We usually feel motivated when we start something, but it can be harder to get started when it is a new change. You may not have had to make changes to achieve a healthy weight before but thinking about the benefits and why you are making these changes is a good place to start.
Seeing and feeling the benefits makes it easier for us to want to achieve the change whether this is going for a walk or making home-cooked meals. But motivation can slip, and we start to fall off track from reaching our goals.
What motivates you?
Take a moment to note down what motivates you.
- Why do you want to regain the balance of a healthy weight?
- Then delve deeper, ask yourself why.
- Think about what has changed in your life to cause this.
- Could this be a change to your eating patterns or struggling for find the time to be active?
It may help to think about positive outcomes e.g., how you will feel when you have made healthy changes, how much more energy you may have to do the things that you want, to feeling much more like yourself when you reach your goal. You might wish to look and feel better in your clothes and start to feel much more like you again.
Your values
Take a look at what you’ve written; these are your values. You may want to set reminders on your phone or put them in a place where you can see them each day. Keeping your values in mind throughout your journey can help you stay focused and maintain motivation.
When behaviours become habits
To improve our health, we have to change, and this means a change from an old behaviour to a new behaviour. When we practice a new behaviour often enough, it becomes a habit. The more we do it, the easier it becomes. To do this we need to make these new behaviours part of our daily routine. E.g., scheduling days and times to be physically active or creating a plan for the week ahead.
Remember making healthy choices around food or activity can be exciting and fun. It’s about making the right choices for you and eating a variety of healthier foods you can enjoy.
Trying to boost your activity? Find opportunities where you can move more. Making small changes daily, we can split goals into bite-sized chunks making them much more achievable and realistic for you! Focus on the next week, what might we notice if these changes are made? And how might these benefits make us feel?
Continue your journey
Click on the next page Goal setting to continue your journey.
