There are some things people unknowingly do that sabotage their efforts to work out. The following article shares my experience of falling into one of these traps, and will help you with knowing how to simplify things for you and how to stay motivated to work out.
A lot of people think motivation is their problem with their healthy eating and fitness plans when often it’s just not setting themselves up for success early on.
I have never had trouble getting myself to the gym and working out. I have a long history being conscious of health and the gym has a really positive effect on me. Yet, I have been wanting to workout for the past 4 months… and have gone twice. Very unlike me, so what’s going on here? It may seem like there’s a motivation issue but really it’s that I’ve set myself up to fail. Here’s why.
I didn’t buy a pre-paid pass. In the past I’ve had 4 month passes to the gym, so I would buy it once and then not think about it again. I didn’t feel like I was using it enough to be worth it, so I didn’t buy a pre-paid pass this time and would just pay the drop-in admission. Calculating it in my head, with the monthly pass I was paying $120/month (it was a club) and would go once or twice a week. I figured that if I just payed the $8/visit drop-in fee at the local gym, I would go a couple times a week and $8 x 2 x 4 weeks = $64. Quite the savings! What a good idea.
Except often the concept doesn’t work out quite as expected when done in real life. So what was the practical application of this idea and how to stay motivated to work out ? Every time I had the urge to go workout, money would enter the equation. I had now changed a simple formula which was
“feeling like exercising” + “the means to do so readily available to me” = EASILY GOING TO THE GYM
INTO
“feeling like exercising” + “I’ve got to buy my admission” = A CHOICE, PROCRASTINATION, QUESTIONS (Do I really want to go today?)
It turned going to the gym into a decision because I factored in paying the drop in fee. Most people already have way too many decisions to make everyday.
If the payment is made all at one time, even if its bigger, you don’t think about it every time and that’s the key. It simplifies things for you and give you the best chance of sticking to your gym routine and is an important factor in how to stay motivated to work out.
So here’s an exercise tip for how to stay motivated to work out : set yourself up for success and buy a pre-paid gym pass.
It reminds of many of the concepts I used when following the Precision Nutrition system. It was a program I used for a while and was chocked full of really great ways to approach fitness and nutrition. One of my favorite parts of the program was to set yourself up for success by preparing all of your meals for the coming week in advance, so that when the time came for you to eat, you had a healthy option available to you. It is based on the premise that people can motivate themselves to do something healthy once, maybe twice in a certain period of time but if they have to do that on a regular basis it won’t happen. So use that period of motivation to make it effortless for you to follow through on your plan in the coming days. Its same concept as buying the gym pass in advance and a really good tool for success.
PS. The reason I say 3 months minimum, is because according to the Precision Nutrition people, it takes 3 months before you start to see a significant change after beginning a workout plan. They cover lots of topics including how to stay motivated to work out.
