Motivation is underrated

The promise of a dose of motivation sells tickets to seminars, it sells books, DVDs and big glossy posters. Motivation is infectious, it breathes life into you and gives you the energy to go out there, make the plans, do the grunt work and begin your journey. When someone strolls into the room with a fresh new attitude on life it picks others up, the fact of the matter is that we could all do with a little motivation from time to time.





However I see a problem, because motivation is temporary and often lacking. It ebbs and flows, and when people are in this state they fall of the wagon of whatever they're doing. The most clichéd example of this us in health and fitness.

As my clients reading this will know, last week I broke my arm. This was bad news for a number of obvious reasons, but one of the biggest factors is that it has killed my motivation to exercise.

The reason for this is that I can no longer do what I love to do. I almost exclusively perform compound moves with barbells, squats, deadlifts, pull ups, cleans, rows, presses. There is no particular reason for this over other methods of training other than that it was I enjoy doing.

Now I can't do it for another 8 weeks and 6 days (who's counting?), and my motivation has gone.

The knock on effect if this is that if I don't train then motivation to eat well drops acutely. I time my meals around exercise, and without it the structure and composition of my meals has gone down the proverbial.

But that's not going to be a problem, because I'm still going to exercise. I don't need motivation any more, I've left it behind for good.



What has happened is through repetition of behaviour, i.e. training 3-4 times per week the habit of exercising has become so ingrained that if I don't do it I feel something is missing. It's an interesting paradox; I don't get to do what I usually enjoy doing, so I don't want to exercise. On the other hand if I don't exercise, it annoys me.

The reason for all this self-indulgent writing is that until this point I had never really appreciated how powerful the system of implementing habits is. I had never really had to test them.

Habits take time, but make health easy. For example if I ever for whatever reason have to have a breakfast without protein, it annoys me. If I skip a meal, it annoys me. If I get less than 8 hours sleep it really annoys me

So when your coach gives you a habit, take it seriously and embrace it. There may well be a time in the future where you have to rely on it to keep you moving in the right direction, and after all that's the only important measurement.