How to avoid the motivation trap?
Are you one of those people who started training in January last year (and the years before) and lost the motivation by February and fell of the wagon? You fell into the motivation trap. As you know, you are not alone. You also might know that some people manage to get pass the motivation dip and successfully continue to exercise and make an impact on their health. We, at CrossFit Kreis 9, have a ton of experience of this phenomenon and are happy to share our knowledge and tips on how to avoid the pitfalls of the lifestyle change. Here are the most common problems we see when people start exercising and changing their life.
1. Relying on motivation
This one is the big deal. FYI, no-one is always motivated to train. Exercising must be a habit, a way of life. Period. Having said that, it is obviously easier to make a habit of something that you initially like doing. So, try to find a way to exercise you like and an environment where you like to be in.
2. Trying to adjust the life around training
This is the mistake we all have made. We have tried to make our lives to fit the training and not the training to fit our life. You must think of the sustainability aspect of your regime from the day one. If you are the person who thrives in the evening why would you force yourself to train early in the morning? Remember, anyone can do anything for a short time but we are trying to do something for a very, very long time. A life time.
3. Unrealistic expectations
We have said this before. As humans, we always overestimate what we can achieve in a short period of time and underestimate what we can achieve over a long period of time. If you have some weight to lose and no training background, you won’t be in shape by the end of January regardless of what you eat and how much you train. You will, however, be injured and burnt out. Lifestyle change is a marathon. Not as sprint. Treat it as such from the beginning and you set yourself for a success.
4. Too much, too fast
This is actually often the sum of the two previous points. You changed too many things, trained too much, and expected a miracle. The change was not sustainable and thus doomed to fail in the first place. Focus on the minimum effective dose, not the maximum (only temporarily) tolerable.
5. No support
Friends and family can be a group of bullies when it comes to lifestyle adjustments. One of the biggest factors in successful lifestyle changes – regardless of if it is about exercising, drinking habits or nutrition – is the support group around you. In most cases the bullying comes from a good place. The people who care about you like you the way you are and are afraid of losing that. The best advice we can give is to be open and honest about your goals and their meaning to you. Usually, people like to support you when they are aware that you are not going away and will still be you, just a bit healthier and fitter.
6. No expert help
There is no secret recipe that makes you to stick to exercising when the motivation wears of or the life throws a curveball towards you. But there are people who have seen and experienced it all and are professionals in recognizing your individual needs and sticking points. These people will also help you to navigate when it comes to things that really matter and are essential for your progress. The right professional will also hold you accountable for your actions with compassion.
Conclusion
Quite often we blame the lack of self-discipline when we fail in changing the lifestyle. The actual cause of failure almost never is self-discipline but the combination of the forementioned problems in the change process. Motivation is an unreliable companion, we try to change too much in a too fast pace with the wrong tools, our friends and family give us hard time and we don’t have an expert in our corner to help us out when things get hard.
There is nothing wrong having to start again. Quite the contrary. You can climb of the motivation trap. Being able to start over is a gift. But we still hope that what you just read helps you to stick to you training for the full year this time. One year then easily becomes two. And. After two, who is still counting?
Are you seeking for expert help? We at CrossFit Kreis 9 are at your service with all of our heart and expertise.
