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Confidence, Fitness, Motivation

How To Motivate Yourself To Get Into Peak Physical Shape

Do you ever struggle with motivation to keep fit and invest time each day to make yourself stronger? When I say stronger, I don’t refer to lifting weights, I mean moving your body and getting your heart rate up so you strengthen every part of your body – your vital organs (lungs, heart, brain etc), your musculoskeletal system (muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons etc), and consuming food which fuels and nourishes your body rather than consuming “food” which makes you weaker – the likely suspects being trans fats, refined carbohydrates and sugar.

Back to the initial question, it’s very easy to fall off the wagon so to speak, when you take up a new fitness regime. In fact, statistics show that the majority of people who invest in a new fitness program or purchase a new fitness book will give up within a few weeks. Why is this?

I believe it all comes down to your ‘why’. Without a strong enough ‘why’, it’s almost impossible to commit to anything.  As Tony Robbins says along with other psychology 101 principles, we human beings are motivated by 2 key driving forces – pain and pleasure. More precisely, the need to avoid pain and the desire to gain pleasure. Everything we do in life, every decision we make, is a result of one or both of those driving forces.

Take procrastination for example. When we procrastinate, it’s down to attaching more pain to taking immediate action than we do pleasure. Another way of putting it, is we don’t attach enough pleasure to the outcome and we focus on the perceived pain of taking action. So we put off taking action. We perceive it as painful. It’s that simple.

How do we get around it? How do we end procrastination? One solution is to attach more pleasure to the outcome. We can focus on everything positive that the outcome will bring to us in our lives. We can write down every pleasurable reason we can think of to motivate us to achieve the outcome. It works so well when you ask yourself why each time you come up with a reason, and then ask yourself why you want that, and once you’ve come up with another reason, ask yourself why again. Do this until you can’t go any deeper. What normally happens is you end up attaching these reasons to some of your core universal yearnings, such as finding and/or keeping your perfect partner (we come wired from the factory to do this), having children or being the best for existing children, financial security or safety. Or…sex.

Have you ever got seriously involved in a fitness regime before summer for example? It was probably the case that you attached so much pleasure to looking good with your shirt off, feeling good, how it would lift your confidence etc that you committed to your fitness regime and therefore achieved your desired outcome.  Subconsciously or consciously, you’ll have created a number of reasons for getting into great shape. It might have been that you were single and you wanted to put yourself in the best position to attract someone special. If you were in a relationship with kids, it might have been that you wanted to have tons of energy for the summer and be full of vitality so you could have tons of energy to play with your kids.

On the flip side, it might have been, that you thought of unfavourable outcomes that would arise out of not getting into great shape – thus, you focused on the pain of not achieving your desired outcome. It might have been that you imagined yourself lacking confidence, feeling low, not wanting to take your shirt off and covering up for example, and you achieved your desired outcome. This is all pain. If this was the case, you might be more motivated by the need to avoid pain, than the desire to gain pleasure, as in the previous example.

It transpires that we tend to be more motivated by the need to avoid pain than we are for the desire to gain pleasure. The reason for this is that it’s built in, within us. It’s a survival mechanism. It’s part of our reptilian brain that is designed to keep us safe. It wants to keep us inside of our comfort zone – or zone of familiarity should I say. Sometimes our comfort zone really isn’t that comfortable – but it’s what our brain knows.

If you struggle with motivation to commit to a fitness regime, I highly recommend taking out 20-30 mins with a blank sheet of paper or on your laptop, whatever you choose, and write down every positive reason you can think of for achieving your desired outcome. If you don’t have an idea of your desired outcome, think of that first. Figure out in your head how you want to feel and look, think of the increased energy you’ll have, think of how much stronger you’ll be, think of never getting ill.  Once you’ve come up with a desired outcome of a superior you, or best physical version of yourself, get clear on every reason you can think of, for getting there, for reaching that goal. As above, ask yourself why. Why is that important to you? Do this again and again until you can’t go deeper.

When you’ve done that, think of every painful reason you can think of, for continuing without taking action. Think of how your life will be, if you don’t take action.

This is a remarkably powerful exercise. It could save you months or even years of frustration.

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3 Comments


  1. dale hoots

    July 28, 2015 at 12:26 am

    great information!

    Reply

    • Neil

      July 28, 2015 at 9:07 pm

      Thank you Dale! Hope it helps. Would you like to see more stuff like this? More on psychology?

      Reply

  2. Roscoe Filler

    September 2, 2015 at 3:33 am

    Whether it’s time management, stress, a busy job, bustling family life, or something else, in this post we’re going to help you break down the barriers that may keep you from getting up and active. We sat down with some experts—people who have really motivated others—for their tips on how to do what you already know you should.

    Reply

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