What motivates you?
From her kids to her critics, rugby legend, broadcaster and Vitality team member Maggie Alphonsi shares her motivators for the year ahead, and an unusual method of turning the tide on failure
MAGGIE ALPHONSI
“A big focus for me is my family. I’ve got two kids, a wife and they get me up every day. I just want to do well for them”
BE WARY OF TO-DO LISTS
“I don’t do a to-do list; I do a what I have achieved list. That motivates me because – at the end of the day – I want to say what I’ve achieved. That can be to do with exercise goals or career goals, or things that are important to me that day. If I write a to-do list and I don’t achieve everything on there, I feel like I’ve failed and I’m trying to get away from the feeling of failure. I’d rather have the feeling of accomplishment.”
CELEBRATE THE SMALL WINS
“I also celebrate small wins. I am one for those wins and believe acknowledging them is so important. Sometimes you achieve something, but you just move onto the next big thing, or the next goal. So, when I do something that I’ve achieved, I celebrate it. A celebration doesn’t have to be big; it could be something as simple as going out for a coffee, but it’s more about recognising the achievement.”
HAVE A ‘WHY’
“I make sure I know what my ‘why’ is. A big focus for me is my family. I’ve got two kids, a wife and they get me up every day. I just want to do well for them. And lay a foundation for my kids to be successful in the future. I also get energised by other people’s journeys and stories. Because if you share your journey, your struggles and your vulnerability, people share theirs with you and they share with you how strong they are.”
HARNESS NEGATIVITY
“I’m also motivated by people’s negativity, especially in the work that I do in broadcasting. Criticism is very visible. I’m driven by the fact that people doubt you or think you shouldn’t be there, or people think you are there for the wrong reasons and that drives me to keep going: to prove the nay-sayers wrong.”
FIND YOUR TEAM
“My final motivator is the people around me. I make sure I have a team, ‘Team Maggie’. I surround myself with people who, when I start to struggle, I can lean on to motivate me – or they make me feel grounded or give me a bit of energy.”
“One thing can’t keep you motivated; you need a toolbox you can tap into when you need it...“
Read more from Maggie on her book launch Winning the Fight: My Autobiography and how rugby, not only changed her life, but saved it, here.
Tipping the balance
Getting active is hard enough, but keeping it up is another thing entirely. Finding motivation involves focusing on the reasons you want to exercise, rather than the reasons why you don’t, explains Vitality Coach, Jonathan Kibble
Staying active, especially during the winter, can be challenging. I like to think of motivation as a seesaw. On one side are your reasons to get off the sofa, on the other side are the reasons not to. To get physically active – and stick to it – lies in tipping the balance of the seesaw towards taking action. Two ways to do this is to, as Maggie mentions above, find your ‘why’ and not take on too much. I explore these two tips below.
1
ASK WHY?
Keep asking ’why’ until you have a real reason to want to get active. Could it be that you want to improve your physical activity, or feel conscious that you can’t play with your kids without getting out of breath? Or want to lose weight?
2
JUST FOR TODAY
