Shannan’s Journey

1. A Goal That Moves You

The definition of motivation is basically a state of being characterized by energy and direction. The first step to remaining motivated is finding your reason or goal. A goal fuels motivation and keeps it alive. Write the goal down on a piece of paper with some thoughts about why that goal is important to you. Rewrite and make the goal more specific over time. Write down examples of people or experiences that exemplify the goal. Finally, identify a mental vision of the accomplished goal and what it would look like.

2. Bringing out Your Best

Try not to judge your self motivation. Vanity, revenge, greed, arrogance and extreme competitiveness are all some of the unsavory motivations behind great achievements. Many times, the journey to achieving the goal is character building in and of itself and literally brings out the best in an individual. Getting started is the hardest part. What you learn about yourself and how you interact with the world as you accomplish your goal is as important as the goal itself.

3. Measuring the Milestones

Any marathon runner knows you can’t train in a week. Staying motivated will be easier if you break your time up into smaller accomplishments. If you’re trying to lose 30 pounds, for example, it is less overwhelming if you concentrate on what you’re trying to accomplish one week at a time. Have a reward ready or small celebration that is unique to mark the accomplishment that week.

4. Skinny Jeans Gimmicks

Dieting motivation drives a variety of money-making industries. Diet pills, hypnosis, acupuncture, diet support groups and crazy diets persuade us to try something new. In reality, we’re only distracting ourselves from our goal by grabbing onto a crutch. There’s nothing wrong with using some safe assistance to help us reach a weight loss goal, but it will ultimately fail if our basic diet and training program isn’t appropriate. Good nutrition and exercise is the only real way to lose weight. Anything beyond that should be complementary. Go back to your goal and write down an eating and training plan that is sensible to meet first, before you seek out any outrageous ideas.

5. Lighting the Fire Again

Every January, workout clubs and gyms get a lot of new members from weight-loss motivation. By the end of spring, most of those new members don’t show up any more. Plan for your motivation to wane and have an action plan ready. If you miss a week of exercise, get back into it immediately. If you have a cheat day, then let it pass and start back into eating healthfully. If you have an injury, cross train to work around it and resume your training schedule for your marathon as soon as you are healthy. This doesn’t mean you plan to fail, just that you acknowledge you aren’t going to be perfect.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 9:20 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.