When the end-of-year partying is over, it’s time to start doing sport again, intensively or otherwise.

But where’s the motivation going to come from?

For sportspeople, professional or amateur, the winter season or the festive period is a time to have a break and recharge physically and psychologically. There may not be a physical or medical reason for stopping doing sport for a time, but the desire to go out and work up a sweat may get elbowed into second place by the urge to go and do something else. The idea is not to stop for longer than two weeks, so that you don’t get soft and lose what you’ve built up. If you do decide to have a break, though, don’t beat yourself up about it. You’ll have had some fun.

But now it’s time to get back down to it!

For seasoned sportspeople, starting up again will be easier, because they’ve been expecting it. They’ve generally been missing it. Even so, start up gently. You can usefully start the New Year with a little dieting.

Some things that help with remotivation

For everybody else, restarting can be more difficult. Doing nothing, or doing the minimum, was pretty nice, so you have to remotivate yourself. Get your psyche to cooperate along the lines of “I’m going back to it, hey, it’ll be nice!”

Here are some approaches that may help: Set yourself, for example, one (or more) goals to attain in whatever physical activity it is that you do. You can also make a training plan for yourself, nothing too hard at the outset … and follow it. Maybe you find that restarting an activity on your own is not easy? Try getting a friend to do it with you. Think about all the benefits you will get from doing sport regularly. Visualise your feeling of moral satisfaction and wellbeing after a session.

In all cases, whether you’re restarting a physical activity after a break or you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to start one, go gently. And whether you choose to do it solo or with the additional motivation of a group, choose something you enjoy, rather than necessarily going along with the latest fashion that everybody’s doing. In a word, have fun. It’s the key to keeping it going.

Nu