We usually feel motivated when there is something we need to change. You may have lost weight before and already know how to make healthy changes you might not have regular routines, and this can make it harder to keep these healthy changes. When motivated, we can find it easier to make changes e.g., do the activity we had planned, whether that’s going for a walk, swimming, or making home-cooked meals. However, motivation can be hard to maintain especially if faced with day-to-day challenges.
What motivates you?
You may be worried that your weight is affecting your health and want to make changes to help stop the weight gain or lose weight in a healthy way. Let’s take a moment to note down what motivates you to want to make healthy changes e.g., plan regular routines each day, increase physical activity or eat healthier. Your initial thoughts might be ‘I want to be healthier, fitter and lose weight or ‘because I want to look and feel better’.
The key here is to delve deeper. Ask yourself, ‘why?’. Why do you want to be more active or have a healthier diet? Think about what you will do more of once you have achieved those things. Keeping motivation up can be difficult but breaking goals down into manageable tasks and celebrating achievements along the way can help increase your confidence and improve your self-belief!
Your values
Look at what you’ve written down; these are what is important to you – they are your values. Getting support may help you and talking to friends and family to see if they have any similar values or goals can be a great place for encouragement and support. Keeping your values in mind throughout can really help to stay focused and maintain motivation.
When behaviours become habits
Long-term changes could be to eat a healthier diet and move more, and this means a change from an old behaviour to a new behaviour. When we practice a new behaviour over again, it can become a habit. When a habit is formed, it becomes easier, and we can rely less on motivation. To do this we need to make these new behaviours part of our daily routine. E.g., planning in specific times for activity and planning the week ahead.
There may be times when you go back to an old behaviour for example, using food to improve your mood or help you feel better. This can affect your progress so identifying and accessing the help and support you need is an important step in your journey and in keeping your motivation going.
Continue your journey
Click on the next page Goal setting to continue your journey.
