Let’s talk about motivation…
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.
– Zig Ziglar
What gets you going in the morning? What keeps you going during the day?
Do you wake up every morning pumped up because you can live out your dreams, work on amazing projects and do all the things you wanted to do or are you accustomed to the “same sh*t , different day” routine?
What do you do when you are tired and do not feel like going to the gym?
Do you dig deep within yourself in search of more strength and energy or do you simply “give up”, crash on the sofa and watch a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother while chowing down on some pizza?
Some people know how to stay motivated and some are left relying on their luck, which person will you choose to become?
I said “choose” because I believe that we can choose who we want to become, what daily experience we want to have and what emotions we want to feel.
So the question is what do you do to keep yourself motivated?
If you are looking for external sources of motivation (like your coach or friends) you are approaching it from the wrong side. You have to learn how to “manufacture” motivation from within yourself whenever you need it.
The key to lasting motivation and being able to get back on track is when you are just not feeling it is in understanding one thing – your “Why” (meaning why do you want to achieve your goals).
Strangely enough, I was doing this without even realizing it until I recognized these similar traits from the winners of the Adonis Index and Venus Index contests.
Even though understanding your “why” is common sense (it’s not exactly some dark secret only a few chosen ones know about) most people still have no idea how to take advantage of this and often times feel helpless struggling to manage their daily activities.
We’ve had several contestants tell us that discovering your why is the best way to stay motivated for the long term.
Here’s something that I’ve noticed – Emotions come in waves, so you won’t always operate at a level of 100% determination to meet your goals and you will slip, everybody does, no one will ever have a perfect 12 week transformation. We are driven by emotions which is the force that shapes our habits.
However, even when you don’t feel like working out, you can still have an emotional state where you feel driven to do something that will help you grow; in this case going to the gym. You control all your emotions (good and bad, so nobody can make you angry, only you can), the only thing is creating the positive emotions will require more effort on your part (shocking I know).
Understanding your why will help you channel the right emotions to make the right decisions to get you closer to your ideal AI, because one of the keys to building an ideal body is workout consistency. I’m sure you’ve seen it yourself, people get gym memberships, but they lack any motivation to keep up their gym attendance so they drop out and never get in shape.
Time to Figure Out Your Why
The truth is that working out and even having an ideal body is not actually the outcome we want.
Take money for example, we don’t want the money, we want the lifestyle, we want to feel the emotions and have the experience that are associated with being wealthy, the same applies for building more muscle and having an ideal body.
A good looking body gives us feelings of confidence, accomplishment and happiness. It also means better job or social opportunities and positive feedback from others. It simply allows us to feel happier about ourselves, just listen to our podcasts and interviews if you don’t believe this to be true.
Your desire to build an ideal body has to be stronger than your desire to sit on the sofa and do nothing, which is very tempting because it’s comfortable and requires no effort.
Most men are in denial of their emotions, I know I was, but if you are in denial, you have already begun to lose control.
If you want to have control of your actions, you need to be in control of your emotions and know how to find that motivation within you every single day.
The best thing to do for yourself is to pause whatever activity your doing, close your eyes and take the next five minutes to just focus on figuring out:
-Why you want to build an ideal body?
-Why do you go to the gym?
-Why is the outcome important for you and how will it change your life?
Not that it’s written down, take a couple minutes out of your morning routine to imagine yourself achieving your goals. If you can see the benefits of achieving your goals, it will be easier to motivate yourself to go to the gym and stick to your diet.
Some contestants reported that they wanted to be more confident taking their shirt off, some guys wanted to be more healthy for their kids and/or grandkids, and some wanted to become actors and models, what’s your why?
FYI, I’m not a psychologist, nor an expert on emotions or the human brain, but I know that understanding your why helped me and our Adonis/Venus contestants get some pretty amazing results, so hopefully sharing this with you will lead to some new winners and some amazing transformations in our future contests.
Talk to you soon,
Vaclav Gregor
PS: How do you keep yourself motivated every day and what is your routine for getting back up when you are feeling down? Let me know in the community here.