Losing Weight Building Muscle – How to Motivate Yourself to Get Off the Couch
The key to starting something new is to actually develop a new habit. Think about it. You have become you because of the things you get into the habit of and continue to do. As the saying goes ‘You make your habits and your habits make you’. If you are in the habit of being a couch potato, making the first move to create a new healthier habit is often the most difficult obstacle. Sticking to it is the next obstacle.
To generate a new habit you need to get the wheels in motion and that means taking some action. Set your self a relatively easy goal and stick to it. This should be something you can do on a daily basis and build from there. Depending on what shape you are in will determine what you choose but this could be literally anything. It should be enough though to start the wheels of motion in the direction that you want to go.
If weight loss or building muscle is your goal then perhaps you could get yourself some dumb bells and pick them up every day and do 10 sets of curls. Put them down and put a tick in your dairy next to your new exercise program. You have started a new habit and can forget about it now until tomorrow! Your daily habit needs to be enough to motivate you to continue with it but not so big as to scare you into inactivity. It should be something you can do every day as a ritual. Once you have kept it up for a week, pat yourself on the back and put another tick in your dairy.
It is well worth having a notebook, journal or dairy to keep a record of your progress. This will help keep you motivated to continue with the exercises. If you are fitter than this you can start with a 5 minute jog each day to the shop or something like that. The important thing is to create a HABIT out of doing the activity which will generate the biggest difference in your development. Either you are looking to build muscle, lose weight, become fitter or simply give yourself more exercise. Choose your activity accordingly but make sure it is small enough that you actually do it but big enough to make a gradual change.
Once you have started ingraining your habit it will become natural to want to continue and you may even want to do more. This means you are making progress and you should increase or improve your exercise in some way each week. Allow yourself some flexibility and the occasional day off and do not be too hard on yourself as this can be counter productive and you might become disillusioned and give up. Do not focus on the results of your activity but rather the activity and the new habit itself. Again this can cause you to lose heart when you do not see immediate results.
