Just lace up
Sometimes just putting your sneakers on is the hardest part of the workout. Taking the effort to tie each sneaker can feel like the biggest burden of the day. Here are some (hopefully) motivational tips to put one foot in front of the other.
Have you ever started the week super excited and ready to take on that training plan that your trainer or coach gave you, only to feel your motivation gone by Wednesday? (or maybe even by Tuesday!) Raise your hand if you are nodding along to this statement. Motivation is a wonderful thing, but the downside to motivation is that eventually it wears off. Motivation is not something we can use to build our weekly plan on. Instead we should use motivation as the jumpstart to building new habits.
Habits. Yes habits. But if you had the habit then you wouldn’t be reading this right? So let’s say you just finished watching an inspirational video and you are inspired to begin your new running program. You lace up your new sneakers and head outside - it’s raining a bit but that’s OK you are a running beast, you got this! You finish the run - feeling on top of the world! You are feeling more motivated than ever and ready to make this a habit.
Enter the hurdle. It is now two days later and your running plan says time to run again. Well it ‘looks’ like it might rain outside, should probably wait until later. Later comes, oh you just ate? Should wait until your food digests. It’s evening now and getting dark, it probably isn’t safe to go for that run. Oh well. Start again another day. Another day comes and goes and it’s time for your monthly check in with your coach. You haven’t run since that rainy day. You feel miserable. Is any of this sounding familiar? Too familiar? Yeah, I’ve been there too. Let’s take a look at some ways we can overcome these hurdles.
Motivation comes from taking action. AKA the more action we take the more motivation we have.
Habits come from regular motivation.
The 3 R’s of a habit : Reminder - Routine - Reward
Incorporate the 3 R’s into you daily routine:
Reminder - schedule an appointment with yourself, ask a coach or friend to follow up with you, set an alarm on your phone
Routine - define your warm up, create a familiar running route, work out in the same space
Reward - checking off the work out in your training journal, texting your coach you completed the workout, a long bath (let’s try and not to reward ourselves with food)
Just lace up - if you are finding every excuse in the book on WHY you shouldn’t work out then I challenge you just to put on your shoes and go for a 10 minute run. If you don’t enjoy it after 10 mins go home. I guarantee you will spend more time on the run.
The next time you are struggling with staying motivated remember, it’s not the motivation you are missing it’s the action. Take one step and get ready to feel the motivation coming back like a tidal wave.
