How many times have we said to ourselves “Today, I am getting motivated” or “I am so motivated” and “I can’t motivate myself?” The truth about motivation is that it is useless. “What did you say” you just thought? I know right, an article written by a personal trainer has basically said that motivation is rubbish. Well, the good news is that I have just liberated you from years of archaic thinking that you need to be motivated to do something.
So, what can we rely on in order to get what we want? One word, HABITS. You’ve heard this before and acknowledged it as many times as you have ignored, but it is your greatest weapon in your arsenal to hit your health and fitness aspirations. Motivation is an emotion that comes and goes, it cannot be relied on consistently. But the very nature of a habit is that it is consistent and takes little conscious thought! A technique that assists us in developing a succession of positive habits is called Habit Stacking.
Habit stacking will result in multiple tasks being achieved effortlessly. Find something that happens every day (eg breakfast, driving to work, shower, getting in to bed, etc) and stack the new habit alongside it. For example, while eating your breakfast at your kitchen table, you can fill out your food diary for the day ahead of time. By doing so we have planned out our food for the day, saved time by entering it in ahead of time and got closer to hitting our nutrition goals. Another example might be that if you’d like to incorporate some daily stretching, do it immediately after showering or putting on your pyjamas.
The theory behind habit staking to create positive habits, is to create a sense of autonomous behavior that leads to more room for other conscious thoughts throughout our day. Happy days. If you'd like some help with building positive habits, keep an eye out for the other articles in this series, or shoot us a message on Facebook or our website!
