Psychology of the Starting Line 2: Tips to stay on your fitness journey

The time has come. If you’ve read Psychology of the Starting Line 1, you’re now mentally prepared for the physical journey ahead. You’re standing at the foot of Mt Everest and it’s time to get to it, get your sweat on and build a happier, healthier you! 

As you’d probably know, no-one just runs up Mt Everest in one go, no matter how mentally prepared they are. They break it down into steps. One camp here, the next there. 

Now that your fitness journey is about to begin, here are our top tips to lay out to make sure you stick to it! 

Set SMART Goals

… said just about every motivational speaker ever. But there’s a reason! If you haven’t heard of SMART goals before we recommend getting out from that rock you’ve been living under as your first step on your fitness journey. 

Smart stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant & Time Based. Here’s how to set them. 

• Specific: “Getting fit” means something different to everyone. What is it that you really want to achieve? Give yourself a target to reach for eg. “Finish a fitness class without any breaks”, “lose 5kg” (setting weight loss as your main goal comes with a myriad of other issues, but we won’t get into that here), “be able to do 10 pullups”
• Measurable: How will you know if you’ve reached your goals if you can’t measure your progress. How much improvement do you want? Put a measure on it and you can tick it off as you go!
• Achievable: Winning Olympic gold in the Pole Vault is a great goal! Unless you’re 45 years old with a bad knee who’s never done Pole Vault before. When making your goals make sure it’s something that could actually happen. 
• Relevant: Your goal needs to be related to what you actually want to achieve. Being able to do a backflip won’t help you if you’re competing in a triathlon. 
• Time Based: Having a time that you'd like to achieve this goal by makes it real. Saying “I want to have a six pack eventually” doesn’t give you the gumption to go out and achieve it. If you say “I want to have a six pack in six months”, you better get to it! 

Setting your goals like this is a tried and tested way to get them done. Make those goals real, make them smart. 

Make Exercise Non Negotiable

Set a plan, stick to it. Missing a day here and there is fine (nobody's perfect), but it’s so easy to get derailed. Once you have your plan in place it’s your plan. No variations, no changes, that’s you until you’ve hit those SMART goals (at least). Make your exercise a part of your routine. Once it feels like it’d be “weird to miss training” is when you know you can stick to it. 

A big part of this is making sure the close people in your life know as well. “No boss, I can’t stay longer because of that Zoom meeting. I have my touch game.” “Any chance we can get breakfast later? I have to go for my morning walk.”

This is your time, your goals, your routine. Own it! 

Set a minimum and a push goal 

We would all like to go to the gym 3 times a day, burning 10,000 calories per session. But for most of us, this kind of lifestyle is unrealistic (at least for the long run). Part of goal setting is breaking it down to smaller achievable actions. 

A big strategy we’ve implemented into our own fitness journeys is the idea of a “minimum”. Some days something will come up and you’ll be forced to skip the gym (or bootcamp, or Pilates, or whatever else you’re doing) what then? 

That’s why we’ll always set a minimum goal. Something that’s easy to achieve but still gets you on the road to where you’re going. Your minimum goal could be “go for a walk every day.” That’s a good one as you’re able to knock it out in the morning, feel good about it, and everything else you achieve is you being awesome (go you!) 

Accountability 

Here’s the scary part, let people know about your fitness journey. This can be in whatever way you like. You could be bold and let the big bad internet know using Social Media, or let your friends and family know individually. 

By doing this you’re building up a team. You have people that can help you stay motivated and do the right thing. They can help you with healthy eating, motivation to get out the door and to the gym or even become workout buds. 

Let the people you care about know. It’s not as scary as you might think, (they’ll be over the moon for you). 

Listen to Your Body

We’re not going to lie to you, this journey is probably going to hurt. If you’ve been inactive for a while, getting back into it can be really challenging. Working out properly will cause muscle soreness and climbing up the stairs after leg day is a harrowing experience for anyone. 

While lots of the time this muscle soreness is right to push through, listen to your body. Rest and recovery are just as important as the workouts themselves. We know you’re keen but overtraining can cause injury, burnout and loss of motivation. Incorporate some rest days into your routine. Treat yourself, you deserve it!

 

Your fitness journey is about to begin and we are so proud of you! It’ll be a long hard journey, but one you’ll be so glad you’ve taken. Making health a priority will change your life in ways you never thought possible. You’ll look better, you’ll feel better and you’ll live longer loving it!

Vitasole is here to help you take those first steps on the journey, and what a journey it’ll be.