Find sports motivation: This can help you

Motivation during sport is important in order to remain physically active in the long term and to approach sport with joy instead of frustration. We’ll give you some tips on how you can increase your motivation to exercise.

Regular exercise is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. But even if we are aware of this, we sometimes find it difficult to motivate ourselves for an evening workout or a jog in the park.

In this article we give you practical tips for your everyday life that you can use to increase your motivation to do sport.

Sports Motivation: Why do you do sports?

First of all, it is important to ask yourself why you actually want to exercise regularly. Because everyone seems to do it? Or because you want to conform to a certain body ideal? These are usually not helpful motives. Because they can quickly give you the feeling that sport is a kind of pressure that you have to submit to.

Of course, exercise is also an effective way to lose weight. In your weight loss process, you shouldn’t judge yourself for your current appearance or force yourself to go on radical diets. This will cause much more damage to your physical and mental health.

Therefore, when losing weight, keep an eye on your health and do not allow yourself to be influenced by social ideals of beauty. For healthy exercise motivation, remember that exercise has many other benefits that don’t just affect your appearance.

Regular exercise: the benefits

According to the Ärzteblatt, regular physical exercise can, among other things:

• strengthen your immune system
• counteract the development of cancer
• have a life-extending effect
• Prevent diabetes
• strengthen the cardiovascular system
• improve the ability to learn and remember

• Prevent dementia

Sport also acts as a natural mood enhancer. This is because physical activity increases the concentration of the so-called “happiness hormones” dopamine and serotonin in the blood. They can help us reduce stress and increase our psychological well-being.

To boost your motivation to exercise, you can remind yourself of these benefits regularly. For example, write them on cards and use them again and again when you lack the motivation to exercise. This may make you see exercise less as a compulsion and more as a form of self-care that strengthens and protects you and your body.

Sports motivation: the right sport

In order to increase your motivation to exercise in the long term, you should definitely find a sport that suits you and that you enjoy. If you force yourself to jog every time and never really enjoy it, you will always associate exercise with negative feelings. This means that you will try to avoid physical activity as much as possible.

But it doesn’t always have to be jogging or the gym. After all, there are a wide variety of sports. So you can, among other things, choose between

• endurance and strength training,
• Outdoor and indoor activities and
• choose intensive and quieter units.

Tip: Try out different sports and see how your body reacts and which sport you feel most comfortable with.

In order to avoid monotony and maintain your motivation for sport, it can also make sense to integrate several sports into your everyday life. For example, you can alternate more intense workouts with calm yoga flows. You can find more tips and advice on this topic here: Doing sport: How to find the right sport.

Create your own exercise routine

Your sports routine should suit your individual physical and mental requirements and your lifestyle. As a rule, exercise should be something that you can easily integrate into your everyday life and not a factor that dictates your daily planning. This is also how you increase your motivation to exercise.

• So think about how much time you can and want to invest in physical activities on a daily and weekly basis. Set realistic goals for the right sports motivation and don’t compare yourself to others. First, just try out what suits you without being influenced too much by external guidelines and recommendations.
• However, be careful not to plan exercise at inconvenient times of the day. For example, it is not recommended to do a workout shortly before going to bed, right after eating, or when you are hungry.

Once you have developed a fixed timetable, you don’t have to think about when and how you can integrate sport into your everyday life every week. The routine also makes it easier for you to make exercise a habit that is a normal part of your life. This is also how you increase your motivation to exercise.

Sports motivation: It’s easier together

Some people find it particularly difficult to constantly motivate themselves to exercise. In this case, it might help your sports motivation to find a workout buddy with whom you can meet for a training session at fixed times every week.

This way you know that you don’t have to overcome it alone and you can look forward to spending time with friends while you exercise. And: You are probably less likely to cancel a sports date with a friend than a sports date with yourself.

Sports motivation: the right diet

Do you constantly feel too weak and tired to exercise? This can have many reasons. A possible cause could be an unbalanced diet. In order to have enough energy and thereby increase your motivation to exercise, a healthy diet is essential.

Your diet should provide you with all the important macronutrients and micronutrients. You can find out some basic tips to help you achieve this here: Balanced nutrition: 10 rules for everyday life.

If you want to exercise to lose weight, you should still eat enough. If the calorie deficit becomes too great, you can quickly develop cravings. Deficiency symptoms may also occur. Long-term success is more likely to occur if you make long-term changes to your diet instead of going on a two-week crash diet.

Stay careful: exercise is not compulsory!

No matter how motivated you are to exercise, you should still make sure to carry out sporting activities mindfully by listening to your body’s signals. At some times it may be advisable to avoid exercise – for example if you are sick.

That’s completely fine. Even then, treat yourself with care and love and be aware that you don’t have to feel guilty about yourself because of this. Sport is not a compulsory program, but something that should enrich your life. And each person can integrate it into their everyday life in their own individual way.

Read more on Techzle\.com:

• Self-motivation: How to overcome your inner weaker self
• Workout at home: ideas for sport in your own four walls
• Exercise every day: is it healthy?

Edited by Paula Boslau

** marked with ** or orange underlined Links to sources of supply are partly partner links: If you buy here, you are actively supporting Techzle\.com, because we then receive a small part of the sales proceeds. More info.