When our motivation wanes it can often be a struggle to regain it. The key to sustaining motivation is often in how you initially take action to make changes in the first place.

I have recently joined a new gym! It is the 5th time in my life I have joined such an establishment, so I had to seriously consider how I was going to activate my motivation to make it work this time.

In light of the fact that over 80% of people who sign up for gym/leisure club membership, stop going within the first 3 months, it was time I seriously considered my ongoing motivation enablers. If truth were known I never even managed to achieve 3 months of regular visits to the other 4 gyms!

So what makes this time any different? Firstly, I decided on a set of criteria - Motivation Enablers - that would inspire me to increase my physical activity regularly...

1. Have fun

2. Meet new people

3. Be part of a group doing the activity

4. Work with people who share my philosophy about exercise and weight loss

5. Find an activity that inspires me to keep going back / doing more

6. Easily accessible

7. Inexpensive

Then I started to think about all the abundance of choices open to me. I set myself a criterion to assess my choices against. Quite a number of my ideas were discarded, as they did not fit my criteria. It was then that I realised that all the other physical activities I had tried in the past, and didn't stick to regularly (including the gym), such as swimming, walking and cycling, I had undertaken alone. No wonder I hadn't stuck at them, they did not match my criteria of being part of a group.

The next stage in my search for the right exercise for me was to be a 'butterfly.' To flit between different activities, or in some cases just explore them a few times...

* Dance classes

* Rambling Group

* Yoga lessons

* Ladies only gym

* Aquarobics

Trying out a number of activities was great fun, I met new people and it left the door open for me to put a few new activities into my life instead of just the old ones. As it turned out, to my great surprise it was the Ladies only Gym, Curves, with their Abbreviated Resistance Training that I found ticked all my boxes.

Now that all my Motivation Enablers are ticked I find myself seriously looking forward to my fun activity every day. Why don't you set some Motivation Enablers for your increased activity and then go out and have fun finding what really suits you.

Happy hunting!

Chrissie Webber is a published author, business coach and leadership trainer. As Managing Director of Life-Shapers Ltd she is developing her online weight-loss motivation company http://www.lifeshapers.co.uk into a franchise of Life Shapers Weight Management Coaches.

Her track record in the area of weight management is firstly a personal one. Following a lifetime of weight issues - at her heaviest, over 21 stone and a massive size 30 - she has personal experience of diets and their devastating effect on size and psyche.

With a background in nursing, psychology and business coaching, coupled with a lifetime of dieting, she developed and successfully used a series of models and tools that enhance weight loss motivation. Now over 5 dress sizes smaller and having sustained her weight loss for several years she has written a book about her motivational journey. Weight Loss, Life Gain - A Motivational Journey to Permanent Weight Loss was published in January 2008 by Accent Press.

Her Blog http://www.chrissiewebber.co.uk and free monthly eZine now offer support to others.