How do you stay motivated? An excellent question, and one I get all the time. A workout for skinny guys isn’t easy and you need to have the proper motivation if you are going to succeed. Staying motivated is very simple. There are two sources of motivation. You have your internal motivation and your external motivation, both of which are very powerful.

Types of Motivation

Internal motivation is something that comes from inside you, a reason you have that makes you do whatever it is you are doing. An example of internal motivation for working out would be to be more healthy. For me, these are the most powerful because there are so many of them, however sometimes this is not enough for some people.

External motivation is also another very powerful form of keeping the workout train on its proverbial tracks. External motivation is any kind of motivation that comes from an outside source. An example of this would be a personal trainer or a friend who pushes you to work out. “One more rep! Two more sets! Faster! Come on, you can do it!” This is also very powerful because you want to prove to your support group that you can do what you set out to do.

Using These to Your Advantage

So you have to do some soul searching if you want to come up with some internal motivation. This can be accomplished by asking yourself one simple question. Go ahead and do it with me. Say it out loud. “Why do I want to get in shape?”

Now grab a pen and write down all of your reasons. Some examples might be.

• To be more healthy
• To impress the opposite sex
• To safeguard from injury
• To keep up with my kids
• To gain self confidence
• To increase energy level
• To increase my pay (studies have shown those who are in shape draw substantially better pay)

Write down all of those internal motivational factors.

Now that you’ve got an extensive list of internal motivational factors, I want you to find some outside motivation. This can be a friend who is looking to get in shape, or perhaps a relative. Maybe a certain lady friend wants you to look better? This can even be an internet support group.

Any external motivational factor you can find, write that down on your list under your internal factors. Any time you feel like not going to the gym, not running, not eating right, whatever, consult your list. Remember why you started in the first place. You are doing this for a reason, and if those reasons are important enough to you, you will stick to it.

Is your health important to you? Is your spouse important to you? Are you important to yourself? I have a suspicion the answer to all of these questions is yes. If you want to live a healthy lifestyle, have self confidence, and overall just be a better person, the only thing that is stopping you is laziness. It’s time to listen to yourself. Stop being lazy. There’s just no reason for it.

Now you have a massive repertoire of reasons to get in shape. You have motivation from here to the moon. You need nothing else but to look at these every day and you will succeed. These principles can be applied to any walk of life.