One of the biggest reasons people stop their new workout/diet routine after a short time is due to a lack of results. They have a New Year's resolution to get in shape and they are determined to stick with it. During the first week they are excited to get into the gym and destroy those weights. They come out of the gym feeling exhausted from their workout and they like how it feels. They are happy to feel the soreness in their muscles the next mourning. The next week they start to get into a routine. It also starts to get repetitive. Its not as fun as it was the first week and the scale hasnt moved as much as they expected. They start to wonder if it would even make a difference if they went to the gym at all. The next mourning while they are watching TV, they come to a channel playing the movie ROCKY. When the movie is over, they cant wait until their next workout.

I think that movies like Rocky are one of the best kinds of short-term motivation. It will surely get you pumped up and excited for your next workout. However, you will need more motivation if you are going to stick with it for a long time.

GOALS

Setting goals is a very important part of staying motivated. Anybody that has a new workout routine should set goals for themselves. Write your goals down on a piece of paper and look at them often. You should set a long-term goal that outlines exactly what you want to accomplish through your workouts. This way you know what you are aiming for and where you are headed. You also need to set short-term goals. This way, it wont take you years to achieve your goal. If you set short-term goals to gain/lose a certain amount of weight after a month, then you have a sense of accomplishment after you reach those goals.

CHALLENGES

Another great way to stay motivated is to challenge someone. Find someone with the same goals as you, and set some kind of challenge up. It could be to reach a certain amount of weight first, or to be able to lift more weight after a certain amount of time. Have a big reward for the winner. Have both people put in $50 and whoever wins gets to keep the $100. Find 3-4 people to challenge and have a reward of $200. That would be great motivation for myself.

TELL PEOPLE

Tell everybody that you know that you are going to get in shape. Tell your family, friends, or anybody that you see a lot about what you are going to do. Tell them what your goals are and how you plan to achieve them. If a lot of people know about it like this, you will feel like you cant give up. You wouldnt want to quit working out because youre too lazy and let all these people down would you? There will also be some people that might tell you that you wont be able to do it. Being able to prove them wrong would feel great.

TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

Since changes in your body will seem to come very slowly, it will be hard to notice them if you dont track your progress. You should do things like take pictures of yourself, record your workouts, and track your weight. By doing this, you can see exactly how much progress you are making. Being able to sit down and actually see how much better you look now is very motivating.

CHANGE THINGS

At the start of this article, I mentioned that things will get repetitive. Working out can get very repetitive and sometimes boring. To eliminate this, all you have to do is change things up. Bring some headphones with you to the gym if you dont normally. Go to a different gym. Do some different exercises. Do whatever you can do to make things different. This will make things seem new and make it less repetitive.