Determine your intrinsic motivation

A person's intrinsic motivation can differ greatly from one individual to another. After all, if you look at the definition of motivation, it reads as follows:

Motivation is what drives an individual toward certain behavior. There is a strong personal element in this. It can be intrinsic motivation or extrinsic motivation. In fitness, that works as follows.

Intrinsic motivation
Someone who is intrinsically motivated to take part in fitness or another sport enjoys practicing that sport. A football player loves the game and plays football for the sake of football itself. The fact that it also keeps your fitness level up is often a nice bonus.

Extrinsic motivation
Someone who is extrinsically motivated to do fitness or another sport does that sport to achieve a specific goal. A football player who is extrinsically motivated may want to win prizes, such as the Champions League, or earn a lot of money. He or she gets less motivation from the game itself.

Discipline versus intrinsic motivation

Most people start fitness with extrinsic motivation. Almost nobody starts strength training "because it is fun". You want to look better, become stronger, be more muscular or leaner. Until training has become a habit and you can rely on routine, you will have to depend on pure self-discipline. Keep going and know that once it has become routine, you will not know any different and it will take much less effort to get off the couch and go train.

Training with a workout partner

An old Dutch saying goes: shared sorrow is half sorrow. That is not the main reason, but training together with a workout partner can help when you enter a period of declining motivation. Your workout partner can motivate you intrinsically and pull you through this period. Of course, you can return the favor if the situation is reversed.

Besides being able to motivate each other during difficult phases, training with a workout partner can also lead to better results. If you agree to meet someone at the gym at 8:00 p.m., you will not stay on the couch that evening. After all, someone is waiting for you.

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It can also lead to better results in the gym because you can spot each other. Spotting means helping the other person perform a fitness exercise so that they can train "until muscle failure". This creates a stronger training stimulus, which can lead to more muscle growth. Finally, training with a partner also leads to competitive behavior, making you inclined to give just a little more than when you train alone. Oh, and did we already mention that training together with someone is much more fun?

There is one caveat. Think of mountain climbers tied together with a rope so that if one falls, the other can help. However, it also applies that if one falls, the other can be dragged along if they are not strong enough. Ultimately, you train for yourself. If your training partner cannot make it one evening, that does not mean you do not have to train. You may then run into the problem that your training schedules no longer line up. So choose a serious training partner!

Let yourself be inspired by role models

Do you want to become big and muscular, for example? Then regularly watch videos of successful bodybuilders and/or read their books. After watching DVDs in which huge mass monsters attack the weights, I personally can never wait to dive into the gym.

Just search for fitness or bodybuilding motivation on YouTube, or read Schwarzenegger's old books, and you are guaranteed to work harder in the gym.

Adapt your goals to your situation

When you work toward a specific sport in a goal-oriented way, the chance is greater that you will actually achieve those goals. Break a large goal into smaller goals, so that every workout and every step brings you closer to your final goal. Of course, you may get injured or something unexpected may happen that requires you to adjust your goals. Be flexible and creative in that case and do not give up immediately. The road to success is never a straight line, so realize that you are not the first and certainly not the last person to face a setback.

Variation and variety

To keep challenging your body, variation and variety are necessary. Your body is a smart machine that will continuously look for balance, known as homeostasis. If you expose your body to heavy training stimuli, it will arm itself to be better prepared for them next time. But if you do not intensify the training stimulus, your body will not adapt any further than necessary.

The tricky part is that repetition is exactly what leads to routine faster. Although routine, as mentioned, makes it easier to keep going, it can also quickly become the trap of doing the same thing every time and achieving less. The routine should therefore be about the fact that you train, not how you train!

Track your progress

Measuring is knowing, and that also applies to fitness. If you track your progress and set small mini goals for yourself, there is a good chance you will be more successful than if you do not. Track your progress in a training log and record the number of reps, sets and weights you use for each exercise. Also measure your own body statistics, such as your weight, BMI and body fat percentage. Keep track of what happens when you make changes to your training, nutrition or supplement use.

Download the FITsociety app

Once you have found your intrinsic motivation, you can start working on achieving your goals. To do this as well as possible, you can track your progress through the FITsociety app. If you skip a workout or let yourself go with meals and snacks, it is immediately visible. That makes it visual for yourself. You can also use the FITsociety app to get help from personal trainers and other coaches who can then help get you back on track.

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