Staying Focused After Hitting Your Fitness Goals: The Keys To Mindset and Motivation

You lost weight, got in shape, and achieved your fitness goals. Now what? Staying focused is key to not falling back into bad habits.

Achieving your fitness goals — whatever they may be — is one of the most fulfilling parts of living an active and healthy lifestyle.

But what happens after you reach your goals?

It can be hard to stay focused on your health after you hit your goals.

But this is the most important time to really hone in on your fitness and healthy lifestyle habits so that you don’t fall back into old unhealthy habits.

Ready to stay in shape and keep the weight off for good? Keep reading for some top tips for staying focused and keeping your fit and healthy lifestyle intact.

Successful women share one common denominator. Find out the habits of successful women!

9 Keys to Staying Focused After Hitting Your Fitness Goals

1. Change Your Fitness Mindset

Life can get pretty hectic.

Between work, family, and your social life, it can be tough to stay on track with your fitness goals.

Exercise, at times, can feel like a chore!

But by changing your mindset, you will see that your fitness is something to be enjoyed and will keep you feeling young and alive.

We all know that exercise is important for our physical health.

On top of that, exercise itself can improve your mood, decrease stress levels, and help you feel empowered as a woman.

If you’ve found that you need a little extra push to get back on track, check out these top tips to regain your motivation, focus on your fitness, and live your healthiest life.

2. Schedule Your Workouts

Even after reaching your fitness goals, you should still make exercise a priority.

You should think of your workouts just like any other task that you need to complete during the day.

Maintaining your fitness is about enhancing your physical and mental health, and you should make that your mindset.

If you fall back into the habit of saying, “I'm too busy to workout,” you will lose a lot of the fitness you have gained on the journey to your fitness goal.

If you know that you have a busy schedule after work or in the evening, make it a habit to get up early and work out before your day starts.

Or you can even schedule a midday workout if you have a long lunch break.

If you put it on your schedule, you make it a daily task that needs to be checked off just like anything else.

3. Make New Fitness Goals

Just because you have reached one fitness goal doesn’t mean you have to stop!

Now is a great time to strive for a new health achievement.

If you set a weight loss goal and met it, how about trying a goal more focused on performance?

For instance, if you enjoy running, make it a goal to enter a 5K race, or improve upon a run time during a workout.

Or maybe you enjoy weightlifting and want to hit a new personal best on bench press or squat.

By focusing on new goals, you will continue to improve your health and fitness.

4. Recruit a Workout Buddy

If you want to stay accountable for your workouts, having a friend to push you is a great way to stay on track.

Plus, exercising with a buddy will not only encourage you to workout-it can also improve your fitness!

Women tend to push harder when they exercise with people that have a higher level of fitness.

In one study, individuals were assigned to either bike alone, bike with a high-fitness training partner, or bike with someone of lower fitness.

The participants that exercised with someone at a high level of conditioning actually exercised harder than those that exercised with someone of lower fitness.

This means that having a friend to work out with will not only keep you on track with your workouts; it will also motivate you to push yourself to new limits!

5. Get the Family Involved

Having a friend to work out with is great, but it’s also a good idea to get your whole family involved in fitness.

This will motivate your partner and your kids to want to fully engage in a healthy lifestyle.

If everyone in the house is adopting healthy habits, it will make it a lot easier for you to stick to this lifestyle as well.

It can be hard to stick to a fitness routine if you are the only one doing it.

But if your kids are counting on going for a walk or hike in the afternoon, this keeps you accountable for staying active with them.

The same goes for healthy eating habits.

If your family is eating hamburgers and pizza every night, it's a lot more difficult to make a separate healthy meal for yourself.

However, when you get the whole family to adopt a more nutritious diet plan, you can all stick to it together.

Plus, you won’t be tempted by having unhealthy food around the house.

Even studies have found an association between social norms and physical activity, and eating behaviors.

For example, women who observe others engaging in physical activity or certain eating behaviors may come to view these behaviors are ‘normative' or socially desirable and may adopt the same behaviors due either to a positive attitude about the behaviors or a shared belief in their value.

This means that when you see your family engaging in healthy eating habits and physical activity, you are more likely to continue to adopt these behaviors too!

This is a great learning experience for your kids too!

6. Try New Activities

When you made your first weight loss goal, you may have stuck to the same exercises and workout routine.

Now that you have achieved your goal, this is a great time to try some new activities.

By adding variety to your workouts, you can become re-engaged in a new fitness regimen.

This will help you not to fall back on old habits of skipping workouts.

You can try out a class at your gym, like a boot camp class or Zumba.

You could even join a run or bike group so that you will have others to try these new activities with

7. Make Notes To Yourself

Sometimes it can help to see things in writing.

Try leaving yourself little notes on post-its or even as alerts on your phone to remind you of the goals you have achieved so far.

You can keep before and after photos from the start of your journey to reinforce how hard you have worked to get to this point.

Or you can write out your workouts to keep yourself accountable for your fitness.

8. Try Meditation

Stress can be a major obstacle to exercise and can leave you feeling uninspired to work out.

Finding ways to reduce stress can help get you back on track to your fitness goals.

One way to do this is through meditation.

Research shows that mindfulness training is beneficial in reducing the symptoms of subclinical depression and anxiety and can reduce stress.

There are a number of different styles of meditation.

One of the easiest things to do is to start out with simple breathing techniques.

• Find a quiet room where you can be comfortable and there are no distractions.
• Sit still and begin to focus on your breath as you slowly inhale and exhale.
• Take note of where you feel your breath and really stay in tune with your body.
• Deeply inhale as you expand your chest and stomach, and then slowly exhale, really lengthening out the breath.

Try doing this for just five minutes to start and you will see how quickly this can calm your mind.

Fitness is as much about your mental health as it is about your physical health.

Meditation is a great way to get your mind back into focus and will help you feel re-energized to maintain a high level of fitness and health.

9. Keep a Positive Attitude

Everyone has ups and downs in their fitness journey.

Once you reach a milestone, it can be easy to fall back on old habits.

But even if you have a setback or two, that’s OK!

You worked hard to reach your goals and may need a few days to reset.

But then it’s time to get back on track and back to work to maintain that awesome level of fitness that you have achieved.

Staying Focused on Fitness

When you hit a weight loss goal, it's an amazing feeling.

After months of working your butt off (literally!), you may feel like you deserve to treat yourself.

And you do!

But after that, you don’t want to fall back into old habits and lose all of the progress that you have made so far.

By following some of these simple tips, you can maintain your weight and also your new healthy lifestyle.

Having the right mindset is the first step to staying on track with your fitness and staying motivated and accountable for your health!

*Please know that weight loss results & health changes/improvements vary from individual to individual; you may not achieve similar results. Always consult with your doctor before making health decisions. This is not medical advice – simply very well-researched info on staying focused.