9 Habits to Help You Reach Your Fitness Goals

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Introduction

If you are determined to become fit and healthy with a combination of healthy eating and exercise, then your fitness goals are all just waiting to be smashed! It’s amazing when you set your sights on committing to a new target, whatever that may be, and it’s just a case of getting into the groove so that you can do your thing! Below we have a selection of the best habits you can take away with you that will see you achieve your ambitions.

Pick a Sport/Activity that Excites you

If you are going to stick to something, the chances are that unless you enjoy it, you won’t stick to it. Let’s be real here, if you get nothing back, not even the slightest bit of return from a sport or exercise, then why do it? Yes, there will be benefits, but when there are so, so many other options out there, don’t make it unenjoyable when you could be loving it!

Have you seen something on TV that has caught your eye? Does the class your friend from work attends sound like fun? Did you quit an activity when you were younger that you wish you hadn’t? If any of these things resonate with you, then give it a go or get back into it; you could be a superstar in the making.

Take Baby Steps

If you’re new to it, or you’ve not been doing this exercise malarkey for a while, then don’t go straight in at the deep end. By all means, set yourself some goals, but at the beginning, don’t make then unattainable.

It might be worth setting yourself some different sized goals; smaller, mid-range, final, for example. The point of this is that you will always be accomplishing on the road to your final goal without leaving yourself feeling too overwhelmed which can ruin motivation.

Just to reiterate, a few small wins are useful to help with your motivation and ongoing, daily focus. The importance of remaining driven throughout your journey to peak fitness is essential. As soon as you can establish a consistent level of motivation, then you can get to work on extending sessions, intensity, game time, weights, etc.

Be committed

You must, and this can’t be stressed enough, be committed to the cause. There’s no one who can literally get you to your goal but you. Ultimately, this boils down to how much you want it, so you have to be 100% into it to reap the rewards.

50% of what you with your fitness is about founding a solid habit of daily exercise. If you come with full commitment and get it done, then it will become easier every day. Actually, no, that’s not strictly true; it never gets easier, you just get stronger and better!

There’s something in being dressed and ready to go too, by the way. According to research that surveyed 2,000 regular gym goers, a whopping 90% felt motivated to workout merely from putting on their workout clothes. What’s more, just under 8 in 10 (79%) of those surveyed said that owning ‘good’ clothes to workout in, was a vital step toward meeting their fitness goals.

Use SMART Goals

Another intelligent way to be successful with fitness is to set yourself daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals. As we touched on in one of the previous points, it will be far more beneficial to your long-term goal if you start off small.

Here’s where we get to SMART goals. This is an acronym for setting goals that are:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Time-bound

These elements combined will make establishing your regular exercise habit much easier. So, as soon as you’ve got your goals written down, either on paper or in your notes on your phone/computer, you can then physically refer to them in order to visibly see what tasks need to be completed. This will allow you to plan an effectual route of how to get there.

Furthermore, you should note the importance of tracking your progress on a daily basis. Have you unavoidably missed a session or workout? If so, get it written down, move on, and don’t allow yourself to dwell on it.

However, if you missed your session/workout because ‘you weren’t quite in the mood for it’ then you should be giving yourself some smaller goals that you can complete. Alternatively, you might what to look at some of the reasons for your lowered motivation that are lurking in the background.

If you want to, you can use apps to track progress and set goals. They can actually be a really useful tool for helping you on your progression to success.

Plan Workouts into your Week

Exercising should be an integral part of your daily routine, so make sure that you’re always scheduling it in. there’s no way that it should be an afterthought or just something that you pick up when you have the odd evening free. Get your priorities straight and get your sessions firmly planned on the to-do list if you want to be successful.

Some of the best times to schedule your workout into your day are to use blocks of quiet hours with no distractions. Early in the morning or right after work are great blocks of time to use for working out.

You can use some great free apps on your phone to help you out. They will track lots of useful informative data along with the information you can enter manually. If you’re not using an app, then use a calendar that you can mark fat crosses on to when you complete a workout each day.

This will give you an added sense of achievement when you look back and see that, yes, it’s done, you did it and there’s the proof. it’s a super way of having a visual reminder of progress as well as offering encouragement that, at times, might be just what you needed.

Don’t Forget to Sleep

Sound slumber has a major role in every athlete’s training plan. It helps your ability to get the most out of your hours of dedication. If you want to dedicate yourself to training hard you will need healthy sleep levels on your side too.

Exercise is known to release endorphins in the body, so you’re giving yourself mental rewards from your workouts as well as seeing the progress in the mirror.

Sleepadvisor.org tell us that reduced amounts of sleep can cause abnormalities with your appetite-signalling hormone. If you’re not receiving the correct level of sleep then hunger pangs will become frequent and invariably lead to you eating unnecessarily. If you get the recommended daily amount of sleep should be between seven and nine hours per night on average, it will be much easier to stay on top of your healthy lifestyle.

Utilise the Social Channels

Yes, we know, you don’t want to be the person that joins the brigade of ‘look what I did’ social sharers, but this can be so helpful to your progress.

Taking advantage of social media and other apps that are available for public sharing is a useful way of building a network of like-minded people. You might also inspire someone to do the same thing and start a fitness journey of their own.

This other plus here is the accountability. If you update your followers and friends on Instagram and Facebook regularly and say that you’re going aiming for a target, then this gives you extra added incentives to stay on course. As long as you don’t spam your pals too hard on social networks, they’re going to be much more inclined to help keep you motivated along the way too.

In Sight, in Mind

So, you’ve bought your workout gear, but it’s buried under a pile of washing! No, of course not; you wouldn’t do that, would you? Prime excuses for not getting your activity done would be things such as “I didn’t have clean clothes”.

One of the key ways to avoid this issue is to have your kit in plain sight. Proudly hang it somewhere that is easily accessible and not stuff at the back of a drawer in your room, or worse, in your wash basket.

Another handy tip as far as your clothes go, is to have them set out and ready to go the night before you train as it will make the move from bed/work to exercising more seamless.

Speaking of Workout Clothes

When your clothes aren’t hanging up waiting for you to workout in them, you’re obviously going to be wearing them. As such, it’s a pretty big thing to make sure that they are comfortable while you’re wearing them.

Being comfortable while you exercise is important so maybe it’s time to finally invest in some good quality comfortable workout gear.

Proper and quality workout clothing and gear will also help to prevent injuries, motivate you to start working out and can curb the ‘sweaty t-shirt’ look problem.

This is a lot about personal preference and whatever makes you feel comfy, doesn’t inhibit issues that hinder your training and won’t leave you with an empty bank balance are all good points to bear in mind, although you tend to get what you pay for from good workout gear. Think of everything you purchase as an investment in your health, and happiness, not just your training.

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