#154: 8 Effective Tips To Boost Your Motivation for Weight Loss (Or Any Other Goal!)
We all know how challenging it can be to stay consistent with the things we KNOW we should be doing daily to reach out goals. So, today, I want to share 8 of my best tips with you to help you optimise your motivation each day so that you can reach your goals faster and with more ease!
Links:
Podcast on sleep: Episode 35: Can Sleep Loss Make You Gain Weight?
Download my FREE eBook with 4 15 minute meals: click here
Start your weight loss, gut healing and anti-inflammatory journey now with my 3 Week Body Reset
Continue your journey and figuring out YOUR own balance in the Health with Bec Tribe
Explore my free recipes & website: Click here
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Read This Episode:
It's been a while since I've done a motivational podcast and motivational episodes are so important because we can all be told what to do with losing weight, achieving our goals, creating habits, taking action steps but I'm sure a lot of you know that so much of it truly does come down to mindset.
I love to do motivational episodes for you to really help with the mindset side of things, so that you can really take those steps towards those goals that you know you want to take and I'm going to be mainly focusing on motivational tips for weight loss in this podcast, but you can truly relate these tips to pretty much any goal in life as well.
Tip #1 - Stop Thinking That Motivation Magically Comes
If you think about someone that has what you want, someone that's got a really fit, healthy body, someone that has a successful business, someone that has achieved anything in life, I will tell you right now that they do not feel motivated every single day.
From personal experience, I don't feel motivated every single day to work. I've been running my business for 8 years now and I've also been leading a healthy life for a very long time now. I try to go and do movement most mornings and I’ll always take at least 2 days off. Some days might just be a small walk and just some arm weights. It might be minimal, but all in all, I try to do movement most days and I try to work Monday to Friday.
Now I've definitely seen a lot of business growth and I've also seen changes in my physique, but I don't feel motivated every single day. Some days, I feel like a superwoman and it's so much easier to go to the gym. It's easy to smash through a super productive day of work but I tell myself all the time that if I wake up with no motivation, that is completely normal and what gives me the motivation for the day is realising that and knowing that action creates momentum.
I know we're mainly going to be talking about healthy eating and exercise here, but just quickly with work as an example - with this podcast, I am feeling really tired today recording it. I didn't really feel like doing it, but I can already feel it in myself now as soon as I wrote a few dot points and I did my quick introduction. It's the action of speaking and planning and now I feel really motivated to share this with you. So action creates momentum.
Same when I go to the gym, quite often I don't feel like going, I really don't, but then once I get dressed and I do 5 minutes of walking on the treadmill, then I'm motivated to do a bit more. So realising that it doesn't come every day and that's okay, but pushing yourself anyway to just think about starting and knowing that's a normal feeling. Once you just start, knowing that action creates momentum really helps.
So when we're talking about healthy eating, even though maybe that first 1 or 2 days might feel hard if you've really fallen off track and you've gotten back into eating a lot of sugar or maybe you're not exercising anymore - you've got to realise that there probably won't be a day that comes where you just feel extremely motivated to do everything that you want for 3, 4, 5, 6 days in a row but I promise you, once you get through that first day, that second day, that third day, then you'll start to feel a few instant results with how good it makes you feel and that action will create the motivation to keep going.
So that is your motivational tip to - just start because it's not going to feel easy sometimes, but just take that small step and that really helps.
Tip #2 - Stop Using The Scale To Measure Your Weight
If you're on your weight loss journey, when you look at the scales (the numbers), some days they might make you feel motivated because maybe it is going down and maybe that is giving you that positive reinforcement that what you're doing is working but what if one day you get on it and nothing's moved or what if one day you get on it (because this happens all the time) and it's gone up, even if you've been trying really hard to eat healthy? That can derail your mindset for the entire day, because you think to yourself - Screw it! Oh my god, what I've been doing hasn't been working! I'm not going to exercise today and I'm not going to eat well …
When you're in a negative mindset, it does make it far harder to keep going with your healthy habits and that number on the scales is sometimes not a true reflection of your results because your weight, especially as a woman, can go up and down every single day and every single week, depending on your hormones or depending on how much salt you ate the day before. If you have a higher salt meal the night before, it can make you retain water so when you get on the scales the next day, it can go up. Also in the last half of your cycle, 90% of women gain water weight, so hormonal fluctuations, salt fluctuations, also if you're dehydrated, that can make you retain water.
Your weight honestly goes up and down all the time from water weight. And so that's why I really think it is so much better and so much more freeing for the mind to use photos and the way that your clothes fit and looking in the mirror as a reflection of your progress and to absolutely not think of it as a day by day thing.
Like anything in life, when you're trying to lose weight, sometimes you might have a week that isn't so good as the week before. Maybe you just remain weight one week, but then the next week you do try a bit harder because you've got more energy and you do a bit more exercise or you eat a bit better, then you might lose a little bit of weight that week and then the week after you might not. The more you can look at your weight loss as a long term goal, a month by month thing rather than a day to day thing, the more likely you're going to feel motivated to keep going and keep it up.
Ditching the scales can really help with your motivation for the day, especially because you don't want to be derailed by the number that you see. You are not defined by the number on the scales! Ever since I ditched using scales, which was a good 8 years ago, my life has just improved dramatically. My mindset doesn't change each morning in terms of how I view my body, because I'm not getting on the scales and looking at a number to determine how good I feel about my body. I remember when I was in my late teens/ early twenties, I used to get on them every day and it was just a really icky, not very nice feeling and I've heard so many members in the Health With Bec Tribe, (which is step 2 after the 3 Week Body Reset) say the same thing.
Tip #3 - Make Sure Your Plan Your Week and Make Sure Every Single Meal Is Exciting & Tasty
This is going to make it far easier for you to feel motivated to eat healthy as you're trying to lose weight and achieve your goals.
Weight loss doesn't have to be hard, boring, bland an leave you feeling starving all the time. That's a total myth. Of course, there's lots of diets out there that are like that - that make you believe that (and it's quite hard to explain this unless you've done my programs), but you can absolutely get a taste for my recipes on my website or from downloading my 4x 15 minute dinners freebie eBook.
You truly can have meals that are between 300 to 500 calories that are big, tasty and keep you full and when you look forward to every single meal, that is going to make it far easier too, because you finish your breakfast and then it's exciting, because you’ve actually got a really tasty meal coming up for lunch. Then you’ve got a really tasty snack and you’ve got a really tasty dinner.
An equally important part in that is making sure you plan your week. Plan your week of eating on a Saturday or a Sunday, so that you know exactly what you're doing and so you know that you've got exciting meals coming up and that's going to make you motivated simply by having it planned out.
Tip #4 - Focus On The Benefits Aside From Weight Loss & Think About What Is Harder
When you take the focus off weight loss (that can still be your goal, that can still be something that you think about) but think of another reason why you are doing what you're trying to do. Why you're trying to eat this certain way or why you're trying to build your fitness up.
For me, I really love my mindset to feel as good as I can for my work. I like to have a clear brain and a clear head. I like to feel productive. I like to feel really happy for my team and my work because a lot of my work is really about leading my team, thinking of creative ideas, helping you guys and unless I feel good, it's very hard for me to motivate myself to work as a solo entrepreneur.
So for me to keep up my healthy eating and exercise, I don't often think about my weight, even though I do need to consciously think about it all the time as someone that has a slow thyroid and someone that can't just eat whatever she wants to remain a healthy weight.
What keeps me on track far more is thinking about that bigger why, which is - I want to feel good for work and if I don't get my morning movement in, I really do feel a bit more scattered throughout the day, a bit lower in energy and not as good in the head. When I do do my morning movement, even if it's something small, especially if it includes a little bit of time outside in the sun and nature, then my day is far better.
Same with eating - some people don't know this until they try, but when you eat well and you eat in a way that doesn't make you get these highs and lows in your blood sugars, your energy is far more stable throughout the day. You have a clear head and you feel a lot happier as well. You don't feel as tired.
So, eating well has become a no brainer to me and same with morning movement. Of course, there are some inevitable days where I miss it, but 80% of the time thinking of that really helps to keep me motivated and on track. So for you, think about 1 of the benefits that you feel when you've exercised consistently in the past and how has that made you feel?
Some members in the Health With Bec Tribe say that they've really noticed that they can play with their kids far more when they're eating well. Some members feel like they don't get migraines anymore, some may feel that their joint pain completely goes away and it gives them a pain free day. So whatever it is for you, a big one is bloating as well, that's what keeps me motivated. If I eat the wrong foods, I get really bloated and when I'm bloated, it affects everything. It affects my sleep. It affects my mood. So constantly trying to eat foods that keep my gut happy makes me feel better and that makes me motivated to eat well too.
The more that you can focus on the benefits aside from weight loss, the easier it's going to be for you to feel motivated to eat. It's really important that you eat the way that you want to eat and keep up your exercise and then just think of weight loss as still a goal, but it's more of a pleasant, bonus side effect. So many people that have had long-term success with my program say that they look at it as more of a lifestyle and weight loss is more of a bonus, but they focus on all of the other positive things that this way of eating brings to their life and it's multiple, it really is multiple because (I say this quite a lot), but everything is so connected …
If you eat well, it can help with your brain clarity and in turn, it can also help with your sleep and then the better you sleep, the happier you feel the next day, the more energy you have to exercise, the better you exercise, the less energy crashes you have throughout the day and it all truly does work in a circle.
Tip #5 - Always Have Something To Look Forward To
When this is something like weight loss like I'm talking about, it's really important to have something to look forward to every week. Now, like I said earlier, you can look forward to every single meal, especially if you're following my way of eating (which I wish everyone would do), you can truly say that every single meal can be exciting.
For me, I'm always looking forward to every meal because I eat the exact same way that I teach you guys, but it's really important to have something on the weekend that you're looking forward to where you're not focusing on being too extremely healthy or I always say 80/20 - so maybe on the weekend you might have a dinner that's booked and you might be looking forward to meeting up with some girlfriends and having a few glasses of wine and enjoying foods at a restaurant that you might not normally eat through the week. Having at least 1 or 2 things like that to look forward to can really help you stay motivated and on track to push through with what you've set yourself to do for the week.
Whatever you've planned to do for the week with your healthy eating and exercise, if you have something to look forward to on the weekend, that is going to really help get you through and always remember that you will get results if you're trying to do your best 80% of the time and then you let yourself go a little bit for 20% of the time - having a total rest day from exercise, going out for lunch, going out for dinner, whatever it is for you, having that at the end of the week is going to help you want to stay on track through the week.
With any other goal in life, that's really important too, because to reach your goals and to progress forward and make changes, most of the time you're going to have to push yourself most days to do stuff. So having something to look forward to gives you that extra incentive to keep pushing because you know that it's not forever. You know you've got a break coming up.
For me, I love to travel or I love knowing that I've got all day Saturday and Sunday to totally have off from work and that makes me want to be more productive through the week. So make sure you've got things scheduled in to look forward to.
Tip #6 - Buy New Exercise Clothes
Another really small, simple tip that helps as well with your motivation can be buying some new exercise clothes. Simple, but it works. I know it works for me and I know it works for a lot of other women as well.
Just in general as well, just try to make yourself feel as good as you can each day. So, put a bit of makeup on in the morning if you want, paint your nails, buy some new exercise clothes, do things that make you feel good and that works in a circle too - the better you kind of treat your body, the better you're going to want to treat it in terms of what you put inside it and the more likely you're going to want to move it as well. So that's just one little tip that can help as well.
Tip #7 - Focus On Trying Your Best To Develop A Healthy Sleep Routine
I swear I could say all of these are equally as important as each other, but this is probably 1 of the most important - it’s really focusing on trying your best to develop a healthy sleep routine and to get a good 7 to 8 hours of quality sleep each night and bonus to this tip is to - look at reducing your alcohol intake because they're both directly correlated.
If you have any more than 1 drink, it can affect your sleep quality, even if you feel like you're getting 8 hours, you won't be getting 8 hours of quality sleep because alcohol really affects your ability to get into deep restorative sleep, so you don't really wake up feeling refreshed. I'm sure you guys know that the more tired you feel, the harder it is to want to exercise and to eat healthy. So your hunger levels go up when you're sleep deprived, your body naturally craves more carbs and sugary foods (because they give you such a quick burst of energy, so that's why your body naturally craves that) and if you have alcohol before, it makes it worse as well.
So it's really good with everything in life to consciously think of the night before, if you want to feel motivated for the day - when you're eating dinner, thinking about drinking alcohol, thinking about maybe not watching Netflix until 12. If you really want to have a good day the next day, you've got to look at that night before and do your best to make sure that you get a good sleep because that's really going to help. Like always, 80/20 - sometimes people might have a later Saturday night and drink a bit of alcohol. I do that sometimes for sure. I had my best friend's wedding last weekend and I did that and that's totally okay, but 80% of the time, just really try to focus on your sleep as much as you can and reducing your alcohol intake.
Now I have a really good episode all about sleep (Episode #35 - Can Sleep Lose Make You Gain Weight?) and how it affects your weight loss efforts with tips about how you can improve your sleep as well. I have to say as a side note with this one guys, that it's easier said than done for a lot of people to just sleep better …
I have suffered from insomnia for nearly my whole life and I'm in a pretty good period at the moment, but that's because I've done so many things to work on it. For me, one of the things that affects my insomnia the most is if I overcommit myself with work. If I say yes too much, if I don't set boundaries. I've realised that I have to stop work at 5 o'clock most days at the latest because if I keep going into the night, like I used to for my first 4 to 5 years of business, my brain just doesn't work and I feel like I need a really good, like 3, 4, 5 hours of no Instagram time, DMs, emails, work and that helps me. I also know that if I commit to myself too much, I don't sleep. So for me, I really look at my life in general and I try to reduce my stress as much as possible and not overcommit myself and that in turn helps with my sleep personally.
There's obviously so many other things that you can do and that I do, like take magnesium every night, I make sure my room's really dark, I wear a sleep mask and I try to go to bed at the same time every night. The temperature of your bedroom is important, so throughout Summer, I'll often sleep with the air-con on or a fan, but anyway I talk about this in Episode #35 - Can Sleep Lose Make You Gain Weight? but I had to just say that, I get it! It's easier said than done with your sleep, but just try your best to really figure out your triggers with what is affecting your sleep and try to make that one of your number 1 priorities, if you are really serious about forming a consistent healthy eating and exercise routine to reach your weight loss goals, because that is one of the most important things to master.
Tip #8 - Surround Yourself With Like-Minded People
My final tip is to surround yourself with like minded people. You truly are, and you truly become who you surround yourself with, because who you surround yourself with, you end up taking on their habits and their lifestyles and if you've got friends in a community that are all exercising and eating well, you're just naturally going to want to do that too.
If you are surrounded by people that don't exercise, sleep in all day, eat unhealthy food, you will more likely do that. It's just human nature. So do your best to surround yourself with like-minded people that share a similar goal. This is why I've got the Health With Bec Tribe and we have our beautiful Facebook Group with that. With the 3 Week Body Reset (which is step 1), there's also a Facebook Group with that and so many people have said that is 1 of the most valuable parts (even though it's almost a bonus free resource with my programs). It is one of the most valuable assets that helps people stay on track because they're just seeing notifications all day in the Facebook Group of other people cooking healthy meals and doing exercise.
The more you see other people doing something, the more that you want to do it, because you're just constantly reminded and you can see that if other people are doing it, so will I. I’ll relate it back to business - if I ever feel a bit low in creativity or low in motivation, I know that maybe it's been too long since I've had phone calls with my like-minded business friends. 2 of my like-minded business friends live in Brisbane and I love catching up with them. I'll fly there to see them sometimes, but more often than not, it's obviously a phone call and whenever I talk to 1 of them, my motivation comes back.
Also my friend Brooke Vulinovich, I love catching up with her. She's living in Croatia at the moment, so I don't see her as much but whenever I have catch ups with like-minded people in business, my motivation always improves and that is exactly the same with your weight loss and your health goals.
Look at the people in your life and make sure that you are staying in touch and catching up with, or joining Facebook Groups with people that share similar goals, because that's going to make it far easier. Some people really love getting their partners/ people in your direct family involved as well because you're seeing them every single day. If they get involved, that's going to really, really help you stay on track as well, if they've got similar health goals. So try to encourage them to get on track with you as well and do it together and make it fun in that way.
So they're 8 of my best tips to boost your motivation when it comes to losing weight or achieving any goal in life. Now, I've obviously got lots more, but I wanted to keep this podcast quite short. And they are the 8 that really came to mind to me today that I know are so powerful and that will really help you as well.
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