It’s a catchy title, right? Everyone is looking for ways to get motivated to do hard things. Myself included. Unfortunately I am going to burst your bubble here. Motivation might as well be a myth. For the sake of this particular blog, I am going in a fitness direction but rest assured –motivation is fleeting in all aspects of life.
Motivation exists for about 0.5 seconds after a night of binge eating or trying on bathing suits at Target. You decide you’ve had enough with hating the way you look, and you are going to eat healthy and go to the gym tomorrow. But then tomorrow rolls around and you work in an office with an oh so conveniently placed candy bowl and pizza Fridays. You feel terrible for already “ruining” another day, so you skip the gym. That “motivation” you had is long gone and the cycle continues. If this sounds eerily accurate to your life, it’s because I just painted a depiction of my own life 2 years ago
I’m not going to pretend like my initial desire for being “fit” stemmed from anything except aesthetics. I was focused exclusively on how I looked. No shame in my game, we all have to start somewhere. The reason I was finally able to make fitness a priority was when my goal, my “why”, became about being someone who didn’t make excuses to justify my habits.
So how do you actually get “motivated”?
Get disciplined. You are not going to be motivated every day. You are not even going to be motivated a majority of the time. Being disciplined is the difference between current you and future you. Discipline is such an underrated quality. Motivation gets all the credit when discipline is what is actually necessary to achieve goals –fitness or otherwise.
Become someone who is disciplined. Strive to be someone who keeps promises to themselves. Work on being someone that doesn’t make excuses. I’m going to drop some Rachel Hollis on you because it’s the best advice I’ve heard regarding health and fitness.
“Do it anyway.”
Exhausted? Do it anyway. Busy life? Do it anyway. You can come up with a million reasons to justify why you can’t go to the gym. You have to shut your brain off and go. It’s not easy, but it is simple.
Do hard things. Do things you don’t want to do and do them so consistently that they become habits so ingrained in you, you don’t even think about them anymore. Work out because you’re so dang proud of yourself when you do. Exercise because you want to be a good example for your kids. Do it because it’s your only “you” time. Find your “why”, remind yourself of it every time you want to quit, and value discipline over motivation every damn day.
