During your exercise journey, there are bound to be times when motivation is lacking – it happens to everyone. The important thing is how you react to that. How do you regain that drive to keep rocking up to your workouts, maintain the momentum, and break through the mental barriers? Here are some steps you can take to regain your fitness mojo…

Set yourself some goals

Whether that’s personal numbers you want to hit, or by signing up to an upcoming event, realistic milestones make it that bit easier to settle into a training routine. As you progress towards your goal, you’ll find that exercise and training eventually become part of your natural daily routine.

Work out early in the day

If you’re not a morning person, this may not sound very appealing at all, but bear with us. Hitting a workout shortly after you rise in the morning sets the tone for the day, and encourages you to make healthier choices throughout. You’ll benefit from less distractions that early (no phone calls, emails or messages on your mind), and enjoy increased levels of energy, alertness and focus for the rest of the day.

Create a home gym

Is getting to and from the gym the hurdle you’re falling at? Ever considered bringing the gym to you? Creating your own training space at home eliminates the commute, removes any queues for equipment, and saves you money on monthly memberships. You don’t even have to spend a fortune either. Investing in products that suit your needs, budget and goals, whether that’s just a treadmill, some free weights or a strength machine is often all you need to get going.

Schedule in your workouts

At the beginning of each week, open your diary and pencil in your workouts. This makes it easier to work around your social engagements, meetings and appointments, without losing out on your exercise time. If it’s in your daily schedule, you’ll feel obliged to turn up and finish your workout. You can even use this time to plan each workout, so you know exactly what you’re going to be doing at the start of each session.

Train with a friend

Bringing a friend along to your workouts can be a great motivator. The right training partner can push you further than you probably thought possible when training on your own, keeping you accountable with encouragement and friendly competition.

Create a playlist

Get pumped before your workout and keep those endorphins flowing with a high-energy playlist of your favourite tunes. Not in the mood for music when training? Why not use your training time to get through some of your favourite podcasts or audio books?

Switch up your workouts

Motivation waning because you’re getting bored of your workouts? It’s time you switch up your routine, take up a new sport or join a different class. A varied range of activities throughout the week gives you something fresh to look forward to each time, and prevents your workouts from getting dull.

Take breaks when you need them

It’s important to listen to your body, and it will normally tell you when it’s time to take a break. Whether you’re bored, tired or in danger of overtraining, taking a pause to re-evaluate your routine and focus on other things will only see you return to your training with added gusto. Rest days/weeks and de-load periods are things for a reason, after all!

Next time your motivation dips, put some of these steps to the test to help you get back into the swing of things. We’re always posting workout tips, tricks and info on our TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, so make sure you’re following us for even more inspiration!