How to Find Your Motivation

When I woke up this morning, I was not feeling it. I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want to go to the gym. I certainly didn’t want to deadlift and I really didn’t want to leave my cozy bed. Nevertheless, I got my butt up and went to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, brush my teeth, and put on my gym clothes.

The entire time I was fighting with myself. I was going back and forth between, “You’re grumpy and not in the mood to workout, go back to bed” and “No. You have fitness goals. You’ve been doing so well this week. Go to the damn gym or you won’t go tomorrow and your deadlift will suck next week.”

I argued with myself like this for the entire time I got ready. Even as I was tying my shoes and walking to my car. I was grumpy and didn’t want to go. I got to the gym and when I was putting the plates on the barbell for deadlifts I still didn’t want to be there.

Bottomline...It was not a great gym day for me. I pushed through but didn’t make it up to my 140 lbs deadlift and I was moody during my good mornings and split squats (granted I am kinda always moody when I am doing those because they suck).

Even when I got home I was grumpy because I knew it hadn’t been a great gym day, but I still went. And I know that I’ll be happy I went by this afternoon. Today was just one of those days where I didn’t want to work out, but ignoring that voice in my head and going anyway is a big turning point for me. Normally, I would’ve walked into the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, turned around, and crawled right back into bed.

But I didn’t. And that’s big for me.

One of the questions that is most commonly asked of people who regularly go to the gym and follow a diet is, “How do you find the motivation to do it?”

If you want to truth, some days we don’t find the motivation. I would be lying to you if I said that I went to the gym every day I was supposed to and that I never phoned it in with a lift and that I never broke keto, because I do all those things. Sometimes I have a bad gym day or a bad diet day, but it doesn’t stop me from hopping right back on track.

That’s the difference.

My motivation is that my fitness, weight, and diet goals are bigger than one bad diet or exercise day and I know that those goals aren’t going to happen without ups and downs. Finding motivation with health and fitness is like anything else, you have to decide that what you are working towards is worth the few times when you may fail.

Honestly, the days where I break keto or have a bad lifting day or am not able to get 5 reps on a set of lifts are the days that motivate me to work harder because I know I can do better.

You have to let the good days, the days where you feel unstoppable at the gym, the days where you don’t cheat on your diet at all, the days that you are able to add 10 more pounds onto your lift, the days where you see actual muscle development, the days where you just feel physically good motivate you.

Those are the days that give you motivation to push through the less than stellar days. But the difference is, you have to use that motivation to propel yourself through those days. That’s when the change happens. That’s the turning point.

The days when you wake up feeling grumpy and wanting to sleep and still go to the gym. The days where you see a cupcake (or in my case any carb), and really want it and eat half of it but have a great dinner. The days where you hop back on right after falling off are the days where the change happens.

Once you start making the choice to not let one slip up derail your mission to get to your goals, that’s where you improve and move closer to your goals. That’s where the best mental work happens. That’s where the motivation comes from.

Keep pushing. You’ll get there.