How to Stay Motivated Over the Holidays
For most of us, the holidays are, overall, a very enjoyable time of year. However, all of the festivities, food, priorities, and more that go along with the holiday can sometimes act as a major drain on your motivation and sidetrack you from your goals. Of course, motivation is like momentum; it’s much easier to keep pressing forward than it is to start back up again after you’ve come to a stop. In this article, I will take a look at what you can do to maintain your motivation over the holidays while at the same time enjoying all that the holiday season has to offer.Keep Stress at a Minimum
One of the several ways that the holidays tend to zap motivation is through the stress that they cause.
It’s unfortunate given that the holiday season is supposed to be a time to relax and step away from the stress and chaos of life.
In modern times, though, the holidays themselves can be quite stressful. Between shopping for gifts, planning parties, cooking dinners, making travel arrangements, and more, it’s easy to become overwhelmed.
Anytime I'm stressed out and overwhelmed, my motivation to continue with my training takes a hit. The key to keep this from happening is to try and not get caught up in all the chaos.
Even if you set concerns about your motivation and training aside, the holidays are supposed to be something that you enjoy rather than something that you survive.
Take a deep breath, relax, and realize what’s most important. Planning the perfect party or shopping relentlessly for all the right gifts is not the point of the holidays.
The point is spending time with those that you love and enjoying their company.
If you get back to the true spirit of the holidays and avoid all of the stress and chaos that we tend to get caught up in during the holiday season, you can avoid letting stress drain your motivation.
Don’t Go Overboard with the Relaxation
While it’s important to take a step back and relax a little through the holidays in order to keep from being overwhelmed, there’s a fine line between resting enough to avoid stress and taking off the entire holiday season.
There are only a handful of days in the entire holiday season that you will have to take off entirely. Every other day is a day that you can use to continue working toward your goals.
There’s no point in taking off the entire months of December and January just because of those few days. You can rest assured that your gym will still be open for the vast majority of the holiday season.
If you have a training schedule – which you should – stick to it throughout the holidays. You may have to interrupt your schedule some days during the holiday season, but, for the most part, you should still be able to stick to it.
If you make a commitment to maintain your training throughout the majority of the holiday season rather than taking the entire season off, there’s a good chance you’ll find that training during the holidays isn’t any more difficult than training any other time of the year.
Make the Most of New Year’s Resolutions
New year’s resolutions may seem cliched, but they are beneficial nonetheless.
For most people, the start of a new year is very motivational. It represents a blank page, a fresh start, and a time of opportunity.
In this way, the motivation that the new year brings tends to somewhat counterbalance the loss of motivation that most people experience during the holiday season.
If you want to get your progress back on track as soon as possible after the holidays, it’s a good idea to make the most of this motivational boost.
This January, make martial arts a part of your new year’s resolutions.
The exact goal that you set is entirely up to you – the important part is setting a goal that means something to you and following through with it.
Of course, many if not most new year’s resolutions tend to fall by the wayside as the year goes on. While sticking to your resolutions is always recommended, resolutions can be beneficial even they are forgotten by the end of the year.
After all, a few months of increased motivation and progress is still better than none at all.
Once the holiday season has ended, set a resolution for yourself and begin following through on it right away. At the very least, it’ll help you recover some of the motivation that you lost over the holidays.
Recruit an Accountability Partner
Having an accountability partner can help you stay motivated at all times of the year, and the holiday season is no exception.
Ideally, your accountability partner will be someone who has set goals that are similar to yours, such as someone from your gym. This way you can both motivate each other over the holidays.
Peer pressure isn’t always a negative thing, and a little pressure from someone that you don’t want to let down can go a long way toward keeping you on track at times when your motivation is waning.
Plus, having someone to train with is always more enjoyable and can make training over the holidays something that you want to do rather than something that you have to do.
