Welcome to your fitness journey! Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your fitness to the next level, it’s important to have a positive attitude and mindset. Since the onset of the pandemic, many of us have been lacking in motivation and have lost sight of our goals, both fitness and otherwise. Covid increased the prevalence of anxiety and depression by a staggering 25% worldwide. Many are still recovering from this and trying to get their groove back, especially when it comes to their health and fitness. It’s important to celebrate small successes along the way, stay motivated, and take care of both your physical and mental health to achieve your fitness goals.

Jamie Haleva, Nutrition Expert at Myprotein shared a positive approach to achieving your fitness goals in the new year. The focus of this approach is to support yourself and prioritize your health (mental and physical) and happiness when going after your goals.

1. Positive thinking

Positive thinking is something that often goes underrated and is extremely powerful in terms of motivation and achieving goals. Not only that, positive thinking has a host of health benefits in itself. The language you use with yourself affects your mind, happiness, and motivation. So this year, when outlining and trying to achieve your fitness goals, make sure you stay positive.

Creating goals using positive language will remove a lot of the stress that comes with goals that are born from negative thoughts. The idea is to create goals that you will want to accomplish, not ones you feel you have to accomplish. This includes not being hyper-critical of yourself. If you miss a day at the gym, don’t tear yourself down over it.

Simply take it day by day, and try to do better tomorrow. Allow yourself to fail as many times as it takes, the important thing is that you keep trying. Also, be sure to reward yourself for small achievements and record your progress to keep yourself motivated.

2. Positive reinforcement

You can motivate yourself to accomplish your fitness goals by using positive reinforcement and rewarding yourself with something you love after working out. Positive reinforcement is a technique people use to push themselves to perform a certain behaviour by introducing a desirable outcome after performing the behaviour. So for example, if you love watching movies, you can reward yourself with a movie every time you work out to motivate yourself to keep exercising. You can also achieve a similar effect by combining working out with something enjoyable and gaining motivation through positive associations.

3. Health-oriented goals

Part of a positive approach to accomplishing your fitness goals is creating health-oriented goals rather than image-oriented ones. This means that your fitness goals should be centred around things you want to improve health-wise. For instance, if you want to be leaner, your goal should be to build muscle and get to a muscle mass percentage that is healthy for your weight.

The goal should not be to achieve a specific aesthetic. The focus here should be on creating a better version of yourself in terms of health, strength, or endurance, and not changing the way you look to fit a certain mold.

4. Trying new things

Don’t be afraid to try workouts you’ve never heard of before. A positive mentality means being okay with getting out of your comfort zone and trying things you’ve never tried. People are often afraid to join new workout classes or even join a gym out of fear they aren’t fit enough or don’t belong.

This year is about letting go of those fears and being confident in yourself. This will give you a sense of accomplishment and pride. You may also find new workouts you really enjoy and can incorporate into your routine on a regular basis.