How to Stay Motivated in Your Online Fitness Journey (Even When You Feel Like Quitting)?

The fitness world has seen a dramatic surge in virtual personal training, offering flexibility and convenience for clients and trainers. In fact, a poll of customers finds that over 70% prefer the flexibility of online exercise over traditional gym membership methods. While the virtual training holds promising potential, it also presents unique challenges to staying motivated in your fitness journey.

You might have trouble staying motivated to stick to your workout routine when you are feeling tired, busy, or uninterested. These feelings can pop up anytime because the comfort of your home restricts you from getting up, changing clothes, and rolling out that yoga mat or press play on your workout video.

The couch is right there. Your bed looks inviting. And suddenly, skipping a workout seems easier than doing one. However, if you have the zeal, then you can overcome all the challenges, even if you are feeling unmotivated. Let’s learn how you can stay motivated in your online fitness journey.

How to Stay Motivated Throughout Your Online Fitness Journey?

Joining an online fitness journey is easy. But making it a habit requires strong willpower and readiness to push hard even when you feel like giving up. To help you, here we have compiled some strategies to help you stay motivated on your path to a healthier you.

1. Set Realistic Goals: Don’t Expect Too Much in the Beginning

It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of starting a fitness routine, and you end up trying too many exercises. This leads to burnout, frustration, or even injury. You need to give your body some time to get started with the fitness routine. Hence, here is what you should do:

• Start small: Begin with short-term goals that are easy to achieve. Focus on building a routine, so start with simple exercises for short time intervals, like a 10-minute walk and 15-minute light stretching. Once your body and mind adjust to the rhythm, you can gradually increase the duration and intensity of your workouts.
• Use SMART Goals: Make sure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. It will give you a clear target and timeframe to follow. Your online fitness coach can help in polish your goals and create a tailored workout.
• Celebrate Milestones: Break your long-term goals into small milestones. Celebrate everyone as you reach it, like completing your first full push-ups, hitting the loss of the first 5 pounds.

2. Build a Positive Mindset

A positive mindset can make a huge difference in your fitness journey. A positive mindset will improve your performance and foster resilience against setbacks. Instead of focusing on what you perceive as failures, celebrate the small victories. You may have finished a difficult workout or chosen healthy meals for a week. Acknowledging your progress will enhance your motivation and keep you on track.  Let’s take a look at tips on staying positive.

• Find your Why: Ask yourself: Why do I want to begin the fitness journey? Whatever the reason, knowing your why will keep you focused when motivation dips.  Write your ‘Why‘ down on paper and keep it in a visible place as a reminder of why you started the journey in the first place.
• Affirmations with Reminders: Use daily affirmations to reinforce your self-belief and commitment to your goals. Make visual reminders with images and quotes that inspire you.
• Surround Yourself with Positivity: Engage with supportive friends, family, or like-minded people online to keep yourself up and running.

3. Mix Up Your Routine

Doing the same workouts every day can lead to boredom and make it challenging to stay engaged. You can share this with your online personal trainer, and the trainer can change the routine by adding variety, like switching between strength training, cardio, mobility work, or even fun challenges, to keep things fresh and motivating. Here’s how you can make your workout fun:

• Sign up for New Activities: Don’t refrain from trying different forms of exercise, be it yoga, cycling, or strength training. Variety will keep things fun and prevent workout burnout as you are challenging your body in new ways.
• Set Mini-Challenges: Create small challenges for yourself, like completing a certain number of workouts in a month. It will excite you and push you forward to do better.
• Change your Environment: If you usually work out indoors, try taking your online fitness class outdoors. A change in scenarios will make exercises feel less like a routine.

4. Find Support and Accountability

A support system with someone to hold you can make a huge difference in your fitness journey. Be it a workout buddy or an online fitness trainer, having someone to hold you back will give you the extra push to stay motivated on tough days. Here are tips to find support for your fitness routine,

• Workout buddy: Partner with your friend or a family member to make exercise more enjoyable. You are less likely to skip a workout if someone is there to show up with you.
• Personal Trainer: A personal trainer will help you review your goal, check in regularly, a nd assess your progress, to help you make continuous progress.
• Online Communities: If you prefer working out alone, join an online fitness group where you can ask questions and share your progress with like-minded people.

5. Track your Progress

Monitoring your progress will help you stay on track with your online fitness journey. When you have visual evidence of your improvements, it could motivate you to do better. Here are some ways to keep track.

• Use Fitness Apps: Take advantage of fitness apps to record your workouts, track your nutrition, and monitor your weight.
• Keep a journal: Write down your workouts, feelings, and thoughts in your wellness journal. When you reflect on your journey, you can show yourself how far you have come.
• Picture the Progress: Take weekly or monthly photos to capture your changes to witness your transformation and give yourself a motivation boost.

6. Stay Consistent Always

Motivation fluctuates, and it is completely natural. There will be days when you don’t feel like working out. But the key is to remain consistent, even when your motivation is low. Take a look at some tips to maintain your consistency.

• Create a Schedule: Plan your workouts ahead of time, just like any other appointment. For instance, you can create and stick to a 4-week exercise plan to create a habit, making it easy for you to stick with your routine.
• Focus on Discipline, Rather than Motivation: Motivation could fade, but discipline will last. On days when you don’t feel like working out, showing up and exercising even for 10 minutes, instead of your usual 1-hour workout, will help you keep going.
• Remember Progress Takes Time: Fitness results don’t happen overnight. Stay patient and trust the process, as consistent efforts add up over time. No matter how minor your achievements, they will help you stay encouraged along the way.

How Long Until Exercise Becomes Your Habit?

Are you familiar with the 21/90 rule? It means that it will take 21 days to develop a simple habit. When you follow it for the next 90 days, it will become your lifestyle. It can be applied to your personal training as well.

The best way to know if you have reached such an expected level of routine is to see how you would feel if you skipped your online training. If even the thought of missing your workout makes your day incomplete, then you are on the right track to forming a lasting fitness habit.

Wrapping Up!

A big problem for many individuals trying to stay fit is not feeling motivated. It can stop even the most committed one from reaching their fitness goals. To get past the obstacle, you need to change your workouts, set goals for your reach, and celebrate even small successes.

Virtual personal training offers digital fitness motivation through diverse activities and challenges to keep you engaged and inspired. Whether participating in an 8-week or 12-week fitness challenge or completing a 4-week full-body toning plan, Achieve Fitness Nutrition enables you to challenge yourself and strive for personal growth.

Start small,  embrace the process, celebrate every step forward, and create a healthier, happier version of yourself!