Find Your Motivation

 

I stepped on the scale the other morning and can’t say I was happy with what I saw.

The scale read 195 lbs., and although I carry my fat fairly well – and look somewhat like a strength coach – the fact that I didn’t make any progress in fat loss from week to week was pretty darn upsetting.

But, it wasn’t surprising, because saying I haven’t been consistent with my nutrition is a MAJOR understatement.

You see, training for me is easy.  I have no problem getting up and hitting the gym in the mornings – favorite part of my day actually – and cardio on off days is a piece of cake.

But sticking to my nutrition and watching my portion sizes?

Man, that’s one heck of a struggle.

For awhile, I couldn’t figure out the cause of my inconsistency.  My macros were drawn up perfect (well, as perfect as you can get while counting calories), I was – estimated – to lose 1-2 pounds per week, and I was follow flexible dieting so it’s not like I was depriving myself of anything.

Yet for some reason, I couldn’t go more than two days without going over my macros and blowing my deficit.

What gives?

Well, finally it dawned on me – I lacked motivation.

It’s easy for me to stay consistent with my training because I LOVE training.  I want to get stronger with every ounce of my being, and the habits I’ve created in my quest to gain strength make it pretty easy to keep pushing forward (I haven’t missed a workout in like two years).

But nutrition?

That’s a different story.

I don’t enjoy tracking macros, I always feel small (bigorexia anyone?), and I like cake and ice-cream WAY more than I like having abs.

All in all, I’m simply not motivated to lose body fat, and that’s why no matter how great my plan is on paper – until I’m motivated – I’m not going to make any progress.

I share this with you for two reasons:

1. To show you that I – and every other strength and nutrition coach I know – go through the same struggles you do
2. To make it clear that motivation is very, very important.

I don’t know why it took so long for this to click in my head, but motivation is the framework that holds every training and nutrition plan together.

No matter what your goal is – whether it’s to gain strength, lose body fat, or become the next world champion mud wrestler – without a strong motivation to achieve that goal, the entire program will fall apart.

 

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation

I almost refrained from putting this in here for fear of boring you to death, but it’s important to understand the difference between the two types of motivation.

Extrinsic motivation is defined by psychology.about.com (awesome source right?) as behavior that’s driven by external rewards.  Examples of these rewards include money, fame, praise, etc.

In contrast, intrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from within us.  It occurs when we act without any obvious external rewards. We either enjoy what we’re doing, want to improve our potential, learn something new, etc.

In most cases – atleast with the clients that I’ve worked with – intrinsic motivation is MUCH stronger than extrinsic motivation.

If your only motivation for completing a specific task is that someone told you to (despite YOU not being interested in the specific goal or activity), or for some external – and somewhat meaningless – reward, things will fall apart when times get tough.

Why?

Because no one – and I mean NO ONE – can motivate you but yourself.

This isn’t to say you can’t have an external motivating factor (money, fame, and glory – who doesn’t want those things), but it shouldn’t be your ONLY motivating factor.

Because no matter how bad you think you want something, extrinsic motivation just isn’t that strong.

Intrinsic motivation is.

And if your motivating factor is that you truly enjoy what you’re doing, want to improve your health or performance, learn something new, or be an inspiration for others, there’s almost no way that you WON’T be successful.

 

Finding Your Motiving Factor

So I guess the question of the day is – what’s motivating you to achieve your specific goals?

For me, strength training is my favorite thing to do in life, I want to get healthier, stronger, and bigger, and I want to maximize my potential to the best of my abilities.

When it comes to fat loss, my motivation used to be that I wanted to look better.

In other words, I wanted other people’s approval (i.e. an external reward) that I looked good. No wonder I never reached my fat loss goals.

Now, I want to lose body fat because I want to improve my health, my relative strength for powerlifting, take load off of my joints, and I want to be more mobile, fast, and agile.

My motivating factors are a lot stronger, and my ability to stick to my nutrition plan and make progress will be much higher as a result.

Before you embark on YOUR fitness journey, sit down and figure out what’s really motivating you to do it.

No one but YOU can come up with the answer, and if you’re not motivated to achieve a specific goal right now – that’s fine.  You may find a motivation to do it later on down the line.

At the end of the day, just remember that motivation is the foundation that every successful training or nutrition plan is built upon.

Once you find yours, the sky’s the limit!