It’s December 29th and you are eagerly anticipating the New Year and the resolutions you are waiting to fulfill. January 1st passes, the gym population swells to capacity, and everything is going well. By the end of January that surge of gym goers has subsided greatly, I see it at my gym every winter. Why do some people make such a commitment and then seemingly so easily give it up a few weeks later? And it’s important to note that this lack of motivation isn’t just for the gymnasium newbies. It affects me and historically I have been dedicated when it comes to exercise. As a matter of fact, I am in a funk right now and have been for the last several weeks, it’s actually my motivation for writing this article. Regardless of your exercise history, dealing with a lack of drive or motivation can impact anyone, whenever, for a variety of reasons. A change in economic income could cause stress, a child now taking music lessons during your habitual workout time, anything can cause a lapse in wanting to push yourself physically. And as we all realize, a lot of the time, the relationship between your physical state and the mental and emotional ones, are very closely interconnected. When you feel low emotionally, it’s extremely difficult to find the motivation necessary to raise your heart rate and burn some calories. And to look at it from the other direction, which is the one that gnaws and nags at the back of my mind, is when I’m feeling negative about myself physically; it definitely weighs on me mentally. Let’s try to avoid those low points. If we keep finding a source of motivation, and where you find it might keep changing, we will never approach the down times. We are going to look at a couple of ways to try and keep, or restore, that fire in your belly.
One way to see a purpose in your exercise and perhaps healthy eating habits is to set goals. Setting goals is important for this and for many aspects of your life. If you wake up each morning without some goal, any goal, your whole day, week will be rudderless. It is significant to set a couple of different types of goals. Ideally you’d want at least a short term, an intermediate, and a long term goal. If you set only a short term one, you’ll achieve it quickly and be left without a new direction unless you set another. If you only have a long term goal you might become discouraged and stop when you feel like it’s taking too long to see your results. Set your first one that you feel you could realistically obtain in the next week or two, and then set an intermediate one that you could make in like 2-6 months. For your long term goal, set one for 6-12 months. Perhaps revisit your goals every week and revise as needed, especially the short term one as you cross them off your list. Make them realistic and achievable. Keep them visible so that you see them every so often. Repeat these goals to yourself. I try to participate in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I have been doing it for about five years and I still put one or two goals on 3X5 index cards and tape them to my bathroom mirror. Seriously, one right now reads “DO NOT let them smash you in half guard.” Might not make sense to a non-grappler but the purpose is the same. I see it quite a bit and I see it typically right before heading out to the gym. I have known people to place their goals opposite their bed on the wall that they face when they roll out of bed, they are the first things they see each day. Some examples, from short term to long term, might be: to shave 30 seconds off your run time by the end of next week, then to run at least 4x every week for the next eight weeks, and then to finish a 10k by the end of spring. Record your progress towards these goals. Some people keep logs, others scratch their notes on those goal cards. Set little achievement goals to obtain so that when you are recording your progress you feel like you have accomplished something big. Maybe it was an extra five pounds on the bench today, or that you lost three pounds without really paying attention to your weight.
One of my main issues with keeping my get up and go is maintaining a routine. Exercise especially has to be an automatic part of your day. After a while it becomes second nature to wake up, grab your gear, and head out the door. When I fall out of this schedule, it is usually because I have replaced that item with another, and unfortunately it is almost always with an item less worthwhile. Be careful of excuses if you are like me and this area is your weakness. Well I can take today off because I really pushed it yesterday or I don’t need to go to the gym tonight because making dinner will take too long, blah blah. Get rid of the excuses. This could be an entirely different category but we will dovetail into this topic. If you feel like you just don’t have time today for cardiovascular work, ask yourself if you had, or have, time for Facebook? What about television? Or remind yourself how much better and full of life you’ll feel immediately after working out. That runner’s high, go chase it. No, you won’t experience that high unless you really push yourself but the smaller effects are still the same on your psyche. It is so obvious to tell from the parking lot of the gym those that had a good, productive workout. People exit the gym with smiles usually, flexing or stretching their arms or backs, and then they have the whole day to reflect on that butt kicking workout they survived. Use those feelings you’ll be sure to have after as drive. Don’t you almost always feel better and more confident about yourself after exercise? I know I do. I am a little guy and don’t lift these big huge weights. But I sure feel invincible knowing I pushed myself. Here is my personal little nugget; this is what makes me feel invincible during and after pushing myself. I think of how 95% of the population probably couldn’t complete the workout I just did, nor would they want to. I despise running and ask myself, who else is up running right now in the dark, breathing this fresh air, experiencing nature and the sunrise? Not many and that pushes me to take another step forward.
Lastly you want to make sure you are enjoying it and having fun. If not, why are you doing it? People who exercise because they HAVE to often times are the ones who end up tapering off and then quitting. So let’s say you work out to get healthy. But you hate working out. Why then would you workout in order to prolong something you dislike? No, exercise isn’t happy, fun joke around time but if you are able to imagine the results you’ll see in a couple of days or imagine how you’ll feel to cross off one of those goals that should make it enjoyable. Try to bring a friend with you. Not only will this improve the social aspect for you. It will probably have two more effects as well. One, consciously or subconsciously it will create a sense of competition. You don’t want that person to outdo you too much so you’ll push yourself. Second it will motivate you to go as you will disappoint the other person by not going, or you will feel down as you know they are there, working out and sacrificing while you “like” some little kitten video on the web. Above, it mentions the importance of setting up a routine. It is just as important to schedule some down time as well. I wouldn’t change that day around week to week unless you have to. If you set up your time to always have certain days off, again you have a goal to press towards. You know with certainty that if you can just make it to Friday, you get all Saturday off. Use that relaxation day as fuel while you are straining to push that weight up.
Making exercise enjoyable, setting both readily achievable and harder to get goals, and establishing a schedule are all great ways to find or restore your motivation. Motivation can be a tricky notion to grasp a hold of and many people struggle with it every day. Try to find what works for you and implement those strategies. There are so many more besides those three, ideas like committing publicly, discovering inspiration, and taking photos. Now I am actually motivated and can’t wait for the gym session tonight.
