Hi everyone, welcome back to another instalment of the blog. Before I started this project I had hummed and hawed about it for months, will I? won’t I? I didn’t really know what to do! I knew there were a few things I felt passionately about, certain aspects of our industry that didn’t sit well with me and I wanted my voice heard on them. On the other hand, I thought what on earth am I going to write about every week after I discuss these topics? And who will listen to me? One day I said who cares, I sat down, set up the website and started making a list of topics. Throughout school I wanted to be an English teacher, and loved to write. That carried into college where I went on to study strength and conditioning, I no longer wanted to teach English but I enjoyed doing assignments to a certain extent. I liked the research and expressing my views through text. The blog has been a breath of fresh air for me, it’s helping me reconnect with writing and it’s forcing me to take some time for myself doing something I enjoy. This week’s post is going to be based around mind-set and how to become motivated for training and/or life in general. I’m grateful that this week’s topic is another request from a close friend.
Motivation is a funny thing. Naturally, we all go through ups and downs throughout the year and sometimes it’s hard to get out of the downs. At times you’re in the zone and everything you touch turns to gold. On the other hand, when motivation is low it can be hard to get up and train. You don’t see results as much because you’re probably not training as hard and that adds to the frustration. Maybe you jump on YouTube and search for some motivational videos and speeches. You’ll probably come across one called ‘How Bad Do You Want It?’ which when you think about it is kind of strange, like asking yourself this simple question and pairing it with some training footage over several inspiring speeches will snap you from your funk. Be honest, it probably won’t do much… at least long term.
Getting around this requires you to look at things with a slightly different lens. Perhaps some of you have heard of the author/speaker Simon Sinek, or you might be familiar with his TEDTalk ‘Start With Why’. The TEDTalk is a summary of his book by the same name, it introduces a concept of shifting from what’s and how’s to why! Done right, the power of why can be a fantastic concept. Basically it makes you question why you’re doing something. What is your why? The book makes you think in ways you might not ever have done before and repeatedly asks you to question every choice you’ve made to the point where it asks you what your true why is for life! Why do you do the job.
So why am I a strength coach? My why boils down to helping others. I want to help others achieve their goals in ways that they cannot do on their own. That might be helping a member of the general population loose a few percent body fat or an athlete improve their physical characteristics which transfers to an improved performance on the pitch. So when I wake up at 5:15 in the middle of December and it’s pitch black and freezing outside and all I want to do is stay in bed I remember my why, I get up out of bed and I go to work knowing I’m making a difference in people’s lives.
Cool, good story Rory but how can this help me get my unmotivated ass to the gym? In my view too many people are going to train because they feel it’s the norm and it’s what society is expecting them to do. Or they’re going to impress someone else. They need to start going for themselves and figure out what their why is for training. I heard a great story years ago about this, a client came to this trainer to lose weight but hopefully now you guys realise losing weight is not a why and he didn’t accept that. He probed a little deeper and found out this woman always wanted to do a sky dive but was too heavy. Anytime she slacked or fell off the wagon he got her going again by reminding her of the skydive! Low and behold, that woman did her skydive!
So besides having a heart to heart with yourself and asking why what else can you do to help yourself? My first recommendation is to increase the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables in your diet and have as much colour on your plate as possible! When you’re eating healthy naturally you’re going to want to compliment it with training and a better lifestyle.
Another option is adding a vitamin D supplement to your daily routine. Vitamin D is produced naturally by the body with the aid of the sun, however, us Irish don’t get near enough of it, especially during the winter. A lack of vitamin D has been linked with higher depression rates which can obviously impact your overall motivation levels.
The best option for me is to find a form of exercise you truly get excited to go do! I don’t agree with everything that’s out there from an ethics or scientific point of view and there’s some things I think are just bonkers mad but if it gets someone off the couch 3 times a week and out exercising well that’s better than nothing! The best thing anyone can do is find their form of exercise, enjoyment is the best form of motivation, hands down.
So there we have it folks, my initial thoughts on motivation. There’s a lot more I think we can discuss in future including more psychological theories and a more researched based look at the mind. It’s no doubt that the area of psychology in training is one that is quite interesting. I really hope every single person who read this post has taken something from it. As said above, the best form of motivation is enjoyment. So if you’re lacking motivation go find something you’re truly going to enjoy doing, something you can see yourself doing for the next 10 years, join up and set some measurable goals.
If you did take something from this week’s post, please share it with others who you think will also benefit from the topics I’ve talked about. If you could take 2 minutes to share this on your social media or send it to some friends I’d greatly appreciate it. Thanks to everyone who has shared it so far and continues to read each week’s posts. I’m very much blown away with the support I’ve received so far. Don’t forget you can subscribe to the blog by hitting the link below the text.
Thanks again,
Rory.