“I just can’t get motivated to workout.”
I hear this from people all the time. People who think motivation is the key to fitness, and they’re waiting from some magic switch or hack that will get them motivated… and then they’ll crush all their fitness goals.
Motivation isn’t coming to save you.
Sure, maybe for the first few days of a new workout program or challenge you’ll feel energized and motivated by hope and excitement.
That will fade… probably quickly.
After a few weeks, and usually just a few days, motivation wanes.
Motivation is a lie.
People who crush their fitness goals aren’t the ones who are the most motivated.
They’re the ones who are the most disciplined.
The ones who do what they need to do when they don’t feel like it. This is a hard, ugly truth about fitness, but a truth nonetheless.
While people love motivational social media posts, real fitness success occurs when you just want to sit on the couch, when the idea of training makes you want to cry and bang your head on the wall.
It’s okay to feel that way. Really.
But move anyway.
If your goal is to walk two miles a day, and you’re just feeling dead tired, don’t listen to that voice that says “stay in.”
Just start. Always start.
Tell yourself you’ll just go for a quarter mile and see what happens. Once you start, you’ll probably feel a lot better.
And days when you conquer that voice in your head that wants to quit are the days when you benefit the most from your workout.
