Motivation is rude.
At best it is tease, showing up at the worst times with promises of glorious change.
Motivation struts in when you are three white claws deep watching The Real Housewives walk around in heels and bikinis and tells that you are going to start working out tomorrow. Motivation whispers in your ear during the Beach Body commercials and convinces you to order those DVD’s because your living room is totally going to be your new workout space.
I can’t find my motivation….
I haven’t been motivated since….
Motivation does nothing without action.
And CONSISTENT action is not motivation,
it is dedication.
To harness motivation, we need to examine it, question that shit out of it and really ask it what we are hoping to achieve.
Do I really want to walk about in heels and a bikini? No. I want to be comfortable in my body.
Do I want to roll around on my living room floor? No. I want to establish a fitness routine and finally follow through.
Motivation is a foot in the door, but it will leave you stuck if you think it is going to show back up when the DVD’s arrive and the white claws are 15 feet away and you could just be watching The Real Housewives…
Make motivation work by making a plan. What is realistic for you? Do not think that going from 0 days a month to 5 days a week is going to happen.
Establish SHOWING UP then add volume.
2-3 days a week. That done consistently for a few months beats 5 days a week for 1.5 weeks.
Plan it. Do not leave it to chance by simply saying “this week I will work out 2 times”. PLAN THAT SHIT. Write it down. Put it in your calendar. Pen it in your planner. When will you do it? Monday at 6am and Wednesday at noon. Its an appointment. Call in a friend, get them to show up to. Chances are she is sick of her shit as well, there is power in numbers.
Do not think you will be motivated in your living room. That is where you lay on the couch and eat chips.
Before you jump to the conclusion that because I am a gym owner I hate home workout programs; hear me out here.
There is science behind this. Lots of habit-based research. We do what we do where we do it. You do not walk into your bathroom and make soup. You do not go to the office to take a nap. Why does sex feel so exhilarating in the dinning room? Because it is not normally done there. Finding motivation to do pushups where you watch the evening news is HARD.
If you are committed to working out at home, make a space where you work out. Put your weights there, claim your territory, and stop watching Bravo there until your habit is WELL established.
Obviously, my vote is for the gym, magic happens there, people are there to help you (like real experts. People who can tell you that your pushup is going to hurt your lower back or your squat is going to jack up your knees, do not be intimidated by this! It is a good thing!
We all know how to brush our teeth but we go to a dentist to fill our cavities, same principle). Paying for a service means you are more likely to show up. You have placed value on it. You are saying ‘this is important to me’; that matters.
Then show up.
Show up over and over. Show up when you do not want to, that is when it matters the most. Fitness does not come easy to most. It is work. It is practice. It is dedication. It is understanding that change takes time and commitment and being DEDICATED to prioritizing your health.
We are in this weird Covid world, where folks stay home to avoid becoming ill, which is smart. But in doing so we have lost sight of ALL we can do to stay healthy.
Making excuses around our health has never been easier. We are home more and moving less. We started out in a food shortage, which made us all feel the need to hoard and get in extra calories, we need to show ourselves grace around that, we all did the best we could. Food is comfort. Lord knows we need(ed) it, again, grace. Carbs really did magical things for me back in March. God bless every calorie we all consumed; our mental health needed it.
But now here we are. Almost 7 months later still on our bullshit. We aren’t helping ourselves get through a crisis anymore. We are digging ourselves deeper into another one.
I get emails every day from people who have gained 10-20 pounds, feel like shit, and “can’t find the motivation” to get back at it.
They also do not want to wear a mask to workout or believe the gym isn’t safe….
So, what do we do? I don’t know. Truly. The feelings I have around this are to big to put here, and my frustration to deep to try and stay neutral.
All I know is it is truly heart breaking to watch people’s health slip out of their hands in a time when health should be the most important thing on our minds. In a quest to beat Covid I fear we have lost sight of the importance of movement, nutrition, sleep, and connection.
I hope January comes around and we all wake up to the control we have over our health and feel incredibly empowered by the opportunity to stack the deck in our favor. But I know that won’t happen if we don’t work on our dedication now. Start showing up for ourselves in little ways, look for opportunities to improve instead of bitch and complain about small inconveniences like wearing a mask.
Motivation isn’t showing up in 2020. Dedication may sound to harsh. What about PERSEVERANCE? Showing up for ourselves despite the difficulty…