How to Get Motivated

Pro-level athletes aren’t more motivated than you are. Olympians don’t just “want it more.” The best athletes at your gym have the same struggles with motivation that you do.

So what is the biggest difference? They have created good habits to get to train motivated when they don’t feel motivated at all.

Olympians at the top of their game don’t always feel feel like working out. They want that slice of cake too. Creating good habits will help you go to the gym, and stick to your meal plan.

Here are some tips on how to do it:

Get a coach

You need to stay accountable, not just from yourself. Your wife, partner, mum, or dog will let you off the hook. Your coworkers don’t actually care if you succeed, and your friends don’t want you to change.

You need someone who will:

• Remove the guesswork
• Get you results
• Hold you accountable. You can “ghost” someone when theres nothing on the line.
• Find a consequence for failure. That means you have to pay for coaching. If you don’t, there’s no real penalty for not showing up… and you’ll bounce backwards.
• Get REAL results. Our brains are wired to reward our wins. If we don’t see results quickly, we lose motivation.

It’s key for someone to say, “You did really well at X”. Apps like Strava and Garmin Connect are great at giving you little rewards when you accomplish something for the first time. But a coach will take care of this for you, too.

Set up a short-term “challenge” or goal for yourself.

A six-week challenge is great for motivation. But most people don’t know what to do once it ends, and many actually bounce back and wind up worse than before. In my experience, people who try FAD diets usually gain back the weight they lost. The unsustainable nature of these diets, plus the damage to your metabolism, actually leaves you unhealthier then before.

You can do these things on your’e own; don’t get me wrong. However, a good coach will build this plan for you.

• It will become habit. It’s not always going to be hard to go to the gym, or shop for groceries, or prep your meals. It WILL get easier, but only if you keep the habit going. Usually it takes around 90 days for our behaviours to become habits and then a few more months for our habits to become “just what we do.”

• Track everything. Track your workouts. Note your personal bests. Track your food intake, write it down, use an app, whatever it takes. Note your wins. Track your sleep. Note how they all tie together.

If you lose sleep, you want more caffeine. When you drink more caffeine, you want more sugar. When you eat more sugar, you lose motivation to work out. When you don’t work out, you get more stressed. And when you get more stressed, you sleep less.

Use your tools to plan

Instead of going to the grocery store everyday, spend 30 minutes planning at the start of the week. Do 1 or 2 trips to keep food fresh, have a grocery list, and never go to the store hungry.

Trust me: It’s far better than cramming dry cereal into your mouth at 8 p.m because your’e hungry and you’ve missed a meal during the day.

Track your progress

Look, you’re not going to hit PR (personal record) everyday. But that doesn’t matter at all. What really matters is consistency. If you show up every day, even if you put in 50% of your best effort, you will get better results than people who crush it once a week.

The people who are all in, for a short amount of time usually get amazing short term results, and then they get fat again. Or they get strong, and then they get injured. The people who just show up consistently for their sessions get strong, lean and happy for life.

Know this: The days when you feel the LEAST motivated are the days you’ll get the BEST results.

Consistency and action always wins. Do the best you can, with what you have EVERYDAY.

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Inspiration provided by Chris Cooper at Catalystgym.com.