How to Start on a Get Fit Journey You Can Stick To

We’ve all been there; you start a new routine of working out and being healthy in order to improve your fitness, and then those good intentions quickly fall away and before you know it, you’re in your old routines again. You’re far from being alone when it comes to knowing how that feels.

So how can you change things once and for all and get on a fitness journey that you’ll actually stay on? There are no easy answers here, but there are lots of little things you can do differently that, when added together, can make you a lot more likely to stick to your personal fitness goals.

With the new year just around the corner, there’s never been a better time to start thinking about how you can actually stick to the fitness commitments you make going forward. Read on to find out about that.

Keep Things Realistic
First of all, you need to try and keep your expectations and aims as realistic as possible. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be ambitious about what you want to achieve. You can be ambitious while also not expecting things to be instantly fixed overnight. You should be realistic about the timescale that you’re attaching to your goals; that’s perhaps the most important thing of all. If you can be consistent and have patience, that’s how you’ll achieve the best outcomes.

Inject as Much Enjoyment as Possible
Something that people overlook and ignore when it comes to getting in better shape is the importance of simple enjoyment. It’s not hard to imagine why this is so important. When you’re not enjoying your workouts or your fitness journey in general, you’re going to be a whole lot more likely to throw in the towel and simply give up, and that’s obviously not at all what you want to happen here. So try to have fun and find enjoyment in the ways in which you’re getting fit.

Find Accountability via Fitness Buddy
One of the things that people struggle with most when they’re looking to get into a new fitness routine is being accountable. It’s all well and good saying you’re going to go to the gym 5 times a week or whatever it is you want to do in order to get fit, but actually doing it and being accountable for doing it is another thing entirely. You can find that accountability you’re looking for by having a fitness buddy. It’s much harder to slack and skip workouts when it’s not just you that knows about it.

Place it on Your List of Priorities
You need to really think about where your priorities in life lie. If you allow yourself to let your priorities drift and you stop paying attention to your health, that’s not going to be good for you. Your health will fall lower and lower down your list of priorities. To prevent that from happening, you need to pay attention to that list and how you can keep things on track and moving in the right direction. If it’s a priority for you, make sure it stays one moving forward.

Set Measurable Goals
Setting measurable goals for yourself is something you should definitely regard as very important. When you have goals that you can keep your sights on and gradually work towards, it can make a real difference. Simply being able to see how close you’re getting to those goals and being able to measure them along the way, it keeps you motivated and spurs you on even on days when you don’t feel like working out or sticking to the dietary rules you’ve set for yourself.

Recognize and Reward Your Successes
There’s nothing at all wrong with recognizing the achievements you’re making along the way and the success you’re having. You should definitely want to reward that success and mark the occasion in some way. It’s entirely up to you how you go about doing that, but you should do something every time you hit a major milestone. That way, you’ll have even more motivation to carry on moving in the right direction and experiencing further success. You could celebrate with those who’ve supported you along the way, for example.

Don’t Throw in the Towel at the First Sign of Failure
There are going to be moments when it all feels too much for you and you want to just throw in the towel. These moments often come when you go wrong or you break your schedule. Maybe you have a week where you’re busy and didn’t work out at all and maybe ate poorly as well. But a couple of slip ups does not mean that you should throw in the towel completely and abandon all the plans you put in place. The biggest challenge in those situations is getting things back on track again.

Invest in the right Equipment
If you’re going to be taking up a new sport or activity as part of your plans to get in shape, you should commit to the new routine by investing in the equipment you’re going to need. Borrowing or renting it is all well and good, but you’ll have an added incentive to stick to it when you’ve invested some of your own hard-earned money into the equipment. Whether that means buying a new tennis racquet or some new women’s pickleball clothes is up to you. But the idea here definitely works.

Discuss it with Your Doctor
It can be a good idea to discuss all of this stuff with your doctor if you want to make sure that you’re approaching it in the right way. They know your needs better than anyone else, and that’s why they’re going to be in the best position to assist you when it comes to helping improve your fitness and stay on track. Whenever you’re making a big change to your health habits and lifestyle, you should discuss them with your doctor beforehand.

Start Small and Expand Over Time
It’s a good idea to keep things small and manageable to begin with. You don’t want to immediately overwhelm yourself by taking on an amount of exercise that’s too much for you. By starting small, you can ease yourself into your new routines and build up stamina gradually over time. It’s the healthiest and most sustainable way to go about adopting a new fitness routine. If you find that things are getting too easy, that’s simply a sign that you need to expand and ramp up the intensity some more.

Be Mindful of How You’re Moving Around Throughout the Day
It’s important to be as mindful as possible about how you’re moving around during the day when you’re busy working and doing other stuff. If you notice that you’re not really moving around at all, it might be a good idea to think about how you can change that. For example, you might look for ways to be active on your break at work or to travel more actively to and from work each day. There are lots of things you can do to get moving around a little more each day if that’s something that’s a priority for you.

Identify Your Motivation
It always helps to have a source of motivation when you’re looking to make progress with your fitness goals. You can’t expect to get to where you want to be if you’re not motivated by something, if there’s not something that’s driving you on. It might be because you want to put your health first and start feeling better about yourself. It might be about dropping a dress size and fitting into the clothes that you used to wear. Or it might be about being more active for your kids as they grow up. Everyone will have their own reasons for wanting to make these changes and their own motivations.

Consider How Your Mental Health Can Impact Your Fitness Goals Too
When you’re working on your general fitness, one thing you should be careful not to overlook is your mental health. Sure, you might be focused on the physical side of things right now, but those two aspects of your health really do go hand in hand. That’s why you should try to be aware of and pay attention to the ways in which your mental health might be impacting your fitness goals, causing you to struggle or even holding you back. If you are concerned about any mental health matters, it’s obviously important to speak to a relevant professional.

When it comes to getting in shape, one of the toughest things of all is sticking to it and being consistent. It’s the area in which so many people end up falling short and it’s not what you want to happen to you. So be sure to make the most of the tips and ideas shared above if you want to keep things on the right track for longer.

XOXO