INSPO Magazine September 2019

Reigniting your
FLAME
I think we can all be quite thankful that this winter felt mild
compared previous years. However, that doesn’t mean that the
winter blues didn’t kick in, that you missed out on seasonal
effective disorder (SAD), or that you didn’t lack motivation
during the last few months.
Let’s face it, many of us treat winter as
an off season because it’s easier to stay
home than it is to stick to a regular
training regime. So now that we’re through
winter, why hasn’t that motivation to eat
clean and train mean kicked in straight away?
Don’t worry, I get it – I’m still battling
every morning to choose the gym over my
nice comfy warm bed. So how do we get that
drive back, how do we get motivated and
how do we reignite our flame?
VALUES
Let’s start with our main key drivers in life –
our values. These are the core of who we are
as a person, and depending on your beliefs,
they may be expressed differently such as
your morals, your rule book, your guiding
light, etc.
We all have our own personal core values
and it’s important to know what they are and
understand them, as they drive our decisions
in all areas of our lives.
Our personal values guide our behaviours,
choices and decisions and are a huge part of
what situations we end up in.
Different for all of us, they are influenced
by our role models, upbringing, cultural
beliefs, experience, etc.
Your personal values may be things such
as honesty, work ethic, authenticity, and once
you identify what drives you, then you have
the starting point of what guides your goals,
what motivates you, what makes you who
you are and hopefully some more insight
into yourself as a person.
For example, one of your values might
be to treat your body as a temple – which
is an indication of why you choose to live a
healthy lifestyle.
MOTIVATION
Once we understand our values, we can then
figure out what our motivation is and whether
it’s intrinsic or extrinsic.
Intrinsic motivators are internal motivators
that make us feel good, things that make
us happy, things that we enjoy and provide
us with a sense of accomplishment and personal
satisfaction.
Then we have extrinsic motivators, which
are an external motivator such as recognition
from peers, rewards such as money, and
external praise.
These things still make us feel good and
18 INSPO SEPTEMBER 2019