Reddit is a great community and a good source of advice on almost any topic. There are several threads on their site where people have asked for and offered advice for keeping motivated as a runner.
To save you from scrolling through them all, we’ve read them all and summarised the best advice from Reddit users:
- Don’t think about it, just do it
- Put your running shoes and gear on – you’ll find that tricks your body into thinking “This is something we’re doing” and you go from there.
- Go outside and run for a minimum of 50m – that’s all. Once you’re out and running, you’ll find more often than not you end up keeping going
- Don’t wait until you’re motivated, it may never come. Think in terms of discipline, do it whether you feel like it or not.
- Ignore the rules and do what works. For example, there’s no rule around what time you should run – if evenings work better for you, run in the evenings
- Focus on how you’ll feel afterwards. You rarely if ever regret going for a run.
- Be clear on your ‘why‘ – why are you running? To get fit? To lose weight? Reminding yourself of that.
- Schedule it in your diary
- Lay your running clothes out the night before
- Enter a running event
- You’ll either suffer the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Which will you choose?
