Loss Of Motivation
January is the month that has gym owners licking their lips. As new years resolutions are struck "get fit" features near the top of many lists. Unfortunately, many of these resolutions are never reached. People start their New Year fitness pursuit highly motivated, they start working out every day and it almost seems easy in their motivated state. However, after several months, that motivation starts to wear off. Around March every year, many people stop exercising altogether, only for this cycle to repeat again the next year. In my opinion, when it comes to fitness, motivation is overrated. People wait to feel motivated to get started and they rely on it to keep them going. What if I told you there is something far more effective than motivation when it comes to achieving your fitness goals?
The big reason you fall off your new year's fitness kick, is that you set your workout schedule based on your motivated state of mind. This will more often than not lead you to bite off more than you can chew. You may have gone from not training to now training every day. You can stick to it while motivation is high, but when you've had a bad day at work, or you're tired, or your kids are sick, motivation wanes and you are unable to sustain that same schedule.
I don't have a problem with motivation. I love diving into a project when I'm feeling motivated. In fact, many leaders, speakers, and coaches make their living by motivating people. It certainly has its place and some people thrive off that style. My philosophy is to use motivation but not rely on it. Here's the thing; motivation is a feeling, and just like any feeling it is fleeting. Feelings can come and they can go. Many people don't make a start with exercise because they are waiting to feel motivated, but often that feeling doesn't come. On the contrary, you can take on too much while you are feeling motivated and can't sustain it when that motivation wears off. In fitness, I feel there is an over-reliance on motivation to get started and to keep going.
Many of us have a belief that motivation leads to action, but it is action that leads to motivation.
While many people wait to feel motivated before getting started. others just make a start. This is where the magic happens. How often have you procrastinated on starting a job or project because you were lacking motivation? After putting it off, one too many times, you can't stand to look at the unfinished job anymore, and you will yourself to get started. Then, after making a start, you finally start to feel motivated, you get invested in the job, and it flies by.
you start a project and then the ideas start to flow
you start cleaning one room then you end up cleaning the whole house
you rake some leaves in the garden then find yourself spending a half day in there
It is taking action which leads to getting motivated, yet we often waste so much time waiting for the opposite.
Why you shouldn't rely on motivation in fitness and what is more effective.
So, I've brought up two big problems with relying on motivation;
When you don't have it, you won't get started
When you do have it, you may be inclined to overestimate what you can sustain
It may be easy to brush over that second point, but it is difficult not to do more when you are feeling motivated. When it comes to fitness, more does not always mean better. So what should you rely on, if not motivation? What is more effective for achieving your fitness goals?
Instead of relying on motivation, I like to rely on something much more effective- discipline. Where motivation is a feeling, it is fleeting. On the other hand, discipline is a skill, and just like any skill, it can be trained. Discipline is the skill that will lead you to get started. Discipline is the skill that will keep you on track when motivation is lacking, and discipline is the skill that will actually lead you to long-term sustainable results.
But what if I'm not a disciplined person?
You may think that sounds all well and good, but you're just not a disciplined person. That's just a limiting belief, you're just not a disciplined person yet! If you've started a fitness kick every New Year for the last decade and have failed every time, is it little doubt that you would feel that way? The body of evidence supports that belief. The thing is beliefs can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Every year, when you fall off the wagon, you reinforce the belief that you aren't a disciplined person, and that you can't see things through. The stronger the belief gets, the more it starts to become true, and the more likely you are to fail on your next attempt.
Discipline is a skill.
When I was a little boy I got my first push bike. The trouble was I didn't know how to ride it. I believed that I couldn't ride the bike, I'd never done it before. Riding a bike is a skill and when we all start out we don't yet possess that skill. So, did my parents get me a full-sized, adult, downhill, mountain bike, then take me to the top of a mountain, place me up on the seat, then push me down the hill? Of course not! Had they done that, I may have gone through my whole childhood believing that I wasn't capable of riding a bike. Instead, they bolted on a set of training wheels, so I could learn how to pedal and learn how to steer the bike. So, why do you approach fitness, and learning the skill of discipline, by going to the top of the mountain and trying to conquer the slope?
One of the questions I ask a client starting out in fitness is:
Right now, how many days a week could you exercise if you had to stick to it for the rest of your life?
I think this is a really important question. People tend to approach fitness with a very short-term view. This helps me, meet the person where they are at. You can look at the science till the cows come home, on the optimal training frequency, but it's only optimal if the person can actually stick to it. For most people, I like to look at their life, and where they are coming from, and then plan the workout schedule around their life. This is the opposite approach to what many take when starting out their own fitness kick. They pick the workout schedule they think is best and then try and fit their life around that.
The reason I like to meet people where they are is, I understand the importance of exercise becoming a habit. Some of my favourite reading revolves around habit creation. James Clear's - "Atomic Habits," must be one of the most quoted books by coaches, and for good reason. Much of fitness is taking habits that aren't serving us, and replacing them with ones that do. In much of the material I've read on habits, the same quote kept popping up, from a 1700s poet, named John Drysden. It held true then, and it still holds true now, He said,
" We first make our habits, then our habits make us."
Habits shape our identity. If you look at people who have exercised for a long time, they have made exercise a part of their identity. They are a person who exercises. They have a belief that they are a person who exercises, and this is supported by the weight of evidence (the habit of exercise which they have built over time). I discussed limiting beliefs earlier, whereby, our minds work against us to make a limiting belief true. For example: If you believe you are not a disciplined person, when you are faced with a choice to be disciplined or not, your mind is going to favour supporting your current belief (I am not a disciplined person) which will protect your current identity.
The good news is you can change your identity, and people do it all the time. If I offered a smoke to 2 people who were quitting smoking and got the following replies:
"No thanks, I quit smoking!"
"No thanks, I don't smoke!"
I can tell you straight away, I'm backing in the second person over the first, to make it stick. Smoking is still a part of the first person's identity, and they are a smoker who has quit. The second person's identity is that of a non-smoker. When each of these people is faced with a choice, the mind will favour protecting their identity.
For person one, every decision to not smoke- has to defy their current belief (that of a smoker)
For person two, every decision to not smoke-supports their current belief (that of non-smoker)
Extrapolate that over the many times they will be faced with that choice and tell me, which one do you think has the better chance of not smoking again? Identity is powerful!
How do you change your identity?
By using the below process, to your advantage ,rather than have it work against you.
Discipline -> Habits -> Identity
You want to become a person who exercises, so you need to build the healthy habits that are going to lead to that identity. To build those habits you are going to need to develop the skill of discipline. Making something a habit takes time and repetition, James Clear says it takes around 2 months, as the ballpark, but it varies depending on the habit, the person, and the circumstances.
Here's an exercise I like to do with clients when pursuing any goal that you can apply yourself. Write down the following, and answer:
Identity: Who do you need to become in order to achieve your goal?
Habits: Make a list of as many habits as possible that the above person possesses.
Discipline: From the list of habits above pick ONE that is the easiest for you to commit to, then commit to performing that task until it becomes a habit.
When it no longer takes any willpower to perform that task it has become a habit,, and you are ready to add another from the list.
So, how does this look for a common fitness goal?
I will pick a common goal.
Goal: Wanting to be leaner (not a S.M.A.R.T goal} but a common one, nonetheless
Identity: In order to be leaner I need to become a person who exercises, prioritizes health, eats in a healthy and sustainable way, and nourishes my body.
Habits: Some examples of healthy habits this person may have include but are not limited to:
sleeps 8 hours a night
drinks adequate water
walks daily
eats fruits and vegetables daily
eats adequate protein
lifts weights
eats in an energy deficit
spends time with people who have achieved a lean body
reads about health and fitness
moves their body
spends on their health
recovers from stressors
Discipline: Building on the skill of discipline is not limited to fitness. Showing up and performing any task repeatedly over time will hone the skill. When I first became interested in habit creation, I had some unhealthy habits, that weren't serving me. As I looked to replace them with healthy habits, I made my own list. I didn't pick lifting weights, or any form of exercise, it wasn't diet-related or had anything to do with nutrition. I took my inspiration from the masters of discipline, the military. The first task I worked on until it became a habit, was to make my bed.
Start developing the skill of discipline, even performing the simplest of tasks repetitively will hone the skill. As the simple tasks become a habit, the easier they get, and the more times you do this, the more you will start to trust yourself. A person who trusts themselves and has trust in their discipline will be far less daunted to implement exercise or nutritional habits. Work on becoming this person, and you will never need to rely on motivation again.
If motivation is currently driving you, and you are trying to implement everything at once, remember, doing it all for 2 months and then quitting, will have you writing the same resolution next year, highly motivated... no doubt! If you are sitting around waiting to feel motivated, then flip the script. Develop the skill of discipline, and you may be writing resolutions in 5 years time, that you never imagined possible.
Go and get after it - you disciplined devils! I'm there for you, every step of the way.
Cheers, Robbie
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