Keep yourself motivated towards going to the gym with a few easy tips. The vast majority of people who sign up for gym memberships waste their money by only going for a short while and don’t see out the first year. What a waste of money. Don’t let that be you by following these 9 tips.

Write out your goal for going

Write down somewhere by your bed, the real reason you wanted to join the gym originally. Is it because you want to build muscle? Right it down. Is it because you want to lose some weight instead? Right it down. Is it because you want to improve your overall cardio fitness? Get it written down. Leave it somewhere besides the bed, on a bedside cabinet or somewhere you will be able to easily see it in the morning when you get out of bed. You can write it somewhere by the door of the house too, for those times when you’re due to go to the gym but are feeling less inclined to go.

Set yourself a shorter term goal

If you’re going to bulk up and increase muscle, set yourself a target weight for your favourite exercise that you want to reach in the next few weeks. Be realistic though, and don’t set yourself up for disappointment by aiming for the stars. If you’re going to improve fitness levels and you run, set a goal for being able to run a certain distance within a certain time limit, or if you run for a certain amount of time each session, give yourself a target distance to achieve. Again, be realistic, set yourself a reasonable goal for a few weeks time and go for it.

Keep a journal to monitor your progress

Writing down where your fitness or strength levels are right now is a very powerful motivator when you glance back a couple of months and see where you were back then. You can even take photographs so you can actually see the physical transformation in your body. This is another very powerful motivator as it’s much harder to notice and appreciate the change when you see your body every day.

Get a partner to go with

If you can get a friend or work colleague to accompany you to the gym it can be a real benefit. When weight training, you can ‘spot’ each other. Spotting is when someone is there to help if you can’t make that last rep. You can try as hard as you can and still know that if you can’t make it, you won’t be laid there trapped under the weight. You can also encourage each other as you go along and that alone can sometimes make the difference between a failed rep and a successful one. One very important word of advice though, whatever you do, pick someone who’s not going to moan all the time and waste your time at the gym. The last thing anyone needs is to listen to someone moaning and complaining all the time. It’s not motivating in the slightest and can have the totally opposite effect on your own performance when you’re there.

Know what you’re going to do when you’re there

Make sure you know what you’ll be doing when you arrive at the gym. It’s a little more straight forward if you mainly run, cycle or row, but either way, make sure you know which of these you’ll be doing, and if you’re doing them all, know which order you’re doing them before you get there. If you’re weight training, know which muscle group you’re going to be working and also have a good idea of which exercises you’ll be doing to work them.

Vary your routine

Arriving at the gym and doing the same thing all the time can become boring, so vary your routine. If you always row on a Monday, change it to running or cycling for the next month. If you do all three, change the order you do them in for a month instead. Same goes for weight training. Change the day you work your back and other muscle groups and change the exercises you do for them. Varying the exercises also has the added bonus of promoting more muscle growth as muscles can become accustomed to doing the same exercises.

Tell yourself 10 minutes only if needed

If you’re feeling like you’re not really sure if you can be bothered with it one day, tell yourself to go for 10 minutes, and if you really don’t want to be there after that, then you can give yourself permission to go home. I’m absolutely sure that 10 minutes into things you’ll want to stay and finish the session as it’s often that initial push to get you there that’s needed.

Make sure you have some good music to listen to

If you’re going solo, get yourself a small MP3 player and load it up with some good songs. Don’t forget to keep updating them every now and again to keep those songs from becoming stale and boring.

Buy an item of clothing that will fit you in 2-3 months

This works as both a motivator and as a reward. Set yourself a target weight and head towards it. Once you’re there, you’ll have a new outfit, and, you’ll look good in it too.