions to yourself and let me know whether they helped!