One of the most common questions I get asked is 'how do you stay motivated?' so I thought I'd do a brain dump of some of my top tips and what works for me!
A bit of background first though! I most definitely struggled with motivation for years and years and I definitely still have to work at it now. Motivation, unfortunately, isn’t something that you find once and then that’s it, it’s yours forever – it comes and goes and often vanishes overnight for no apparent reason whatsoever. It’s a constant work in progress and something you have to think about often, put some work into and be prepared on how to keep working on your weight loss goals when your motivation does vanish.
So, my first and most important tip is: DON'T RELY PURELY ON MOTIVATION!!!
If you wait until you are feeling highly motivated to get started and give up when your motivation drops, you are going to find yourself stuck on the hamster wheel of ‘on a diet / off a diet’ for the rest of your life and that’s just exhausting, frustrating and not good for your mental or physical health.
What's your WHY?
Quite likely, you’ll have some reason you decide you want to lose weight – and those reasons are so different for all of us – from health scares, to special events, to confidence, to that gorgeous skirt that’s now too tight.
Finding your WHY is absolutely key to helping you stay focused and determined, particularly when your motivation drops so make sure you really have a good think about WHY you want to lose weight and write it down. Put it somewhere you can see it every day and if you find you have a motivation drop, spend time reading your reason WHY, read it over and over again and remember how important this is to you and how great you will feel when you achieve your goal.
For me, at age 34, my reason WHY was absolutely my health and wanting to live longer than age 50 (a heart specialist doctor had told me I was unlikely to reach 50 unless I made some serious lifestyle changes and lost weight). I’d wanted to lose weight for years and had started probably hundreds of different diets but looking back, my WHY was never big enough and is most likely the reason I never stuck at them for long. My WHY was now ‘I don’t want to die young and I don’t want to leave my loved ones behind and I want to live a full, exciting and rewarding life’ – my reasons were for me and no-one else.
Your WHY has to really mean something to you and to you alone and it’s your choice if you decide to share it with anyone else or keep it just to yourself.
Change your WHY when needed
Revisit your WHY often! If you set out to lose weight for a special event like a holiday or a wedding and reach your goal by the deadline, that’s absolutely brilliant but what happens next? Your motivation could quite easily just vanish the morning after the event and before you know it, all the hard work you’ve put in starts to come undone.
For me, at a certain point in my weight loss journey, I’d lost enough weight that the health risks I’d been warned about were no longer valid. I didn’t have the same fear of dying before I reached 50 – but I was still overweight and still not where I wanted to be. So, my original WHY was still in my head, but the urgency around it was no longer there – I had to revisit my WHY and find new reasons why I wanted to lose the last few stone to use as a constant reminder when motivation took a walk!
Set small goals with nice rewards (not food rewards!)
It can be daunting at the start of your weight loss journey if you only think about the end goal, it may seem unachievable or so far away that its hard to even picture what it is and that really doesn’t help with motivation. So set small milestones that you can focus on and as soon as you achieve it, set the next small goal.
For me, my motivating goals were moving down into a new stone so I took my own weight loss journey one stone at a time. I didn’t have an ‘end weight’ in mind, I just focused on moving down into a new number.
I had a client who focused on dress size – she’d buy a beautiful dress one size too small and fitting in that dress was her small goal. She’d try in on weekly and when she’d lost enough weight that it fit beautifully, she’d buy a new dress in the next size down and use that as her new motivation as well as her reward!
I know a lot of people focus on half a stone at a time to keep them motivated – it’s important you find what works best for you and keep reminding yourself of it.
And now on to rewards!
This is probably one of my favourite quotes!!! It makes me smile every time I see it as I know full well I was this person for a long time!
I can remember many occasions rewarding myself with pizza or a cake when I hit a specific weight loss goal – the irony of undoing the hard work I’d put in to achieve the goal which meant so much to me may resonate with you (as I definitely know I’m not alone in this!)
So instead, plan rewards for yourself that don’t involve food – getting your nails done, buying a new outfit, a candle etc etc – it doesn’t have to be something expensive but something that you’ll enjoy and see as a treat.
Build new habits that just become your way of life
This is absolutely vital and I would say is one of the biggest changes I made to my life and I can rely on these habits whether I’m feeling super motivated or struggling to keep focused as they are just my way of life now.
Simple examples of good habits to help during dips in motivation:
- I have favourite homecooked healthy comfort food dinners in the freezer at all times (for us, it’s chilli and spaghetti bolognese) so if I can’t be bothered cooking, I can just defrost one of those and we have a tasty meal that we enjoy for minimal effort.
- Delete food delivery apps from your phone and throw away any takeaway menus you have in the house
- Just don’t buy the foods that you know are the triggers or the ones you struggle to stop at just one
- Plan your meals (all of them!) in advance – if you can’t do a whole week at a time, make sure before you go to bed, you know what you are having for breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day.
- Always ensure there is fruit for snacks in the house
- Always ensure that there is vegetable or salad on every plate of food you eat – even if its just a handful of spinach
- Don’t skip meals
- Don’t go food shopping hungry! And definitely don’t do your food shopping at the time of day you find most challenging (for me, I shop early morning after breakfast and avoid supermarkets mid afternoon as that’s when my sweet craving is highest)
Ask for help!
Having others who understand what you are going through makes such a difference. I speak from real experience here. I never ever talked about my struggles with my weight with anyone and felt embarrassed or ashamed when I was ‘on a diet’. Once I changed this, I received so much support from everyone around me but the biggest help was meeting other people who had the same issues around food / weight / confidence as I did.
Motivation tools and tips
We are all different but here are a few other ideas that work to help refocus, re-find your motivation or keep you going when you are finding it more challenging:
- Photographs – either a ‘before’ photo to show your progress and to remind yourself of where you started or a ‘goal’ photo of were you want to get to
- An item of clothing that you’ve slimmed out of – I’ve still got one pair of size 28 trousers that I’ll never get rid of – I get them out of the cupboard every now and again and try them on to remind myself of just how far I’ve come and as a boost to remind myself that I never want to go back
- Journals and food diaries – I’m not a big fan of a food diary myself but every now and again, it really helps me to log everything I’m eating to keep my head in the right place but I do journal daily which helps my mindset and helps me work through any challenges I’m facing.
- Motivational quotes and inspiration – my phone is full of them and my screensaver is one of my favourites which I see every time I use my phone
- Get a weight loss tracker chart to colour in every lb you lose or save £1 for every lb you lose so that you can treat yourself to something nice when you hit a certain loss
And above all else, be kind to yourself
You are not a robot! You will make mistakes, you will have tough days and you will have times when you really don’t care about what you are eating but the biggest mistake you can make is to let these moments stop you from trying and talk yourself into just giving up!
Instead of beating yourself up and pointing out all your weaknesses and failings, find the positives, however small they may appear and focus on those. Learn to speak to yourself in the same way you would speak to a loved one. You wouldn’t call your best friend / mum / son / sister an idiot and a failure because they ate a piece of cake / had a pizza so stop doing the same to yourself.
Remind yourself of all the great choices you’ve made and all of the changes you’ve made and pick yourself up and get right back on track.
Motivation is a very personal thing and what works for one person does not necessarily work for another, the same goes for the habits you build around you to help you through the challenging times. I love helping people discover the best ways to work on their mindsets and habits to help them reach their weight loss goals and if you would like to find out more about my 1-2-1 coaching programme or how I can help you, please do get in touch.
Email me or phone/message: 07834 442607
I’d love to hear any thoughts or comments on this post and if there’s anything that really works for you to help keep you on track or how to keep the motivation going strong!