Background and purpose: Technological discoveries have created excess time, but the time gained is often spent sitting and enjoying the benefits of technological innovation, and its direct negative effect is visible in the emergence of many new diseases. In order to combat a sedentary lifestyle, it is necessary to carry out physical activity which is an important determinant of both physical and mental health. There is indisputably clear evidence of the benefits of regular physical activity, but despite this, barriers prevail in most people, whether personal or environmental, and the most common barrier to physical activity in humans is motivation. The aim of this literature review was to determine what are the most common motives in young and older people to engage in physical activity. Materials and methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted in the PubMed, Google Scholar and ResearchGate databases with the aim of finding research on the motivation to engage in physical activity. The search was limited to papers in English and Croatian. Results: 30 studies were found most of which were published in the period from 2015-2020. year (N= 26), while a smaller number of studies are older than 2015 (N= 4) but still within 10 years. 15 researches were conducted on young people, and when the motives of all articles are summarized the motives of enjoyment, fitness, improvement of health and improvement of appearance were most often mentioned. When we summarize the motives of the other 15 selected studies conducted on older people of different professions, the ones most often mentioned are the motive of enjoyment, fitness, improved health, improved appearance, socialization and weight maintenance. Conclusion: Comparing the younger and older population of all 30 articles, almost the same motives are present, but still in the older population there are two other motives that are common, namely socialization and weight maintenance.