5 Tips on How to Maintain a Fitness Routine

Getting into fitness can be an exciting adventure. That is until the excitement wears off and the soreness sets in. We all need some motivation to help us through rough or slow patches, where we don't see progress or where the thought if working out makes you want to scream. This is normal. Those who push through do so because they've set themselves up for success through a myriad of internal and external checkpoints and motivational pick-me-ups. It's merely a strategy of planning what will cause you to lose focus and motivation, and putting into place a process to prevent that from happening. Below you will find five tips for maintaining a fitness routine throughout the good times and the bad.

5 Tips on How to Maintain a Fitness Routine

Create Small and Big Goals

The best way to keep yourself motivated to workout and maintain a fitness routine is to identify and understand your "why". This is the ultimate reason you want to achieve your goals, and it should go deeper than aesthetic reasons like weight loss or looking better naked. You should think about what you want to achieve deep down for yourself that this will help to accomplish. 

It could be to become stronger so you can hold your growing child, or reduce your risk for Type II diabetes because you lost a family member to the disease. These are goals you will stick with because they mean more than a number on the scale. And when you have your large goal in place, create regular smaller goals that you will hit along the way to give yourself continued motivation along your journey. This will make your larger goal seem more attainable when broken down into smaller chunks.

Give Yourself Rewards

When you have your small and large goals in place, it's time to create rewards for when you will hit those goals. Rewards are just as significant as the goals themselves, as they will reinforce your good behavior and give you something exciting to look forward to, which is just as motivating. 

Just make sure your rewards aren't contradictory to your goals. If you want to reduce your risk for disease by losing weight, don't make your reward a giant piece of cake, as this is not the type of behavior you want to be viewed as rewarding. It should be a reward that compliments your goal, like a new workout outfit or a new pair of jeans.

Schedule Time

Treat workouts like a meeting at work. You wouldn't miss a meeting at work just because you don't feel like going or are too tired. And if you do, you might not have a job for much longer. Treating workouts this way will help you see them as a must-go instead of a might go. Put it on your calendar, block the rest of the day, so you don't get double booked, and then go. After time, it will become second nature, and you'll have it incorporated in your schedule. 

To take this a step further, book the same time every day. This way, you and those around will always associate that time of day as when you are planning to workout. Once people around start wondering why you aren't at the gym, you'll start to view this as external motivation to maintain a schedule. While it seems annoying at first, it will soon become a habit, and you won't even have to think about it, which will free up your mind to focus on another habit.

Set Internal and External Motivators

Even with all of the above in place from creating goals to setting rewards and scheduling time, there will still be times that you don't want to go. This is where you need some planning. You need to look ahead and identify where in your past attempts you failed to continue or fell off the tracks. 

I bet if you look at it, it always happens around the same time in the journey or when the same trigger is set. Examples could include switching up your routine at a specific point in your journey by changing the class you go to or doing a special workout. You could also have friends or family members send reminders or even join in your journey. This will help you continue as most people don't mind letting down themselves but have more difficulty when they are letting down loved ones.

Make It Easy To Go

One of the easily identifiable reasons people skip workouts in the mornings is because the idea of getting ready sounds like more work than they are willing to put in. If this applies to you, do everything you can to make it easy to go. Even if that means sleeping in your workout clothes so when you wake up, all you have to do is put on your shoes and go. Whatever it takes, even if it's that silly. 

If it means you can get in a workout, then it's not a silly thing to do at all. Most people find the act of packing their page and setting out their clothes the night before is enough to trigger the response to just getting ready and go. You'll never end up regretting going, only when you don't go.

This could also mean spending more money on higher quality clothes you enjoy putting on and workout out in. One of the benefits of wearing compression clothes like leggings aside from feeling like you're a superhero is that the compression is good for blood flow and circulation, which is great to begin your day enforcing.

Putting all of the right steps in place and planning ahead to make sure you cover all your bases will make a huge difference in achieving your goals. That's not to say that it won't still be difficult, because you are changing your lifestyle and habits, which is always challenging. 

But once you achieve that, the hard work goes away, and you keep going on autopilot. If you keep trying at half of your best, you'll keep bouncing back and forth and be in a constant state of trying to change your habits. Take the time to map out and develop a steady fitness routine, and you won't have to think about it ever again.