by Tom Venuto
“How do I get motivated?” outside of “What must I eat?” that’s the primary question I’m asked about getting a lot more results on a diet or exercise program. nearly everyone has up and down days, mentally as well as physically. Fortunately, you can learn how to get motivated instantly, you just need the ideal strategies.
Wegweiser – MotivationWhat’s special about these motivation methods is where they came from. This list didn’t come from psychology research or professional athletes. It was created through three surveys – one on facebook, one at our burn the Fat inner Circle, and one through email, pulling in over 1300 responses. There were at least 25 special actions with multiple votes, but I’ve culled them down to the top 10.
This is a list of how regular people, just like you, say they get motivated to take action, and I’ve simply added my commentary on why I agree that these are some incredibly ideas. Which of these motivates you the most? What else motivates you that’s not on this list?
Look at pictures of yourself.
Many health and fitness transformations begin with a “wake up call” of some kind. common examples include when your doctor says you’re a candidate for a heart attack (and that “scares the couch potato out of you”). Or when your elevator is out one day, and after climbing 5 flights of stairs to your floor, you’re gasping for breath. Or when you can’t keep up with your teenager. Or when a small child Camiseta Flamengo is overheard saying, “My mommy is fat.” Or when you barely fit in the airplane seat.
But the one call to action I’ve heard a lot more often than any other is a photograph. someone simply saw a picture of themselves. “I didn’t even recognize myself.” I’ve heard that cry for decades. and today in the age of facebook and social photo sharing, I’ve heard it so lots of a lot more times that I’ve lost count. When the reality of that photo sinks in, feelings of shame and embarrassment often follow and prompt a person to say, “THAT’S IT! I don’t want to look like that anymore. That’s not me.” That was the motivating moment that change began.
Looking at after photos next to your old before pictures can generate continued motivation. lots of people hate their old fat pictures and are tempted to throw them out. but those old pictures might be the most useful resource you’ve ever had. They were not only an initial motivation to change, but can now be a crucial to ongoing motivation and a tip to never slip back. What a confidence booster it is to look at your before and after improvement photos and deeply relish the work you put in to achieve that.
Look at yourself in the mirror… without the clothes
I mean some people might say that seeing a fat or out of shape body reflected in the mirror would get them depressed, not motivated (or make them purposely avoid mirrors). That’s understandable, but I guess this method works for so lots of people because there’s little motivation to change unless you are consciously and vividly aware of your unhappiness with the way things are.
This feeling has been famously described as “divine discontent” or “inspirational dissatisfaction,” to describe how unhappiness with the way things are can be a positive when the feeling is aspirational. It’s only a negative when you don’t notice at all, and when you become indifferent and don’t even care what you look like.
I know a hypnotherapist weight loss instructor who says the mirror is the best craving buster he knows. He tells his clients that when they get a sudden craving for fatty, sugar-filled food that’s not on their healthy indicate plan, to wait just a few minutes before deciding if you want to eat it. before deciding, go get in front of a full length mirror, with no clothes on. Take a good look at what you see. picture that cheesecake or doughnuts or ice cream sticking to your gut or your butt, and then and only then decide if you still want it.
By the way, once you’re in great shape, the mirror can still be a great motivator. It makes you feel great to like what you see in the mirror! Sure, the mirror “plays tricks” with us often because our self-perception is not always objective, so using other progress tracking data as motivators is helpful (and subjective) as well. but even if we are hyper-critical of ourselves looking in the mirror, if that leads to desire for improvement, or fulfillment with our progress, either way, that’s a good motivator.
Set a challenging goal
When you have inspirational dissatisfaction and a challenging goal, that combination is like motivational rocket fuel. lots of people know they have a problem, often to the point that they hate the physical condition they are in now. The real problem is, their focus remains there, on “I hate this!”
It’s ok to hate the condition you’re in now, because you’re a lot more than a body. An out of shape body is a momentary physical condition and you have the power to change it. but you have to transmute that dissatisfaction into aspiration, and aspiration requires something to aspire to. You need to have a goal to focus on.
Every so often I stumble across a book or post that says goal setting doesn’t work and that you shouldn’t set goals. That is the worst recommendations EVER! Naturally, the big goals need to be broken down in to short term goals and action steps and of course fitness goals need to have sensible deadlines. but the story of human progress, achievement and success is the story of courageous dreamers who set goals. big ones. As Brian Tracy once said, “Success is goals. All else is commentary.”
The crucial is to set goals that are challenging, because those are the goals that not only get you excited, they make something of you to achieve them. The greatest reward of achieving a goal is not what you get, it’s the kind of person you need to become in buy to achieve it. The a lot more challenging the goal, the a lot more you grow as a person – in character, in discipline, in confidence and in so lots of other ways.
If your goal doesn’t scare you and excite you at the same time, your goal is too small.
Try on your skinny clothes.
If you find yourself out of shape with an expanding waistline, try on your favorite pair of pants that you loved to wear when you were in the best shape of your life. When they don’t fit so well, that experience seems to stir up some real emotion in men and women alike. commit to fit into them again. the worst that can happen is you surpass your previous best shape, your old pants are too big and you need to get them taken in or go shopping for brand new clothes.
Many burn the Fat readers and clients have told me they avoid getting in the routine of wearing sweatpants or stretch-waistline pants all the time. They know that if they did, they wouldn’t notice the waistline creep unless they looked in the mirror (and if you avoid the mirror and wear stretchy pants, well… that’s double trouble). You need to face Camiseta Racing Club de Avellaneda the music and track the numbers you want to improve. waistline is one of them, and there are lots of others.
Track your progress, your food and your training in a journal
Want a real fitness miracle? It’s not in a Camiseta Fútbol supplement bottle – it’s in a journal. Track your progress. measure everything you want to improve: waist size, body fat percentage, body weight, pounds of fat, pounds of lean and all the health numbers that are crucial to you – blood pressure, blood sugar, blood lipids and so on. What gets measured gets improved, even without making any other changes. Why? because it makes you accountable, it forces you to focus on little daily goals, it’s a fun challenge and it’s motivating.
Every sports instructor and service manager has always known this, which is why they not only keep score in a game, and track sales, respectively, but also track individual performance down to the last statistic. Every great quarterback knows his completion (and interception) percentage and strives to improve it, and every successful sales person knows her closing ratio and works on boosting it.
It’s no different in your fitness endeavors. The minute you start tracking your food intake, your behavior changes. Don’t believe me? Ask a diet researcher. one of the lots of reasons that long-term diet studies are so tough to do is because as soon as you start observing someone and they know it, their behavior changes, whether consciously or unconsciously. normally that indicates they are unexpectedly on their best behavior, which is evidence of measuring results being a great motivational tool, but it’s a frustration to obesity researchers because they can’t get a true gauge of behavior in the human’s natural environment.
The same goes for exercise and weight training. Every good strength instructor or personal trainer worth the paper his certification is printed on will get his athletes or clients tracking sets, reps and pounds lifted. Going into every training session with targets to hit or exceed, will instantly start improving motivation and performance. When your workouts improve, your physique and performance will improve.
The bottom line: people who keep nutrition, training and progress journals are a lot more motivated and get a lot more results than people who don’t.
Remember who looks up to you as a role model
Two questions: One, who are you setting the example for? Your kids? Your students? Your spouse? Your employees? Your teammates? Your friends? everyone in your social circle? Two, what kind of example are you setting? remember that you are a lot more influential than you think.
Robert Fulghrum once said, “Don’t worry that children never listen to you, worry that they are always enjoying you.” When you’re a positive role model for health and fitness, you don’t have to say a word, because how you act and how you look speak much louder than anything you could say. “The world is changed by examples, not by opinions,” says Paulo Coelho. That’s so true isn’t it? Lecturing and nagging other people to work out and eat healthier is not always appreciated. quietly being an inspiration sure is.
If you want to draw out the best in others, be an exemplar yourself. From a purely “selfish” point of view, remember that maintaining role model status is one of the best methods to keep yourself motivated and on your toes.
Think about the feeling you’ll have at the end of your workout
What you choose to focus on has a lot to make with your level of motivation. a lot of people think about exercise and their focus shifts to the anxiety of being “too busy” to workout. lots of people focus on thinking how hard the workout will be, how much it’s going to hurt, and how much they won’t take pleasure in it. Why not change your focus? It’s your brain – you can focus on what you want.
You’re not alone if you dread going to the gym some days, but I don’t know any individual who doesn’t feel good after a workout. Ok, so maybe you feel physically spent sometimes, but you also feel accomplished, satisfied, confident, stronger, and a lot more powerful.
It’s a lot more than psychological too. exercise releases endorphins, your body’s natural feel-good chemicals. too lots of people today worry about and focus on the wrong thing. The news media is regularly talking about food addiction. Why aren’t people talking about exercise addiction? I indicate the positive kind where you get addicted to how damn good it feels to work out and see the results in the mirror and see people’s reactions to your results.
It’s as easy as shifting your focus to those good feelings and the bad ones will fade away.
Get involved with the ideal health and fitness community or group, in person or online
“Get a support system!” You’ve probably hard that before – and for good reason. Social psychology research backs up this recommendations and and so does real world experience. When you’re down, other people can lift you up better than anything you can do alone.
The two crucial words here are “right” and “involved.” It’s not enough to join any support group – you need one where you feel you fit in and the vibe resonates with you. It’s also not enough to simply join or belong to a support group. joining is not enough. get involved. Participate. ask for help, recommendations and support. and return the favor. support is a circle. someone helps you achieve your goals, and then you “pay it forward” and help someone else.
Learn a lot more about the Internet’s premier fitness support community for inspiration, motivation and improvement at: www.burnthefatinnercircle.com.
Enter a fitness or body improvement challenge
Change starts with you. You need to make the decision to change, you need to set goals and no one can take action for you. However, once you have accepted personal responsibility for your own transformation, adding external rewards, accountability and excitement in the form of competition will light a fire in you and double your motivation, guaranteed. competition makes you push and strive in ways you’d never do in the absence of that challenge and the rewards that come with it.
Striving to win is commendable, but competition, especially in fitness, isn’t the greatest reward, nor the only purpose of competing. competition is a path to personal development and bringing out the best in you. rarely will you ever express anywhere near your full potential or display height performance without a reason why – and competition, or at least a certain challenging goal – gives you a reason.
For those who don’t compete in organized sports or enter onstage physique or bodybuilding contests, there are many opportunities to enter body improvement and fitness contests annually and lots of of them can be entered online. Every year, thousands enter our burn the Fat challenge. Thousands enter ever year. look for our improvement success stories and announcements abo
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