How to motivate yourself to a healthy lifestyle?
Wanting to change their appearance, many ask themselves the question: how to force yourself to play sports? The main mistakes in motivation and a detailed analysis of all the excuses from training in this article.
Very often they ask me one and the same question: “How to force myself to go in for sports and eat right?” I will not separate the issues of nutrition and training in this article, and in general I will talk about how to motivate myself to a healthy lifestyle. I’ll note right away that everything that will be written here is exclusively my opinion based on my own experience, work experience and, in general, my subjective views. It may well not coincide with yours or anyone else’s.
Honestly, today such questions seem strange to me, because there are only pluses from playing sports and eating healthy. But I remember myself very well when I was not yet connected with fitness and made many unsuccessful attempts to change my appearance. I already told my story about losing weight in another article, so I won’t repeat it. The most important thing that I realized over time is that most people choose the absolutely wrong approach.
Listed below are the main mistakes in moving to a healthy lifestyle.
The first mistake is wrong motivation
This lies in the question itself: “How to force yourself …?”. The trick is that you don’t need to force yourself. Globally, this makes no sense. You can force yourself a week, a month, even a year, it all depends on your strong-willed abilities, but sooner or later you will finally get tired of it and your lifestyle will become the same. That is why, so often the diet ends with terrible overeating, and a visit to the gym stops after a month. You must realize all the advantages of your actions and understand why you really need it. Those changes that you might dream of require a lifestyle change. Not changes for a month, but changes forever. In fact, this is a change in worldview. And in order for this to happen, you need the right motive.
I often hear something in style: I want to lose weight, to buy beautiful clothes, to like a guy, for the sake of children, before vacation, etc. And I fundamentally disagree with this approach. All of these are exemplary, connected with some external objects and are not related to you. While you play sports for the sake of someone or something, your position is very unstable. So, for example, if you were engaged for the sake of a guy / man / husband and broke up with him, and this often happens, then the meaning of the lessons disappears for you. You can always buy beautiful clothes a size larger, and nothing prevents you from losing weight to the right size and wearing a new dress, consider the “mission accomplished” and return to your previous lifestyle. And with children in general is another story. It may not be what you look like. With a vacation, in my opinion, it’s completely absurd to go in for sports so that once a year you look good in 20 photos? There are dozens of such examples, but I hope you understand what I mean.
That is why the motive must be internal, i.e. concern you. Only an internal motive can have a sufficient incentive to action. All this is from the field of psychology, but it really works in practice. The only true motive, in my opinion, is for your own sake. In order to be healthy, beautiful, to be in a good mood, to get rid of complexes, to be confident, I like myself, etc. It is YOURSELF, not someone else. And when you really want to change for your own sake, you will not need to be forced, because it will be your goal, and you will really enjoy its achievement, regardless of external circumstances.
The second mistake is the wrong choice of actions
Exercising and eating healthy should be fun. This means that you need to find the type of training that you like. For some, these are strength exercises in the gym, for others, run in the mornings, etc. This is very important, since it depends on what mood you will go to class with in which to finish it. Of course, training requires effort, both physical and volitional. But it’s one thing to look at the watch and think: “When will it all end?” And it’s quite another to rejoice at the fact that overcoming yourself, you achieve some results.
Several times I had to literally dissuade clients from exercising in the gym with the prospect of choosing something else, simply because they really hated this kind of load.
The third mistake is maximalism.
The problem is that we want everything at once. Doing nothing for years and eating everything in a row, we want to get in shape and lose 15 kg in a month. Although, in fact, a month is only a preparatory stage, during which your body will rebuild to a new mode of life. Therefore, it is not necessary to immediately resort to extreme measures and try to set a “world record” in training. The load should increase in a timely manner.
