Finding Your Inner Motivation

With out GENUINE motivation all your hard work at the gym, and the goals you set wont mean a thing.  Eventually you will fade and give up.  To prevent fading and giving up motivation is key!

Each of us are motivated in different ways; you have to find what motivates you.  There are a few ways to start searching.  Ask your self WHY.

Why do you want to even get fit?  Don’t BS your self and say something lame like “because I want to be healthy“.  No kidding you want to be healthy but that answer doesn’t get you any closer to finding GENUINE motivation.

There are 2 kinds, Inside and Outside; but there are some that seem to be motivations but aren’t (pseudo-motivation).

Inside Genuine Motivation:

Follow the process of logic to hit the source of your desire.

For example if your ultimate desire is to lose 10 pounds; the next question is why do you want to lose 10 pounds?  Then you follow up that with something like “because I am over weight“.  Next question you would ask your self would be “why does it matter if your over weight?”  This starts getting close to the heart of your desire for the goal.

An answer that starts to cut deep in the heart would be something like “because I want to see my daughter get married and healthy enough to walk her down the isle.” AND BOOM following the line of logic getting deeper and deeper to the heart of your desire you find your ultimate GENUINE motivation.

For me it was because I was skinny, felt weak, was weak, and wasn’t happy with myself because of it.  That sounds shallow but believe it or not, and like it or not, our over all fitness does and can effect all other aspects of our lives.

Inside Genuine Motivation are things like ability to perform hobbies and how your health and fitness effects your most important aspects of your personal life.

But what do you do when you reach your goal and achieve your genuine motivation?  You dig for a new one or what you achieved could be lost.  You may have lost all that weight so you could walk your daughter down the isle at her wedding, but what happens when you gain all that weight back after the fact?  Some times finding outside sources for motivation is needed.

Outside Genuine Motivation:

Sometimes there are people who touch our hearts in such a way that it lights a fire for self change.  We might see a picture of an athlete or celebrity and it lights a fire to achieve that physique.  Competition in results  between friends can spark genuine motivation.  Even disdain or anger toward someone can spark a powerful desire to achieve goals and this is also genuine motivation.

Pseudo Motivation:

This kind of feeling seems like a motivating will but unlike genuine motivations, these fade faster and don’t really last or burn as hard because of their false sense of self.  One of the biggest false motivators are for the approval of others.  To get all fit and sexy for other people to look at you and make you ‘cooler‘.  Because this is based on the standards of other people and not your self.  This was also addressed in the article “Who Are You Doing This For?”

The TO-DO for Genuine Motivation:

1. Weigh yourself every day! The scale won’t lie to you and will hold you accountable like it or not.
2. Tell your friends and Family! Making it public will effect you mentally and even your friends and family might make jokes (secret truth) when you mess up to put you back on track.
3. Reflect, Think, and Remind your self ONLY positive thoughts.  Be your best cheerleader!
4. Keep at Fitness diary.  Track what you do, how you did it, and the results your getting from doing it.
5. Look in the mirror every day! Just like the scale, the mirror will never lie.
6. Take a weekly picture.  This picture will prove and validate your effort.
7. Immerse your self with your goals and anything related to your goals.  Watch fitness/weight loss programs, read goal related magazines, websites, videos.
8. Change your wardrobe.  If you want to lose weight, donate your big cloths and buy small cloths that forces you to fit in them.

Losing Weight Quick Isn’t Always a Good Thing

Some people want and need to lose weight, in some cases, a lot of weight.  Their over all health and future health depends on it.  But then there are some who are so obsessed with losing weight, even when they don’t need too.

Some people want to be ripped so bad that they are willing to sacrifice lean mass/muscle to get what they think is lean and ripped. This is kinda touched on in the article “Anorexic Ripped is not the same as Swoll Ripped“. But here I am going to talk more directly about the goal of weight loss, not getting ‘ripped’.

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Losing weight can be good OR BAD.  Burning fat-weight is good, burning muscle-weight (when you only weigh 150lbs) is not good.  To cheer on a victorious goal of losing weight of fat and muscle when you are already skinny is idiotic.  Ya it might make your ego feel better, but you are less healthy not more.

Losing muscle can come in a few ways.  Poor diet, and or amped up cardio where your calorie deficit is constantly minus 500, are usually the causes for this. If your goal is to lose weight and get lean and ripped. why in the heck would you ever want to lose the muscle that you want to keep?  That is idiotic.  Some times this way of thinking also comes from “Who are you doing this for?”

Also sacrificing muscle mass to “look more ripped” is dumb in the fact the the more lean muscle you have, the more calories and fat you will naturally burn in the first place.  Build more muscle and that will naturally lead to more fat burning; and thus, becoming more ripped without sacrificing muscle.

If your losing weight, including muscle, yet you want to be ripped; my nephew is 8 years old and according to that logic, he is ripped.  If you want to keep the muscle you have, your routine or diet has to change!  If your eating regularly and even simi-healthy, chances are your workout routine is the problem.

1. Focus on your diet: up the carbs and eat regularly but maintain a slight calorie deficit.
2. Change your workout routine: use different resistance, or workout styles or routines.

OR Become “ripped anorexic” and lose lean muscle.