Healthy Fitness Inspiration

Ellen DeGeneres observed, “Beauty is about being comfortable in your own skin. It’s about knowing and accepting who you are.” What a wonderful, positive inspiration for those seeking optimal health inside and out.

So you workout, but have you ever thought about what drives you to do it? It isn’t only the way you look, is it? You are more than simply something to be looked at – that is, if you are thinking rationally and realistically. Healthy thinking is based on understanding that your reflection is not the definition of your worth.

Mark Twain wasn’t necessarily attempting to motivate people to exercise when he said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started,” but he may well have been. There are many paths to getting started and continuing along a healthy path of fitness inspiration – concentrate on the positive messages that you find to help you along the way.

When it comes to motivation, there are two forms: internal or intrinsic, and external or extrinsic. What’s this mean? It’s really not that complicated. I call these two the “inny” and the “outy” of exercise motivation. Think of your belly button.

What messages from others inspire you to workout? What messages are demotivating? What goals most drive you to work out? Do you notice that when those goals are “inny’s,” the ones that come from inside of you, you are more likely to jump into a workout routine?

Here are four concepts about motivation to help you achieve a healthy exercise routine and your weight loss goals: Self-Efficacy, FIT/Rational Thinking, SMARTER Goals, and Commitment Contracts.

1. Self-efficacy: A person with high self-efficacy believes in their ability to perform a task and achieve goals. Create it with early successes in your exercise routines, watch others succeed alongside of you, and find a supportive voice.
2. Fundamentally independent thinking (FIT): A fundamentally independent thinker understands that nothing makes a person upset, angry, or depressed; rather, what a person thinks about things determines how they feel. As Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” There is no motivation without this important “inner game.” Rid yourself of thoughts of inadequacy, predictions of failure and assuming others are reacting negatively to you especially at the gym or while working out on your Total Gym.
3. SMARTER goal setting: You will eliminate inconsistency from your health and wellness plans by making goals that are SMARTER: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely, developed Enthusiastically, and attached to Rewards.
4. Commitment contracts: A person commits to a behavioral change and then establishes a “contract” (with a partner, a friend, or through a website such as Stikk.com) whereby some consequence (usually a monetary one) results from the person failing to achieve their goal. The idea is that the desire to avoid the consequence helps keep people more committed to success.

Hopefully, Ellen DeGeneres’ observation about health and beauty will motivate you to work out today, tomorrow and the next day. The glow of good health, as has been pointed out, comes from healthy and regular exercise, sensible eating and rational thinking.

Share your inspiring messages that propel you in that healthy direction and help others find their own “inny” motivation. What are you telling yourself that you think others would find fitspirational?