Motivation – Or lack of…

When it comes to fitness classes or sessions or indeed any recreational activity, it seems that periods of lack of motivation are inevitable. Well, they are in my case at any rate!

I often find myself getting increasingly despondent at the thought that I simply don’t want to go for a session – for whatever reason that may be. I get bogged down in the ‘failure’ kind of thoughts, because, well, ‘I should go and get some exercise’ or ‘I should go to dance – I’m committed’.

On many occasions, I have found that once there (or maybe once I’ve completed the said session) I forget about how I’m feeling. However, on other occasions I am perfectly able to hold my hands up high and say that truthfully, I did not enjoy all those Burpees and I actually did not find that Grande Batemon exercise challenging in a fun way! No, ‘pushing my limits’ was not ‘fun’ in the slightest.

It is these sessions which I find hard to battle with. If I’m not careful, I let these ‘not so fun’ sessions affect my other sessions.

I could just not go, enjoy a nice relaxing evening in front of the telly. I could go, just force myself to try extra hard. Both these ideas are good ones on different occasions, sometimes I think I could really benefit from a chilled out evening and yet I don’t want to let people down when I am actually perfectly capable of going.

However, I still get that guilty feeling, that sense of despondency that I’m not enjoying something that, surely, I should be enjoying!

Recently, I’ve been trying to learn to let things go a lot more. I think on those challenging days it might help to ask myself - does it matter that last week I could press twice this weight!? Or run for twice as long or fast?

Obviously, progression is good and motivating when we achieve any goals or reach any targets. But, perhaps on these days being happy training at what our body feels up to would be a good idea. A nice easy session, with no goals, no plan; complete freedom to exercise how our body wants to and for how long. Then, with any luck, the enjoyment might return along with those lovely chappies called endorphins and hopefully, in my next session I might be able to ‘pump iron’ as it very much were.