How many times have you vowed to begin exercising on Monday, next week, just in time for summer…leading you to “Well, there’s always next year”? Well, the next year is here! So, what’s the problem? Why is it so hard to go through with our plans and resolutions?
Sure, the New Year can encourage us to set up ambitious, life-changing goals. However, just because they seem hardly obtainable, doesn’t mean they are unattainable. Is your plan to exercise more often or eat less? Instead of jumping straight into exercising 5 times a week and having kale smoothies all year long, let’s focus on building motivation and a solid routine.
Here are some steps that should help us focus on our end goal without making our lives miserable and pushing us to give up as soon as February rolls around.
1. Be realistic
Being determined is amazing, but being realistic is just as important. If you set goals that are too ambiguous or demanding, you`ll never succeed. “New Year New Me” isn’t something that happens overnight.
You know your mind and body the best. Listen to it and exercise accordingly. Instead of leaping into the new regime, slowly build it up.
If your goal is to run a marathon, but you`ve never been able to run more than an hour at a time – start by building your stamina, run more often and slowly push yourself.
Want to exercise regularly but never seem to be able to commit? No need to jump into the 5x/week schedule immediately. Divide and conquer. Set smaller goals for each week/month – exercise at least once this week, walk to work every day next week, run 100m longer etc.
Maybe you want to lose weight? Instead of starving yourself or trying out new fad diets, focus on having regular meals, eating more vegetables and fruits and preparing your own meals instead of ordering in.
The advantage of this type of thinking is that, first of all, you are more likely to succeed, secondly, once you do succeed it will be much easier to push yourself to achieve even more.
2. Remove the barriers
What is standing in your way? Identify the barriers and deal with them.
Not enough time to exercise? Make a schedule and see how you can work around it and fit your workouts. The workout you are interested in is too expensive? Look for cheaper alternatives, use free exercise resources, and invest in multi-use equipment. You don’t like going to the gym? Use your home as a gym! The staircase is great for a cardio workout, instead of weights, you can use various heavy objects like water bottles.
Here at Holodia, we realized that most of the team often missed workouts because we didn’t have enough time. That’s why we’ve integrated a 15-minute guided HIIT workout into HOLOFIT. It’s 15 minutes, so you can almost always find time to do it. Don’t let the length fool you – set it to difficult, and you’ll have a killer workout.
3. Reward yourself
Rewarding yourself doesn’t mean treating yourself with a whole cake or skipping a whole week of training. Depending on your goal, celebrate your success with a reward that isn`t contradictive. Buy yourself a new piece of workout equipment or clothes, subscribe to a fitness app you really like, go hiking with a friend!
The process of rewarding yourself is at the core of gamification. And gamification helps make your workouts fun, helps motivate you, and stick to your workout routine.
Learn more about the gamification strategies we’ve used in HOLOFIT to help our members stick to their fitness.
4. Track your progress
As we said, don`t solely focus on the end-goal, instead, track your journey. Every step, no matter how small it may seem, is a step closer to your goal! You will feel more motivated and proud when you see everything you’ve accomplished.
The easiest ways to track your progress are:
- Keep a workout journal
- Make a bullet journal or a list
- Focus on smaller goals: weekly/monthly
- Count your active minutes/steps
In the HOLOFIT Companion App, our members can access the data from each of their workouts that include the VR world they have used, the game mode they have chosen, their score, calories spent, distance, and the total workout time.
5. Make your workouts more fun
One of the biggest issues with working out is losing motivation due to…well, being bored witless. Many of us have invested in gym equipment only to have it lie around the house, collecting dust and taking up space. Moreover, we signed up for a gym membership only to become a no-show. How can we change this?
No matter whether you are exercising at home alone or at the gym, there are always ways to spice up your workouts.
Find a workout buddy
Another person with similar goals can keep you in check. If you don’t want to go to the gym you can always exercise while talking on Zoom/ Skype, set up individual and common goals, push each other by having friendly competitions and find fresh ideas.
Try new things
If you are literally counting down the seconds so that you can get off your elliptical machine, it might be time for something more appealing! Switching up your routine can be really beneficial, not only for your motivation but also for building new muscles or breaking through a weight-loss plateau.
Nowadays there are so many classes and apps, so if you want a change of scenery – it`s a piece of cake!
Turn your exercise into a game
If you really want to spice things up, you should try out virtual reality fitness. Yes, it’s as good as it sounds.
HOLOFIT VR fitness transports your workouts from your house to the amazing virtual worlds. You get to explore these worlds and collect trophies while you work out which helps distract you from the pain of working out. Before you know it, your workout is over.
Moreover, you can try the more competitive game modes and train with or compete against other members of our community. There is nothing quite as motivating as a little competition!
Or, if you are a person who likes to be guided, try our cardio training programs: fat burn, interval, HIIT… whichever best matches the goals that you have set for yourself.
With VR fitness time flies by and you push yourself with every workout to be better, break your own or someone else`s record, collect trophies and beat challenges.
6. Keep trying
It’s OK to have a break from exercising and run out of steam. However, instead of breaking the workout cycle completely push a restart button.
Begin by committing to a specific time period, perhaps a month. In case all fails, restart your challenge, and redo the last steps.
Final thoughts
Identify your goals as well as your problems and deal with them one by one. Make a schedule and dedicate to tracking and maintaining your workout regime. Once you manage to get an exercise habit, try not to break it at the first sign of trouble.
Moreover, keep the boredom away by trying out new things and turning your workout into a challenging game!
Use the tips we’ve shared above to make your workouts something you look forward to every day. Hopefully, you’ll find them useful and effective!
Finally, if you have your Oculus Quest and want to give HOLOFIT a try, claim your 7-day free trial!
Stay HOLOFIT!
