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5 Tips for Day to Day Motivation

Motivation is a funny thing. You may want a healthier lifestyle, to lose weight, manage a health problem, get in shape, or simply look better. All of those are great reasons to eat right and exercise, but they can often be lousy motivators.

You’re having dinner out at a nice restaurant. Which is likely to motivate you more, a desire to get in shape, or the dessert menu? Will you be able to resist the bread bowl, knowing that you may not be able to get in those jeans you want to buy? You may be weeks from fitting in those jeans, and getting in shape is a pretty abstract goal. Will that slice of turtle cheesecake really blow it?

Sometimes it’s difficult to make the small, day-to-day choices that enable you to achieve your goals.

So, how do you motivate yourself to make the right decisions, even when your ultimate goal seems far away?

The short answer is, it’s tough. It’s why so many people struggle to lose weight, eat right, exercise, and take care of their health in general. It’s hard to resist temptation that’s right in front of you in favor of a reward that’s far off.

I fall to temptation just like everyone else, but I do have some tricks I use to help me stay motivated.

1. Envision the end result. I don’t mean the ultimate goal of being a size 10 or losing 100 pounds. I mean imagine the immediate end result. How will you feel on the drive home knowing you resisted dessert? How will you feel if you eat it? If you really take the time to imagine and compare the two, you can often offset the temptation when you think about the regret you’ll feel for succumbing.
2. Buddy up. Losing weight with my husband has really helped us both. If I order something I shouldn’t, I know I’m tempting him to eat something he really ought not to have. If I don’t feel like exercising, he reminds me that we promised to “make” each other do it.
3. Look at past successes. Think about the last time you dropped a few pounds, or the last time you tried something on and it was too big. It felt pretty good, didn’t it? Recall all the good choices you made to achieve that.
4. Remember past failures. What caused you to stop your latest exercise routine, or start eating junk food again? Often, those types of changes creep up on you. Maybe you start skipping your exercise, and in a few weeks, you’re hardly exercising at all. Remember that the next time you want to skip it again!
5. Reward yourself. Give yourself a reason to do the right thing. If you skip dessert, you’ll also skip the housework when you get home. If you exercise, you’ll go to the bookstore and buy the latest novel you’ve been wanting. It may be a bribe, but that’s okay.

It’s not easy to consistently do what’s right for your body. First, accept that you’ll give in to temptation sometimes, but don’t let that discourage you. Keep working at it, and try to make those times when you do succumb fewer and less frequent.