How To Keep Your Chin Up
All Blacks are not more motivated than you are.
Silver Ferns don’t just “want it more” than you.
The fittest person you know struggles with motivation just like you do.
The difference? They know how to channel their motivation into energy output (and they have the tools to use when they don’t feel motivated at all.)
Ask anyone at the highest levels of fitness, business, medicine: sometimes they don’t feel like working out, cutting a deal, or getting stuck into the operating theatre.
So why do they ace their respective work out anyway? Why do they stick to their routine and their structure when things get tough?
Here’s how to do it – and the great news is that you can use the exact SAME strategy they do.
Get a coach.
You need to be accountable to an objective third party. Your wife will let you off the hook. Your work colleagues don’t actually want you to succeed. And your friends don’t want you to change, because you might move away from them as you create better habits.
You need someone who’ll:
– Remove the guesswork
– Get you results FAST (you’ll see why in the next step)
– Hold you accountable. You can “ghost” someone over text, but you can’t miss appointments.
– Provide a “pain” for failure. That means you have to pay for coaching. If you don’t, there’s no real penalty for failure…and you’ll slack off accordingly.
Get a really fast result.
We live in an insta-world. Our brains are wired, no demand, quick reward, quick wins and novelty.
If they didn’t, there’d be no market for skinny teas and pyramid scheme “nutritional” products.
If we don’t see results quickly, our motivation tanks!
It’s critical to have someone to say “You did really well at X”. Platforms like Strava tap directly into this, giving you little digital rewards when you accomplish something for the first time.
This is where your coach comes in, and as a bonus, they do it in the flesh too!
Set up a short-term “challenge”
Give yourself a short term focus…but have a plan for after the challenge ends.
A six-week challenge is perfect for driving motivation. But most people drop off the edge when it ends, and many actually wind up worse than ever.
In our experience, people who do short-term diets (like intermittent fasting or “Keto” diets) invariably gain back not just the weight they lost, but more on top too!
The unsustainable nature of the diet, combined the dual effects of long-term damage to both their metabolism and their emotional/mental wellbeing, actually leaves them less healthy.
You can do these things, don’t get me wrong.
Get the surgery if that’s what it takes. +
But have the second step all lined up and ready to go before you take the first.
Again, a coach will build this plan for you.
It will eventually just become a habit.
It won’t always be hard to go to the gym, or shop for groceries, or prep your meals.
It WILL get easier, but only if you keep the habit going.
Usually, it takes around 90 days for our behaviours to become habits; and then for a few more months for our habits to become “just what we do.”
Track everything.
– Track your workouts.
– Note your personal bests.
– Track your food intake.
– Note your wins.
– Track your sleep.
Note how they all tie together.
If I sleep less, I want more caffeine.
When I drink more caffeine, I want more sugar.
When I eat more sugar, I lose motivation to work out.
When I don’t work out, I get more stressed. And when I get more stressed, I sleep less.
Then I get dumber, fatter and sad.
(That’s just me…but I know some of you can relate.)
Use your tools to plan.
For example, instead of just putting today’s food in MyFitnessPal before bed, enter all of your meals in MyFitnessPal in advance.
Then add or subtract carbs, fats and protein to make your macros, and voila – you have a food plan for the next day!
Trust me: it’s far better than cramming dry cornflakes into your mouth at 8pm because you’re not hitting your carb goals.
Uh, at least that’s what my friend tells me…
Check your progress.
Look, you’re not going to have a personal best on every workout. The sooner you accept that, the longer you’ll last with whatever training plan you follow.
But that matters zero percent.
What really matters is consistency.
People who show up every day, even if they put out 50% of their best effort, get better results than people who crush it once a week.
The people who “grip and rip” usually get amazing results, and then they get fat again.
Or they get strong, and then they get injured.
The people who just show up for their appointments get strong, lean and happy for life.
I want you to know this: on the days when you feel the LEAST motivation are the days you’ll get the BEST results.
Consistent, imperfect action always wins.
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