How men can overcome their perceived hurdles and achieve their fitness dreams.
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Workout motivation. We all want it. Yet, it’s often as fleeting as a beautiful sunset. Here, I want to highlight 4 common mistakes that people make that is crushing their workout motivation and holding them back from a the body they want. See which ones apply to you and then take action on the recommended action steps to get back on track.
Over the years, I’ve noticed that we get our “musts”, not our “shoulds”. If you must lose 10 pounds or get ready for that upcoming wedding, you will. The human mind is incredible when it has a definitive purpose.
And that leads us into the first workout motivation mistake…
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Mistake #1 – You Don’t Know What You Want and Why You Want it
Just like a plane leaving the gate, you first must know where you’re going. You need to know what you want. If you don’t know what you want then how are you ever going to know when you get there?
Your want needs to be emotionally compelling to you that you will do anything to achieve it. It therefore becomes a “must”.
You have to keep asking yourself “WHY?” to dig deeper and really find out the true underlying reasons for wanting to achieve your goal.
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You have to identify so much pain with the possibility of not achieving your goal that it will drive you to taking massive action towards what you do want. At the same time, you have to absolutely feel in your heart that what you want is yours. Act “as if” and you’ll be pulled toward your goal that much more easily.
Remember, your goal has to really move you. It has to be visceral. It needs to give you goose bumps when you think about it. The more energy and feeling you have towards something the greater your ability to attain it.
Let’s say you want to lose 20 pounds. Where’s the juice in this goal? I bet there’s more to it than just losing the weight. What’s the real underlying reason?
You have to keep asking yourself “WHY?” to dig deeper and really find out the true underlying reasons for wanting to achieve your goal. The more reasons WHY that you can come up with the better. All of these reasons serve as your rocket fuel, especially when the going gets tough.
Action Step #1 – Write down what you want as if you’ve already achieved it. For instance, you can write…
“I am so grateful that I’m (desired weight) and love the way I look and feel in my clothes.”
Action Step #2 – Write down as many reasons WHY it is imperative for you to achieve this goal. Remember, the more reasons you have, the better your chances of realizing your goal.
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Mistake #2 – You Lack Massive Leverage and Accountability
This point is one of the most important elements to achieving a goal and is often neglected by many people. Leverage and accountability basically mean that you need to find someone or something outside of yourself that will keep you on track, focused, and accountable.
The only way to permanently install a new habit is to direct so much energy toward it that old ones slip away like an unwelcomed house guest.
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Let’s say that you wanted to hire a trainer to whip you into shape physically, mentally, and nutritionally. Your payment to that trainer becomes a great source of accountability. After all, you wouldn’t let to let that money go to waste, would you?
This is one example but do you see where I’m going with this? The secret is to find ways of creating leverage and accountability for yourself that will make you take action even when you don’t want to. After all, many times we will do much more for others than we will for ourselves.
Action Step #3 – Find as many ways as possible to leverage yourself and be accountable to something or someone else. Here are some ideas:
Enroll your friends to do it with you
Announce your goal to as many people as possible
Put some serious cash or a prized possession on the line
Hire a trainer
Impose a 30-day challenge on yourself
Offer yourself a massive reward for achieving your goal
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Mistake #3 – You Haven’t Made it a Habit
They say it takes about a month of daily action to create a habit. The only way to permanently install a new habit is to direct so much energy toward it that old ones slip away like an unwelcomed house guest.
Better yet, if you can perform your daily action at the same time you will dramatically improve your chances of sticking to your plan. The key is that you want to make it as automatic a process as possible. The beauty of creating a daily habit is that by taking consistent action you will notice tremendous results in a much shorter period of time, which in turn will motivate you even further.
I know it may seem scary but once you commit to it you’ll be in.
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The power of creating a positive habit boils down to building momentum. When you have momentum working for you, you don’t have to work as hard.
Action Step #4 – Choose an action that you want to engrain into a habit. Is it working out daily, eating a salad everyday, or drinking more water? Whatever it is, chunk it down into a bite-size action and make a commitment to doing it every day for at least one month and schedule it as best you can do be done at the same time every single day.
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Mistake #4 – You Forgot to Fix A Deadline
The idea of setting a timeline to your goal links back to the idea of accountability. In setting a measurable date for achieving your goal you be accountable to it.
What’s interesting is that the time taken for any task will always be equal to the time given. So if you have a deadline for tomorrow you better believe you’ll do what has to be done to get done, right?
So why not set a timeline for your goal that fits this notion? Now of course you want to be somewhat realistic but at the same time don’t sell yourself short. If you want to lose 20 pounds you can just as do so in 1 month as you can in 1 year. The only difference is in your level of commitment and willingness to take consistent action.
The choice is yours.
Would you rather see results sooner or much later? Realize that the former will require a bit more work and discipline but you need to believe in yourself and know that you will make it happen no matter what!
Action Step #5 – Set a timeline for achieving your goal. Don’t be conservative. Push your limits. Get out of your comfort zone. Stretch yourself a bit. If you think it will take ‘x’ time to achieve your goal I challenge you to aim to do it in half that time! I know it may seem scary but once you commit to it you’ll be in. They’ll be no turning back and I know you’ll do great!
Yuri Elkaim is a nutrition, fitness, and fat loss expert and the NYT bestselling author of The All-Day Energy Diet and The All-Day Fat Burning Diet. A former professional soccer player turned health crusader, he’s most famous for helping people who’ve tried everything to lose weight with little success finally achieve breakthrough results. For more helpful ways to get motivated and create better exercise (and eating) habits, check out these great resources on Yuri’s site at https://yurielkaim.com/healthy-habits/