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How do I Stay Motivated?

The hardest thing about getting fit…

Getting Motivated

How do I get and stay motivated? Getting motivated and staying is one of the most important things you’ll need to have success in fitness. To get and stay motivated you’ll have to have some emotional connection to succeeding at your goal. Almost every time somebody that comes here for their No Sweat Intro there has been some life event that said “Hey it’s time to take action now or there’s gonna be problems later”.

Examples of Emotional Why’s

“I need to take care of my child. I’m realizing I’m not physically able to do that in the way that I could a couple years ago. If we keep going on the same track I’m not going to be able to take care of my child the way that he or she needs”. Now, whether your childs care is running around the yard playing with them and giving them a happy life in that regard. Or it’s they have some special needs and you need to physically carry them from wheelchair to the toilet for example. Those things require some physical skills that you’re emotionally attached to.

Busy People

Maybe you’re a really busy person. You own a business and you don’t have time. You haven’t had time to exercise for the last five years and now all the sudden go to the doctor and your cholesterol is really high. Now you’re saying “I’m borderline diabetic and holy crap! I need to do something and I need to do something fast! Or all of that work that I just did on my business for the last five years is going to be worth nothing because I won’t be around to enjoy it”.

6 Pack Abs

If you want six-pack abs… just to pick up chicks. You’ve got to create some emotional connection to that. Do you really want six pack abs? Or is it because you want to pick up a chick and you think six pack abs will help? If you’re wanting to pick up girls you don’t actually want six-pack abs you wanna be able to pick up girls (2 different goals) maybe all you really need is confidence. Either way you’ll need to connect an emotion strong enough to overcome the why not’s that stand between you and your goal. Maybe you just want to look good, so you feel confident, so that you can find your life’s love and live happily ever after.

The hardest part is we need to make connection emotionally with why we want to accomplish any of our fitness related goals. If you don’t have an emotional connection, it’s going to be very very difficult for you to stay motivated for any reason. You need to keep the emotional reason at the forefront of your mind of why you want success and a coach will help you do that.

Staying Motivated

Making Progress

Staying motivated for any real length of time is going to require progress towards the goal. So first you must have an objective measurement of what progress will look like. Then you have to recognize progress when you’re making it. Finally you have to celebrate it. In order to celebrate it you have to recognize it. In order to recognize it you have to measure it. One of the great things about what we do here at CrossFit Jungle Gym is we take measurements, we have benchmarks, and we celebrate wins daily (PR board), weekly (Bright Spots Friday) and quarterly (goal setting sessions).

Seeing Progress

This is built into the service we provide… you can achieve on your own using the same framework. Setting objective goals, measuring them, observing progress and celebrating are built into our service. To continue to have results, this process is ultra important. What’s awesome is if you can see minor little things on day one you’ll build more and more motivation.

Celebrating Progress

An example… “I learned to squat without knee pain and that’s the first time I ever squatted without any pain”. That’s that’s huge, it might seem like a really small milestone but it is a milestone and we should recognize and celebrate that win. All movement in the right direction should be celebrated. We’ve had people who’ve been unable to do daily activities without pain for 40 years. They tend to celebrate these small things more readily. Progress is what helps keep you motivated and any forward progress is better than regression, which is what you’re doing if you aren’t progressing.

Exponential Shift: Double wins

If we can get you to move a little bit instead just sitting at your desk and not doing any exercise for a week. By sitting you’re actually regressing. The gap between not doing anything and doing something or feeling a little bit better it’s widening. If we think about this gap over the course of a month it’s even wider. A year? Even wider! Now consider a daily 5 min walk… those little tiny small wins are actually double in comparison to doing nothing. Seeing that “small” progress and celebrating it… yes we’re celebrating over the first double under you did… it’s a big deal. It’s progress in the right direction.

Example: “I only lost one pound this week”… yeah and if you lost one pound every week for the next year we’re talking about 52 pounds. That is a great result! You have to celebrate them and you have to recognize them or they don’t really exist.

The Worst Enemy of Motivation

If you don’t measure, see or recognize your progress you’re going to end up being salty and mad. You’ll believe “I’m not getting where I want to go and I’m not getting there fast enough”. That’s the best way to become your own biggest enemy. When it comes to staying motivated and you have a body composition goal, measure the right metric. Then recognize progress… if you add one pound of lean body mass, that’s awesome. Then you lose one pound of body fat lost. You’ve made a 2lb swing in favor of better body composition. Though if you’re measuring (incorrectly) with body weight you’ll feel like you’ve made no progress. When in fact, your body composition has changed significantly it’s changed by two pounds.

The Power of Recognition

This stuff is incredibly powerful and you need to know that information in order to continue to recognize progress when it’s happening. This recognition is the difference is success and failure. Success equals motivation, it doesn’t happen the other way around. Motivation can only happen with success. When getting started you need to have a little bit of success. Then you get more motivated and then you have more success you have more success you get even more motivated. It keeps going like that, then the closer you get to a goal the more irresistible it becomes. Most goals have a lot of little steps that happen before the large goal is accomplished. So you have to recognize the little successes otherwise you will become unmotivated.

Not only does like celebrating those small wins keep you motivated it also keeps you happy. You realize that there’s progress being made and that’s the spice of life. To be happy and recognize improvements are being made big or small. It doesn’t matter as long as you’re getting better, you’re getting better. Every time you get better it’s an improvement on your life. Whether that’s in body composition, attitude or getting stronger. Recognize your progress. If you take one thing away from us ever… let it be that you recognize the positive in your life. Be grateful for it, don’t don’t miss out on the bright spots!

Who helps you succeed?

Great coaches at CrossFit Jungle Gym.