The truth and Lie about Motivation

I am so sick and tired of hearing people say that they’re not taking the steps they need to on a daily basis because they are not motivated.

What in the world are you waiting for? Your fairy godmother to come by and sprinkle some pixie motivational dust on you?

I don’t know about anyone else but I am never motivated to go for a run, or workout, or eat clean. Ever!

I do it because I know I should. I don’t do it because I’m motivated. I motivate myself to do it. See the difference there?

If I waited for your fairy godmother to sprinkle me, I would still be having awkward conversations with my mother and brother about why I am 287lbs with no muscle at all.

Thankfully I have created an environment where I motivate myself and hold myself painfully accountable for my actions and lack of actions.

The whole motivation talks have really made me look at the concept from a whole new perspective. While in these conversations I realized that unless we motivate ourselves, we just don’t get motivated.

Although I can think of few exceptions. For example, when I was younger my brother and I use to watch boxing matches, afterwards we were motivated to box.

I guess I assumed most motivation worked in this manner but the more I think about it the more I realize this just isn’t the fact.

So now that we have gotten an aha moment (at the very least me) now we can work on being more effective about motivation.

What works for me

I create an environment of motivation. I read books, listen to audiobooks, listen to motivational YouTube videos and try to have positive conversations that create the same environment. This is an all the time process I do, while in the car, running, at the gym or even while in the shower.

What you put in comes out right? Conditioning. So I try to put in positivity, motivation and action oriented advice.

I don’t judge the speakers too much, if they can speak or have a great back story I can respect or if they call me out, I’m listening.

One of my latest and greatest has to be David Goggins. If you don’t know who he is, look him up. Beast.

When I began my running journey about two months ago I bought his audiobook “Can’t hurt me”, I was instantly stuck. I read and listened to everything he wrote and said; I listened to podcasts and every interview I could find.

My initial goal was to run a couple miles without dying with my overall goal of running a half marathon by the end of this year. Goggins lost 106lbs in less than two months. Furthermore, with no training at all he ran a 100 mile race in 24hrs with broken feet, bloody urine and defecating on himself.

Yeah, the negotiator in my head making excuses was completely annihilated after listening to his story. Before him, running three or more miles seemed like the worst punishment I could ever endure. After I got to know his story my little three miles became a cake walk.

Ok so maybe not exactly a cake walk but damn, what excuse could I have that was close to valid? Fast forward to only a few days shy of two months since I began this journey and I just listed to David Goggins while I ran my latest 6.8 miles in a little over an hour.

Do you think your fairy godmother sprinkled some pixie motivational dust on me? Nope!

But listening aided in creating that environment of motivation and accountability.

I’ll leave you by Stealing one of his catchy phrases…

#StayHard