It’s 5AM on Friday, and you’re exhausted. You’re on the road, and you have only 30 minutes before you have to check out from your hotel. It’s Saturday afternoon and all you friends are drinking and playing video games. There are literally a million reasons you can give yourself to skip a workout, and it generally only takes one of them to tip towards laziness. You need to find that one reason that makes you move. It’s this one reason, every single day, that will drive you to be a better person, improve your health, and get stronger.
A lot of people decide to get in shape because their doctors said so. Others make the decision because they’re in a competition with office buddies to lose weight. The reasons to start are endless: New Year’s resolutions, curiosity, because your friend convinced you to do it. I don’t care what reason gets you to start exercising, as long as you’re doing it.
Now, the reason that got you to start exercising might not last very long; it might get you started but could fade very quickly as soon as adversity shows itself (traveling, vacation, holidays, a cold, etc). In order to be successful, you have to find the motivation to KEEP going, to break through those tough days. It’s this motivation that will drive you to exercise when you’re tired, not miss a workout because you’re sleepy, and get out of bed early on a Saturday while your friends lie in bed hung over.
Whatever that motivation is, find it. If it’s a movie quote, a picture of what you want to look like, song lyrics, make it a part of your daily routine first thing in the morning. I wake up every morning to a quote from my favorite movie hanging on the wall: “Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.” In the gym, at work, and in life, I try to improve myself every single day.
What’s your motivation? How do you remind yourself every day of what you want to accomplish?
-Steve
