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New to this series? Be sure to read Part 1 and Part 2.

It’s easy to look at all the success stories on social media and convince yourself that the people who are full of fitness motivation have some quality that you don’t. This narrative is perpetuated by captions about how “motivation is BS,” and “if you want something enough, nothing will stop you.” These statements may be true in the eyes of the person sharing them because they can’t relate to your motivation obstacles. Occasionally, it’s a lie perpetuated to portray success, garner legitimacy, or simply provide social media bragging rights.

However, this can be an unhelpful message to hear every day if you can’t relate (which is why you should filter your social media as in part 2). Portraying fitness motivation as an immutable, God-given attribute can be incredibly disheartening if you struggle with staying on course. By the same token, believing that everyone else in the gym is inherently more motivated than you can make it an intimidating place to be. You can easily find yourself thinking that you’ll never achieve your goals just because you don’t have the inherent fitness motivation to do 100 push-ups first thing in the morning. So many of my clients have come to their first session with these kinds of misconceptions about what qualities it takes to get results – and whether or not those qualities.

Challenge the Narrative

These preconceptions are powerful, but you need to realise:

• There is nothing inherently superior about people who stay motivated in the gym;
• People that are motivated to exercise probably struggle with motivation in other areas of their life.
• “Motivated” people may in fact be driven by compulsive behaviour or negative pressures, which you should not be envious of.
• There is absolutely nothing wrong with people who struggle to get motivated.

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Change Your Identity

It’s important that your sense of identity isn’t held hostage by your wins and losses, because you aren’t always going to be winning. If we frame our lack of fitness motivation in terms of our identity (“I cheated on my diet, I’m a quitter, I have no willpower”) we encourage an all-or-nothing mentality in which we are either 100% committed or 100% defeated. In this scenario one bad day will usually snowball into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In addition, characterising yourself as weak-willed or flaky is a great way to craft a narrative in which you can never succeed. This applies whether we’re talking about missing a workout or going against your dietary changes. That failing becomes an irrevocable part of who you are.

Everyone has skipped a workout, or over-consumed on calories, or skimped on their rehab. What matters is whether you view them as isolated moments, or some kind of statement about your moral fibre.

Tasks to Improve Your Self-Image

Task 1: Ditch the Perfectionism

• The negative generalisations we make about ourselves often come from comparing ourselves to a perfectionist view of what our fitness industry should look like.
• The fitness industry is chock-full of sources telling you how you should feel. According to these sources you need to be determined every second of every day, and 100% #lovinglife.
• When reality bites and something goes wrong, it can feel like you’ve fallen well short of this perfectionistic ideal of fitness and confirms all of your doubts about your character.
• Then, your motivation takes a beating and it feels like there’s something wrong with you for not matching up to the industry hype.

Be Realistic

Always Remember…

Falling off the fitness band wagon does not prove anything about your integrity, nor does it say anything about your future chances of success.

Look at lapses in motivation as isolated events.

Remind yourself that every day is another chance to get it right.

In part 4, we’ll be trying to do just that by budgeting your motivation.

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