Fitness Motivation

Improve Your Motivation to Workout Part 5

Creating a Back-Up Plan

Don’t forget to check out Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 if you haven’t already.

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

We’ve spent this week establishing that there are no secret tricks to increasing motivation, and that progress will likely come from improving our relationship with exercise, improving our self-talk, and budgeting motivation.

However, no matter how well prepared you are, your motivation will eventually fail. We may have delayed the process, but sooner or later you will renege on your goals/action plans. Even if we’ve controlled every variable, you will:

  • Miss a fitness milestone (like lifting a certain weight or looking a certain way);
  • Fall off the bandwagon with your action plans;
  • Have a terrible day that leaves you stressed/sore/exhausted.
Plan
By STIL on Unsplash
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We’ve spent this week establishing that there are no secret tricks to increasing motivation, and that progress will likely come from improving our relationship with exercise, improving our self-talk, and budgeting motivation.

However, no matter how well prepared you are, your motivation will eventually fail. We may have delayed the process, but sooner or later you will renege on your goals/action plans. Even if we’ve controlled every variable, you will:

  • Miss a fitness milestone (like lifting a certain weight or looking a certain way);
  • Fall off the bandwagon with your action plans;
  • Have a terrible day that leaves you stressed/sore/exhausted.
Plan
By STIL on Unsplash
(more…)

Continue ReadingImprove Your Motivation to Workout Part 5

Improve Your Motivation to Workout Part 4

Budgeting Your Motivation

Make sure you’ve checked out Parts 1, 2, and 3 before you read this one.

Imagine that your motivation is money. The different disciplines in your life are countries with different currencies, so that your motivation is stronger in some domains, and weaker in others. Some people start with more or less money than you do, and their money may be stronger in different currencies compared to yours.

We often hope to overcome issues of fitness motivation by hoping we’ll have more of it next time. Just as hoping to win the lottery is not a good way to manage your finances, this is not a good way to maintain your motivation to workout when you’re preparing to take on a new challenge.

Money Motivation
By John McArthur on Unsplash

Continuing with this analogy, part 2 of this blog was about making sure we aren’t borrowing money from a sketchy source that will punish us with interest at a later date. Part 3 was about making sure we don’t associate our money with our self-worth or future prospects. This part will be focussed on budgeting your money.

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Continue ReadingImprove Your Motivation to Workout Part 4

Improve Your Motivation to Workout Part 3

Fitness Motivation and Identity

Identity
By Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash

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.

Fitness Motivation douche
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Continue ReadingImprove Your Motivation to Workout Part 3

Improve Your Motivation to Workout Part 2

Motivation Quality

Just getting started? Check out Part 1 first.

We often think about fitness motivation in terms of quantity. We complain when we have little or no motivation to workout, and want to get more. However, it’s also important that we focus on the quality of what motivates you.

What is the Source of Your Workout Motivation?

One of my favourite films is Inception. You should definitely have already seen it, but in case you haven’t, Inception is all about motivation. Inception is the task of planting an idea so deeply within someone’s subconscious that they accept the idea as their own without question. It’s exactly what we’re trying to do when we want to start a new habit, such as going to the gym or eating kale (for some reason). We want a new behaviour to become so firmly rooted in our psyche that it’s not a thirty-minute battle just to put the trainers on. This is no easy feat.

Inception Motivation
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Continue ReadingImprove Your Motivation to Workout Part 2

Improve Your Motivation to Workout Part 1

Introduction

When starting a fitness habit, one of the biggest obstacles will always be finding motivation to workout. Unless you’re superhuman (or kidding yourself), you’ve probably asked yourself one of the following questions at one point:

  • How do I get motivated to work out?
  • What is causing my lack of motivation?
  • Why do I get super motivated, only to fall off the bandwagon weeks later?

The Fitness Motivation Cycle

We tend to go through cycles of motivation. Sometimes, your motivation will be super high. This leads you to set up a new training or dietary routine. A few weeks pass by if you’re lucky, then boom – it’s all over. Your motivation takes a nosedive. You give up your hard work and go back to square one. Then the next time you feel pressure to change, the cycle begins anew.

Fitness Motivation Cycle
The Fitness Motivation Cycle
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Continue ReadingImprove Your Motivation to Workout Part 1