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Through different periods of your life and the year, your own motivation levels to train or exercise will take peaks and troughs. What we need to understand is that this is natural and is perfectly fine to feel like this, we also need to find possible strategies to try to combat this where possible.
Firstly let's talk seasons, we often see dips of motivation in most individuals with the seasons of the year. This typically sees individuals being really motivated in the summer, and then as autumn and winter begins, motivation drops. One logical meaning to this is due to changes in temperature and daylight, most individuals do not enjoy the cold, as well as dark mornings and evenings being rather depressing. The 'get up and go' feeling you may get on a bright and warm summer morning isn't quite the same in the pitch black, wind, rain and cold.
Other circumstances which can affect motivation around training can be: work, children, family, loss, stress etc... All of these factors can be very stressful and take an emotional toll on the mind, causing you to feel less likely to want to do anything which could be of some discomfort. For example, exercise involves physical exertion, meaning it is relatively demanding physically and mentally, so to have the capacity to endure this can be hard at times. For other individuals this emotional toll causes them to find comfort in getting their emotion or aggression out through exercise.
Increased motivation often comes with approaching occasions such as weddings, holidays, events, or competitions. These are all often positive occasions, where people will make effort to look and feel good on the day. With this mindset comes the motivation and desire to train or start to exercise inline with the event. Each of these are great strategies for any individual no matter ability or previous experience due to the sense of responsibility and accountability they have for there own progress in line with the end goal (the event).
So, what measures can we put in place to combat a lack of motivation?
Get a Personal Trainer:
A Personal Trainer often eliminates all of the stresses and anxiety involved with joining the gym, keeping you accountable, motivated and mindful when needed. Correct form, variety of sessions, knowledge, engaging sessions, progression can all be ensured when having a PT, these are all important concepts required to progress, which otherwise you may lack on your own. The Personal Trainer will ensure they know you, your wants and needs as specifically as possible, this will allow them to provide you with the best programme and support.
Accountability is another aspect which can be brought by having a PT. Being held accountable to booking, turning up and training week in week out is super important. Sticking to a regular slot with your coach also allows you to create a habit/routine, again being another strategy to keep you on track when motivation is low. The Personal Trainer will give you constant support, being able to create strategies to keep you motivated and on track when you may need.
Having a coach will often cause you to be more attentive with your training too, whether it's identifying weakness to work on or just making sure you work hard enough. It can sometimes be all too easy to ignore slight niggles when training on your own, however having a personal trainer will ensure that your form and technique is correct or have possible rehab exercises for the issues you may have. It's also super easy to just quit when your training on your own, you start to sweat and you think 'yeah that's me done' whereas a coach will know your limitations and will push you to get the best out of your sessions safely.
Train with a friend:
Friendships are often a great way to start your journey into fitness or encourage oneself when motivation is low. Participating in a small group personal training session is often a great place to start. Having the knowledge and guidance of a qualified professional as well as the support and encouragement from a friend. People often find having a friend there reduces their anxiety if perhaps confidence is low when stepping into the gym, being comfortable in the environment is super important to achieve, if this is through bringing a friend then fantastic! A friend will be there to encourage and motivate you, you may often find you give that extra 1% you may not have given without them, almost healthy competition to spur you on. People will often find the social element of a session with a friend will reduce the anxiety and perhaps intensity of the session. A Personal Trainer will know when you have more in the tank and so will your friend which will force you to give your 100% to every session, just as they will know on some sessions when the intensity needs to be reduced and more support needs to be given. It's important that you and your friend acknowledge that one persons 100% effort will not be equal to the others, one will be stronger in some areas than the other. It's important to be aware of this and not feel yourselves comparing one another, just enjoy the session and journey together, use each other to champion and encourage one another.
A group scenario:
People often find a grouped element helps them feel a lot more motivated. Having the company of others and a more social side to exercise will often be very uplifting and almost takes away from the dread or intensity of the session. With regular classes, you will often find yourself training with the same people at that specific time on a weekly basis, this helps those that perhaps are a little more nervous or need a bit of encouraging. A small, supportive group all with the same focus can really help on those days where drive or effort isn't high, you know the regular group of people will relate to you and boost you. Forming friendships at these classes or small groups can be super powerful to bounce off of, if one isn't feeling motivated the other is there to encourage and uplift the other, and visa versa.
Grouped classes will often have a booking system which helps to hold you accountable to turning up. Certain gyms may have charges added to your membership if you don't turn up or some classes will take a payment when you book. Both of these systems create a consequence to the client, reducing the likeliness of them not turning up, again being a great motivation strategy.
Change your perspective:
It's important to try to stay as mindful and positive as possible, especially when you can feel your motivation decreasing. There's a few strategies in which to do this, first being really effective. Try to stop the 'I have to workout' mentality, change the perspective to 'I get to workout'. The feeling of gratitude that you are lucky enough to have the resources to be able to do a certain task i.e. the facilities, time, money, ability etc..., Another strategy is to do a daily checklist of all of the 'wins' of the day or what you are grateful for. For example 1 win for the day is you went to the gym or got a new PB. This keeps you mindful and positive around the feeling of accomplishing certain tasks in the day. Over-time this will become a habit, where you want to ensure you complete a win each day, whether it be a walk, a new healthy recipe, a PB, a gym session etc...
Goal setting:
What do you want to achieve? Why do you want to achieve this? What do you need or want to get better with? Is there something your training for?
The options are endless, whether your wanting to lose weight for health reasons, a wedding, a holiday, or want to improve your fitness to help you keep up with the kids for longer, or training for an event/ competition, or simply want to get better at running or improve your technique on certain movements, there is always something to improve, progress or train towards!
Goals can be sustainable, just because you've met the goal does not mean you just forget about it after, set another, progress further, for example if the goal was to get your 5k down to 30mins, how about you now train towards a 10k or try to improve your 5k by 5 mins within the next 3 months.
So how do you set the goal? Find something you really want to achieve, then set a realistic date, for example don't book a marathon for 2 months time if you haven't ran in years.
How do you track the goal? Make sure there is some kind of specificity to your goal, don't be brief, foe example don't say I want to get 'fitter or 'stronger' as there is no scale to this as to when you have achieved this. Put some kind of measure to this so you want to be able to back squat 50kg for 3 reps or to be able to swim front crawl for 500m without stopping.
It's important that this goal is something you care about, if you don't then less effort will be put towards it and of course the likelihood of you giving up is rather high.
What do you enjoy:
Motivation levels can be heavily influenced by enjoyment levels for a certain activity, for example if you dislike strength training you are less likely to give as much energy, time or effort to it. When motivation levels decrease it's important you try to do a type of exercise you enjoy or look forward to, this way it is much more likely you will attend, as well as having the right mindset to complete it.
Build positive habits:
Create habits which positively contribute to your goals as well as fitting in with your lifestyle, such as work, hobbies, family, social life, children etc... This could be: meal prep for the week on a Sunday, 5k run on a Wednesday, plan and log your calories the day before to ensure it works, 10k steps a day, go to the gym 3x a week, 1 protein shake between breakfast and lunch etc... Not all of these will be relevant to you and your goals but just a few examples of realistic habits you can put in place to work within your daily routines.
A thorough routine:
At the end of the day sometimes motivation isn't enough, its purely down to consistency, routine and habits which will create the most effective progress. You musty create a routine which realistic, one in which you can complete on an awful day as well as one you can do on a positive day. So setting a routine to complete 2 workouts a day just isn't realistic. Don't set yourself up to fail, set yourself up for some wins, make a super easy routine which can be done on any week, anything extra you can achieve weekly or daily is a bonus!
Set non-negotiables:
These are certain tasks or activities that you must achieve on certain days or during the week, without question, just like a daily checklist or to do list. It's effective to treat this like going to work, no matter how unmotivated you are you must go at least three times within the week for example, this may sound a bit of a ruthless concept, however it can be a really effective technique. You can do this by simply adding to your calendar, daily to do list or using a booking system, a concept which holds you accountable to doing a certain activity on a specific day. Once done, its super rewarding after the high of training and the feeling of achievement or success for doing it, despite not being overly motivated.
You won't find all of these effective, or you may find that some work at certain periods of time, whereas others work best at other periods. Find what works for you, resort to them when you need them, and stick to it!