There might not always be a race to train for right now and you might just be going out for a run cause you feel like you need to stay active, but it’s important to have a goal in mind, a goal to work towards.
In order to stay motivated for your running and to keep your spirits up even when it’s sometimes tough to get out there and go running, you should set a goal for yourself. Know what you're training for. This can be a time goal, being able to run 1 hour without stopping, or running a 10K in 45 minutes. Your goal can be to be able to run a half marathon when you’re training for a race or maybe you have a goal that you want to lose weight.
Whatever your goal is, make it clear what you want to achieve. You can write it down somewhere for yourself or post it on social media if you feel that would give you some sort of accountability. Once you tell the world, you kinda have to what you said you’d do.
Of course it might be scary to tell everybody your goal, but you need something to drive you, so at the very least set the goal for yourself. Keep in mind what it is you are trying to achieve and know that whenever you are training, whenever you are out there running you are working on reaching that goal. Maybe you didn’t feel like it today, but you got out there and you are working on your goal.
If you need some accountability to achieve your goal you can find a training buddy, you don’t even have to go out training together, but if you both have the same goal you are working towards, the same race to train for or you both want to become faster runners, then you can motivate each other to put in your training. It doesn’t have to be competitive, though it can be, but just having somebody else that is going through the same thing will help you to stay motivated and the fact that there is somebody there that you’ll have to tell you didn’t put in the work when you don’t feel like it, might keep you from skipping your exercise.
I like to set goals for everything, it keeps me motivated and accountable. Goals for races, goals at the beginning of the year, goals for my speed, goals for everything that I want to see change in. If you don’t set a clear goal then you don’t really know what you’re working for and it is a lot easier to stop working at it or just quit. When you have a clear goal in mind, you know why you’re doing what you’re doing and it helps you to push yourself. Plus of course there is that moment when you reach your goal, that is much sweeter when you set a clear goal for yourself and you finally achieve it.
So put pen to paper, write down what your goals are, what you want to achieve. Stick it on your computer screen, your refrigerator, your treadmill, wherever you know you will see it, especially at times when you know you might be struggling with working on your goal. Hold yourself accountable and put in the work to reach your goal.
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