If you’re feeling unmotivated to work out, read this
Here’s how to build a habit so powerful that you don’t need motivation at all.
Let’s face it. Maintaining an exercise habit is hard. While it leads to positive change, the process of doing the work is rarely intrinsically motivating. The human brain can conjure up a thousand different reasons why you don’t need to move your body, and overcoming this internal battle is a huge barrier in itself.
There is, however, some groundwork that can be done to build a robust foundation for your habits. Interestingly enough, it has very little to do with how you go about exercise, or what you’re even doing. This is all about moving away from trying to get yourself hyped or motivated, and returning to the roots of understanding what motivates you in the first place.
While this may sound deep and philosophical, there are very practical ways to achieve this. For our purposes, I want to highlight the five tips that are most worth your time and energy. Working as a kinesiologist and trainer, these strategies have been an absolute game-changer for my clients as they not only discover how to build effective habits but also gain a deeper understanding of who they are.
If this sounds enticing to you, read on.
Unbreakable Habits Start With Understanding the Self
All of the tips below are rooted in a phenomenon called identified motivation. This is the idea that the reason for doing something is not because the thing is inherently pleasurable or enjoyable, but because you’ve integrated within yourself the importance of doing it. Let’s break this down step by step and get you back to crushing your health and fitness goals. Beyond your wellness, these are tips that you can apply to every avenue of life for better results. Let’s get started!
1) Prioritize autonomy over everything
Before you commit to a new habit, ask yourself why you want to do it. While this may seem like an obvious step, your answer will immediately tell you whether you’ll achieve your goal or not. Why is this the case? Autonomy, or a sense of control/agency is perhaps the greatest predictor of sustainability and success.
If your motivation starts with, “I have to…” or, “I feel like I need to”, there is far less likelihood that you’ll see it through than if it’s something you’re actively choosing and wanting to do. Until you’re confident that your habit is rooted in a place of autonomy, desire, and a genuine belief that what you’re about to embark on will have a positive, meaningful impact on your life, keep working at shaping and framing your goal.
2) Give yourself constant reminders
When you’re doing things that are challenging and require discipline, it’s easy to forget why you’re doing it and solely focus on how hard it is. This can result in lulls or plateaus in progress as you start to take shortcuts or talk yourself out of the necessary action that needs to take place.
To avoid this, give yourself monthly, weekly, or even daily reminders of your ‘why’. When I’m feeling out of rhythm with my running or general fitness habits, I always remind myself how the reward of being mobile and active in my golden years is a gift worth gifting for. This helps serve as a reminder that you don’t necessarily have to be motivated about the activity itself, but rather the reason for doing the activity. If you can keep in contact with your why, you’ll be that much more likely to survive through adversity.
3) Morph the goal into part of your identity
This is similar to point number one, but it deserves its own spotlight. To drive this point home, I want to use an example of a weight-loss goal. While you may feel motivated to shed a few pounds or develop a six-pack so you can take great selfies, these are all extrinsic motivators. To build a more robust system, tie your goal to who you are as a person. For example, “I’m going to the gym because I’m someone who strives to be healthy”, not “I’m going to the gym because I need/want this…”. This is a subtle shift, but it can yield powerful results.
4) Make effort intrinsically motivating
This is the hardest tip to integrate for most people as it takes years of building neurological pathways through discipline to truly understand. If you’ve ever done something that’s pushed you to the edge, you know how powerful the dopamine release is on the other side. Marathoners often report a sense of inexplicable euphoria after a race. Even though getting to the finish line is anything but comfortable, it’s often the very process of putting in effort and overcoming the adversity that makes the final reward taste so sweet.
Whatever physical activity you find yourself doing, or striving to do, remind yourself that if it’s taking effort, it’s likely something worth fighting for. This all goes back to that cliché quote found in community gyms across the nation: “If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you”. I trust that the very reason for your goal is that you’re looking for some kind of change. While achieving this won’t be easy, you can have the peace of mind that if it’s pushing you, it means you’re doing likely something right.
Once you go through the valleys and reach the summit enough times, you’ll release that, yes the reward is great, but it’s the journey (the very act of doing the thing) that’s most meaningful and fun. Once you arrive at this realization, you’re virtually unstoppable.
5) Choose your mindset
At the end of the day when everything else fails, you still have control over one key factor: your mindset. Yes, you’ve likely heard this a thousand times, but it’s the truth. You may not have control over the outcome of your goal, or even the process, but you always have the freedom to shape your attitude towards it. The more you can trick yourself into believing that this is something you get to do, or even are blessed to do, the less likely that it will feel like a chore. Even if everything else goes sour, maintaining control over this one area can make or break your goal. Don’t take it lightly!
Now that you understand how to be motivated, let’s talk about how to take practical steps in your health and wellness journey. Fortunately, I’ve done all of the work for you with my newly released book! Check it out here and start living a life free of pain and restriction today. You deserve it!
In Closing,
When the going gets tough, you cannot rely on extrinsic motivation to get you through. No matter how disciplined you think you are, purely relying on motivations and rewards is like building your house on the sand. Instead, build an indestructible foundation by understanding what motivates you on a deeper level. If you can take these five tips to heart and apply them to your life, you’ll not only find more success in your health and wellness pursuits, but you’ll experience more joy and purpose in the process.
That’s a beautiful thing worth fighting for.
