The pandemic threw everyone off track, whether you just started your fitness journey or not, we all were hit by the impact of quarantine. With working from home and at-home 10-minute workouts the new normal, levels of motivation were plummeting across the country. Now, a year and a half into the pandemic, it is time to start returning to the gym before the winter months hit. So, whether you are struggling to go back to the gym or struggling to go back to the office, motivating yourself is always difficult. Try these 5 tips to help motivate yourself to do whatever you procrastinate to do in 2020. 

Daily Routines 

One of the best ways to re-work your lifestyle is to create daily routines, making it much easier to motivate yourself. A routine can be described as any predefined sequence of activities and/or actions that is characterized by repetition. Implementing a daily routine will help hold yourself accountable while also encouraging more self-discipline and control. With that being said, it is important that the routine you implement into your daily life is within reason and is practical for your current lifestyle. Setting routines that may be a reach or a little too difficult to do every single day will only result in negative self-talk and a further decrease in motivation. So, implementing a routine can be a great way to increase your motivation, but make sure you aren’t setting yourself up for failure. 

Reward Yourself

Allowing yourself the simple pleasures in life - such as that extra cookie or a lazy day on the couch - can be a great way to actually help sustain your motivation. Whether you do an extra 5 minutes on the treadmill or finish a work assignment that you have been procrastinating on, implementing small rewards can encourage you to go above and beyond more. Finding something enjoyable to do either during or after will allow make it more enjoyable and feel less like something you have to do, and more something you want to do.

Make Room for Positivity

Another important thing when it comes to motivation is to make sure you are leaving room for positivity in the day-to-day. Whether in your morning commute, daily workout, or afternoon walk, adding in little moments of positivity is necessary for every aspect of your life. Negative actions and thoughts will only make it even harder for you to step out of your comfort zone and make it nearly impossible to build a new lifestyle for yourself. Making room for positivity may mean something small such as watching funny videos or reading a few pages from your favorite book. But it can also mean giving your best friend a call or repeating kind affirmations to yourself before leaving for the day. Whatever you feel is necessary to sustain motivation is something that you should implement into your daily routine. 

Recognize Triggers 

Feeling unmotivated, even on a mission to improve your motivation, is inevitable. Recognizing triggers that happen on a daily basis that may influence your motivation is a great way to stop the feelings of procrastination. Whether that means avoiding coffee or making sure you wake up when your alarm goes off, getting ahead of the triggers that inhibit your motivation is one of the best ways to keep your progress. We all have little things that happen in our day-to-day life that can be discouraging to our motivation, whether that means not wanting to go to the gym, get outside, or even go to the office. Recognizing what these things are and building mechanisms to avoid discouragement is a great way to sustain your motivation. 

Don’t Be Hard On Yourself

Lastly, which we all need to hear, it is critical that you don’t be too hard on yourself through this process. We all just experienced a pandemic, something that many of us have never had to deal with. Understanding that a lack of motivation is completely normal is important in letting yourself experience a lack of motivation. So, if you wake up one morning and don’t feel like doing an intense workout, allow yourself to take a day off and let yourself breathe. If you feel the need to work from home, give yourself that time to refresh. Remaining positive and being kind to yourself will bring you much further than speaking negatively about yourself. 

At Sheehan Personal Training, we understand this lack of motivation and want to help every person return to their pre-pandemic selves. With classes for every type of personal training, including Barre, Pound, and private classes, we know that you can find the workout that will work for you.