“Ring… Ring… Ring”, Hey! Where are you? I am waiting for you….Here I was unable to comprehend at first as my friend’s call woke me up. I replied to what I had been saying for days,“ So sorry I couldn’t get up and today again I didn’t feel like exercising.” And then the day passed with guilt. 

If one day you feel so motivated to exercise and the next day all your motivation fades then YOU ARE NOT ALONE! ( I mean who doesn’t like sleeping some extra hours or sitting on the couch all day enjoying Netflix ) I was in this state as you’re now until I made a firm decision and took some steps to keep laziness off. 

In this article, I’m going to share some powerful tips on how to stay motivated which I adopted to keep laziness away. I hope they’ll work for you too. So let’s get started! 

1)Plan and set a clear goal 

Before you start this journey, all you need is to have a clear goal in mind. What is the reason that you want to exercise? What are your goals? Having a goal ignites a passion in you to attain it. For instance, if you have a goal to lose weight in 6 months then you must be truly passionate about your goal. 

Your passion will keep you going no matter what obstacles, distractions come in your way. Just remember WHY you started, WHAT results in you will get, and HOW you’ll feel after attaining that success !! 

2)Apply Operant conditioning

You might find yourself in a state where your heart and mind are in constant conflict. Your heart wants to hit the gym while your mind says no! All you need is to train your mind wanting it to exercise too, but how? Here we go

• First, you need to make a schedule of exercises and pen it down in your journal like running 5 times a week. Set small goals.

• Next, make use of a psychological phenomenon called operant conditioning. What is operant conditioning? 

It is a learning process using positive or negative reinforcement.

When you do an action and deliberately reward yourself, your mind keeps it as positive behavior and tends to repeat it.

• You can do this by checking the exercise off your list and that feeling of attaining something will keep you going. Subconsciously you will look forward to completing that list. 

• You can give yourself a real reward like after a workout watching your favorite tv show, or buying something you have been longing for so long. Feel-good chemicals- endorphins will excite you to take action. 

3)Make it a fun experience

Exercise shouldn’t be, “ oh no, it’s WORKOUT time “. You will try to take an excuse from exercise if you find it boring. Flip it into an exciting part of the day. 

Watch videos and select the ones which seem interesting to you. If someday you’re not in a mood to do regular exercise, just get up and go for a walk or play a sport. At least it’ll keep laziness away.

4)Think positive 

Isn’t it that whenever you think of hitting a gym, your mind goes to it imagining negative parts. 

Like !! 

“I’ll get so tired” 

"Oh it would take so long completing the the entire workout “ 

“getting up, changing, sweating feels like hell” 

Wait wait, why don’t you change the way you think? 

To motivate yourself to exercise, start thinking about its benefits and how good you’ll feel at the end. 

Visualize yourself completing a workout. Imagine how you would feel when you are done. It does not matter whether you complete a part of the workout or whole, it is still an achievement! Just imagine that peace of mind, energy, alertness you are going to get after a workout. 

5)Get a cheering tribe

For that, you need to find someone from your family or friends. Those who encourage who, who reminds you whenever you are lagging. Whenever you get to achieve a goal, however small it might seem, they are always there to applaud you. 

If you want to get help hard, ask them to charge you a penalty when you feel lazy and skip a day. This seemingly hard step will keep you going. 

Bonus tip! You know it well that to keep going, you need a passion BUT do not push yourself too hard lest you will get exhausted and will lose your passion soon. If someday you don’t feel like doing a workout, take a rest and get up with zeal the next day !! 

So, it is your internal motivation that matters. Then what are you waiting for? Set a goal and get ready for your transformation from a couch potato to an energetic person.