When you embark on a mission you have great ideas and goals you want to accomplish.  You are certain that you are going to achieve everything you set out to accomplish.  For whatever reason, it is inevitable that you will hit a spot where you are discouraged with your progress or discouraged with your ability to hit your goals.  What you do with that discouragement will determine what happens next.  I am simply suggesting that you use the discouragement you feel to motivate yourself.

Really get in touch with how horrible discouragement feels and use that feeling to motivate yourself to accomplish your goals the next time.  Let the memory of the discouragement push you towards your latest goals.  When you feel like doing something that takes you off course, remind yourself of how the discouragement felt and how you never want to feel that way again.  It is a powerful feeling, discouragement is.  I personally hate the feeling and would never want to experience it willingly.  I use discouragement to remind myself that I need to work hard to accomplish my goals.  I am not trying to chase after my goals, I am trying to draw them to myself.  The feeling of discouragement as a reminder helps me to draw my goals in.

Using disappointment for motivation

When we work hard at something (in our perception) and the results just don’t come, we experience a large amount of disappointment.  It can be quite discouraging and you may want to just quit.  Afterall, why even bother if nothing you do is going to work, right?  Wrong!

The smart person will use the disappointment in their favor by gaining motivation from it.  It isn’t that hard to do.  When you are disappointed you just need to be completely honest with yourself.

Most likely you cheated on your nutrition in places.  Acknowledge that so that you will be able to move forward with a clear conscience.  Give an honest assessment of how you’ve handled your entire nutritional and exercise program.  Use the things you learned from the disappointment to start motivating yourself to do better.

Remember what it feels like to be disappointed in yourself.  Have it ingrained into your memory.  By doing so you will never want to experience that feeling of disappointment again.  You will change your behaviors and start being more consistent.  You will do the right things the majority of the time and this will bring about better results.  It is a purely psychological form of motivation, but it is effective. 

Matty’s Workout Log:

There are many ways people get motivated.  Motivation is a highly personal thing.  Choosing what motivates you is so personal that nobody else can do it for you.  However, the means of staying motivated is the same for everyone.

How to use fear as a motivator

What are you afraid of?  Are you afraid of dying at a young age?  Are you afraid of getting fatter than you are now?  Are you afraid that you won’t be able to keep up with your children as they grow older?  Great!  Use that fear to your advantage.  Motivate yourself to workout by channeling the fear that you are feeling.

The fear of dying at a young age is a powerful motivational force.  Use it to keep yourself coming back to the gym.  Convince yourself that you need to workout in order to stay healthy.  Don’t accept excuses from yourself.  Keep reminding yourself of the fear you feel and it will drive you to hit the gym.

If gaining weight is your fear, put it to good use.  When you think about eating something that will cause you to gain fat, remember that fear you have.  Don’t let it get past you.  Take it on head on.  Use the fear you feel to fend off the desire to eat poorly.  Eventually eating right will just become a habit.  It will be second nature.

If you want to keep up with your children exercising is going to be essential.  Don’t let yourself down by listening to the negative side of yourself.  Use your fear to be positive.  Tell yourself that being afraid of not keeping up with your kids is a valid fear.  Push harder when at the gym so that you will be in the best shape you can be.  This will help you help yourself.

”I don’t have the time to get in a really good workout.”

”My life is far too busy to fit in yet another commitment.”

We’ve all heard the excuses before, but these same people wind up contradicting themselves.  You’ve seen them.  The people who stand around a piece of equipment at the gym not using it as more than something to lean on while they socialize with everyone who will partake with them.  Their sole purpose is to talk to other people about whatever comes up.  

They seem to have ample time to socialize at the gym, but they just don’t have the time to lift weights.  They can chat with that hottie on the flat bench for hours, but they don’t have the time to get in a really good workout.  They can discuss the entire weekend of sports events, but they don’t have the time to fit in another commitment.

I’m here to tell you that we make time for the things that are important to us.  When we go into a gym and make time to socialize, but not to work hard, we are making a very clear statement.  We feel that socializing is important and getting into shape is not.  Argue if you like, but we definitely make the time for the things that are important to us while everything else suffers.

Write it down

Make it a point to capture everything you need to do in some kind of list that you can easily review on a regular basis.  There is something about the action of capturing open items that puts your mind to rest.  Instead of being crazy and  reminding you at 3 a.m. to do that important report, your mind leaves you alone because it trusts that you are on top of things.  The fact that you have your open items on a list and are reviewing them regularly puts your mind at ease.  This enables the mind to remove the clutter.

Complete your thinking

When you place an appointment on the calendar you trust that you will be there.  This is because your thinking on that issue is complete.  You’ve determined that you will be at a certain place at a certain time for a certain reason.  You have to do that same thing with everything you face.  Take the time to decide what you will be doing with the open item.  Make a decision.  Complete your thinking.  Once your thinking is complete your mind will continue to declutter itself.  It is an amazing thing and extremely powerful concept.

Delegate when it is right

Some things that face you are not for you to complete. If that is the case, do the smart thing and delegate them to someone else.  Find the right person and have them do the task at hand.  Knowing that the right person is on the job is also a huge stress reliever.  Don’t forget to give yourself a reminder for follow up later.  Always write down the date you delegated the item as well.

Matty’s Workout Log: