Make Your Own Motivation

TBT: This is a post I wrote back in May of 2007. These were my thoughts on motivation, prioritization, and how to make the most of your training. It pretty much all still holds true.

Priorities

We all have priorities in life. Some of mine include finishing the move into my new house, running a successful website development business, keeping my girlfriend happy, spending time with my son, staying strong and healthy, and not getting fired from my day job. What are yours? Can you list your top 5 and assign priority values to them? I have done this, and what I have found is that staying strong and healthy continues to drop below those tasks that involve either family members, or putting lOOt in the bank (or more accurately giving lOOt to bill collectors).

How can we reprioritize in order to keep our gym goals intact?

I don’t want to get small or weak or fat, and neither do you. In my time, I have seen too many men with joint, neck, back, or hip issues, or perhaps they are just overweight with big pot bellies. Years ago I swore this would not be me. So, how can we redirect some of that focus back into the gym? How can we, when faced with working 14 hour days in order to make a million dollars by age 40, still exercise? Where can we draw some of this motivation that I am talking about. I have a couple suggestions that you could try, some of which I am testing out right now.

1. Get a lifting partner that will show up on time for each workout. Find someone that isn’t going to talk about his/her friends, or work, or a party, or kids… find someone that wants to FOCUS on training when it’s time to train.
2. Tell others about your plan (blog about it?). If you tell others what you plan to do with your body, you will hold yourself more accountable for your own progress. After all, no one wants to be embarrassed by failure.
3. Realize that you aren’t good to anyone else unless you are healthy. If you are always tired, hurt, or sick, you are no good to your family or co-workers. Suck it up and get healthy!
4. Sometime in your life, you will need to be strong. Perhaps something will fall on you or a loved one. Perhaps you will need to move the contents of an entire house by yourself. Maybe you will need to fight off an attacker, or push a car out of the snow, or rescue someone from a burning building. No matter what the aggressor might be, you will inevitably need to be strong for one reason or another. Why not prepare for it before it’s too late.
5. Find some good ass lifting music. I personally prefer Static-X, Pantera, Avenged Sevenfold, Staind, Godsmack, Powerman 5000, Korn, Slipknot, Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson, System of a Down, Disturbed, Nickelback, Type O Negative, Evanescence, Tool, Rage, Soundgarden, Audioslave, Incubus, Queens of the Stone Age, (Hed) P.E., Megadeth, Motley Crue, Stereomud, Lamb of God, Ill Nino, Sevendust, Faith No More, Hatebreed, Mudvayne, Shinedown, Taproot, Theory of a Dead Man, Foo Fighters, and Three Days Grace, just to name a few.

My Solution

I have a son that I want to inspire to be strong and healthy. I have a girlfriend that, quite frankly, I want to impress with visions of a Greek God, feats of strength to rival Hercules, and the skill to defend her from predators. These abilities prove to her that I am a male worthy of mating… frequently, if you catch my drift. I have this blog that visitors will be reading, and I don’t want to embarrass myself with failure. I have a business to run, and I want prospective clients to be wowed by my dedication to life and ability to multi-task. Finally, I want to get in better shape, faster, than the guy on Better Body Journal, for he is one of my nemeses in this game of strength.

Find your solution and make your own motivation. Formulate your goals, and make it happen!

Tags: Healthy Lifestyle, Motivation, progress

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