If you’ve been working out for a while, you may find yourself procrastinating and simply not feeling like exercising sometimes. The first thing you should understand is that this is perfectly normal. You actually need to take a day off once a week to allow your muscles to rest and repair.

If you are not taking a weekly day of rest, try giving yourself a much needed break. If that doesn’t do the trick, there are a number of ways to get your motivation back. Remember, rest is vital to making consistent progress!

“Overtraining deprives your muscles of the time they need to heal, diminishing results and risking injury.” – Women’s Health

In this article, we will share eight smart ideas to help you get motivated for effective exercise.

1. Keep Your Eyes On The Prize
An effective workout program is based in solid, sensible, doable goals. Review your reasons for working out and update them if you need to. For example, if your initial goal was to lose 20 pounds and you’ve lost 15, you might want to update your goal to focus on specific areas in need of firming up and strengthening.

Adjusting your focus and adapting your program to meet your new goals can give you new motivation.

Once you do reach this stage, consider changing up your workout. For a good option, checkout my review of Toned in Ten by Erin Nielsen.

2. Create Both Objectives & Goals
Many people make the mistake of setting one huge, long term goal without planning the steps (objectives) they must take to get there. When you set a huge goal for sometime in the future, you are unlikely to progress toward it in an effective way.

You should definitely set big goals, but you should also carefully chart your course by establishing short term objectives that will carry you to your larger goals. For example, if you are currently very overweight and out of shape, your short term goals should be small and simple.

Adding a daily walk and 15 minutes of weight lifting a day may be challenging enough for a start. Setting a goal of losing 1 or 2 pounds a week is sensible and doable. When these activities begin to seem easy, add to your activities to keep your workouts fresh and challenging.

3. Remember That Your Long Term Goals Are Flexible
If you have set extremely ambitious long term goals, you may feel disappointed if you have been trying to attain them for a long time without success. Conversely, if you have reached your long term goals quickly you may be feeling bored with exercise.

Either way, be sure to review your long term goals from time-to-time and adjust them to reflect the actual progress you have made so far.

4. Keep Good Records
Keep a workout journal and/or create a chart to keep track of your workout sessions.

• Jot down any thoughts or feelings you have about your workout routine.
• On a daily basis, take note of the number of reps of each exercise you perform.
• Weigh yourself and take your measurements at the same time of day, once a week.

When you are feeling unmotivated, review your records to see if you can spot patterns or areas that are persistently problematic.

Make adjustments (e.g. replace tedious exercises with enjoyable ones) that will improve your workout and eliminate any problems that have been bothering you.

5. Remind Yourself To Work Out
There are lots of ways to give yourself pleasant reminders of exercise.

• Enlist a workout buddy
• Post notes is easy-to-see locations
• Subscribe to workout channels on YouTube
• Follow workout motivation pages on social media
• Keep your gym bag packed with fresh workout clothes by your door

These are just a few of the nudges you can give yourself every day to make sure you remember to work out.

6. Enjoy Variety
Your workout time should be play time. You should not anticipate it with dread. If you do, you are doing it wrong. Be sure to vary your routine to keep it fresh. You should be able to reap the benefits of strength training one day and cardiovascular activities the next.

For strength training, use free weights one day, your own body weight another day and machines on yet another day. For cardiovascular exercise, run, power walk, swim, dance, play games, practice yoga or just participate in any other type of enjoyable activities that will increase your heart and respiratory rate safely.

7. Get By With A Little Help From Your Friends
In today’s busy world, it can be very tempting to workout quickly at home alone with a video. This can be a good way to ensure that you get a little exercise every day, be sure to shake it up at least once a week with a group game, class or other sociable exercise activity.

Spending time with others and comparing your exercise experiences can be very enjoyable and motivating.

8. Give Yourself Proper Credit
Unfortunately, many people have a hard time giving themselves proper credit for accomplishments. When you attain your objectives and move steadily toward your goals, you can justifiably feel very proud of yourself.

Celebrate your successes in a way that is meaningful to you. While many people think that going out for a big meal or splurging on desserts is a good reward, think twice about that. “Rewarding” yourself in a way that represents undermining your success is actually rather negative and a denial of all you have striven for.

Giving yourself a pleasant day trip, buying a particularly luxurious garment or taking a spa day might be a more positive and lasting way to celebrate and support your success.