How’s your Winter Motivation?
Winter has well and truly arrived (here in Melbourne) and with showery, cold weather, it makes it difficult to find motivation to get moving. But it is more important than ever to keep moving, or add movement into your day.
Studies have shown that sitting a lot is just as damaging to your long term health as smoking. That is startling. With many people forced to work from home, we are sitting more than before, moving less as we don’t need to get to public transport or work, or walk around the office, and this all adds up to a more sedentary lifestyle.
So how can you get motivation to move in winter? Here are some tips.
Have a Spring or Summer goal. Set yourself a short term goal for September that is either fitness based or based on losing fat (if that is what you need). Once Spring arrives and the sun is shining again, you will want to head out more, put on those summery clothes and not feel that they have shrunk during winter.
Once you have set your goal, identify HOW you can achieve this - what can you do to get moving more? Can you do a live online fitness session (see my timetable), go for a walk while rugged up, do a YouTube workout video, play hide and seek around the house with the kids, take the dog for a walk between rain showers, plan an outdoors activity with the family on weekends. There are so many things you can do instead of sitting in front of the TV.
Identify WHAT might stop you from doing these things, eg going for a walk - if it’s raining you won’t go, so what can you do instead? Plan to walk at another time that day if possible, do another activity instead?
Then determine WHY reaching your goal and doing the HOW is important to you - remember my earlier blog on asking WHY 5 times to find your true motivation.
Stop making excuses and just do it.
If you don’t like the cold weather or heading out in the rain, you may just need to find other ways to get moving - but make sure you do - it is important for both your physical and mental health.