Struggling with Motivation? We need to reassess how we look at motivation!
Have you ever had a lazy day at home where you thought to yourself “I should do something productive”, but struggle to get going?
Have you ever had a project waiting in the wings for the right time to get it done?
Have you ever thought “I’m too tired to go workout” or “I’m not feeling like going today”?
One of the biggest reasons why we don’t take action towards our goals, and one of the biggest hindrances to our success can usually be blamed on lack of motivation.
We typically look at things like this: We need to be motivated to take action, and then we will see results.
So when we feel unmotivated, we feel lethargic, tired, and can find multiple excuses to not do the things we want or need to get done. This is especially prevalent when we are looking at individuals in a health and fitness sense. We don’t go exercise because we feel unmotivated, or we don’t pre-plan our meals because we are feeling lazy. There are countless times we hear people say, “I don’t know how you stay so motivated all the time”. But the problem isn’t staying motivated. It’s our approach, and our mindset behind motivation.
Just like with anything else, when we first start in a fitness routine, we typically aren’t good at it, in fact, we suck when we first get going. Not knowing how to do the exercises, being physically exhausted early on, and having no idea what to eat or how big a portion size should be can all be extremely frustrating. This is typically what happens when people begin on their own without assistance or a good support system in place.
But you know what happens when we keep going despite not being very good at it to start? We get better at it. We learn more about how we can do the exercises effectively, we find we can last longer, we get stronger, and we learn how different types of food effect the body. In short, we begin to see results.
It might not be on the scale immediately, it might not be massive changes, but those small, steady changes that we see make the process more enjoyable. Once we start to enjoy it, it’s easier to get up for a workout, to follow a nutrition program, and easier to stay, well, motivated.
As mentioned before, our mindset usually draws the picture out as we need to be motivated to get moving, and as we get moving, we see results. When we have that all wrong. We need to take action first, then as we begin to see results, we can maintain and stay motivated much more effectively regardless of what our goal is.
This doesn’t mean hitting your ultimate goal but making sure we are hitting our smaller goals along the way to stay motivated to reach the big “pie-in-the-sky” goal. These goals can be as simple as getting 1 – 30 minute workout in per week, having a glass of water every morning after getting out of bed, or having a side salad instead of fries on date night. Once we start moving in the right direction, we gain momentum and start establishing new habits.
Every just start cleaning your kitchen, and then next thing you know you’re on a cleaning spree of your entire house? That’s an example of action (starting cleaning), leading to results (everything in the kitchen looking nice), leading to motivation (wanting to make the rest of the house look nicer as well).
We cannot wait to feel motivated to take action. Motivation can be fleeting, so take action, and as Nike says, “Just Do It!”
In Summary:
Stop thinking like this:
Motivation > Action > Results
And start thinking like this:
Rich Hill
CSEP – Certified Personal Trainer
RK Athletics – https://linktr.ee/RK_Athletics
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