Reviving Motivation

It's funny how something comes along at just the right time when you need a battery re-charge.  That is what working with Rick to accomplish our fitness goals has been for me.   It's fun to think up workouts that will not only challenge him, but me as well, and to eat as clean as possible so that I'm doing exactly what I ask of him.   This new chapter of my journey came along at a time when I needed to be held more accountable and get stricter on what I eat.  I was never back to eating Doritos on the couch, my personal metaphor for going back to bad ways, but I had allowed myself too many treats here and there at fun summertime events.  And lo and behold, after buckling down the scale was my friend again and I dropped four pounds at this weeks' weigh-in.   This got me thinking about motivational re-charges and the hard task of bringing back the magic so to speak when you feel you've lost it and don't have any idea of how to get it back.  

Walking up the hill from the parking deck to my office this morning, I was suddenly struck with a memory of myself, 104 pounds ago, struggling up this short distance, winded, feeling like I was walking through sinking sand, struggling for breath from a very short walk up just a slight incline.  In fact back in those days, I would have to stop a the halfway point, feigning looking through my purse for something or answering a phantom phone call so that my coworkers wouldn't know that I was just too worn out to finish a walk that was just a matter of a few yards. It was during that time that I stopped going out to lunch with people because I didn't want to make that "trek" more than I had to during the course of the day.  Now I don't go to lunch because I'm in the gym and I've done three 5Ks.  Now I walk in in the morning and don't think twice about my easy stride and steady breathing.   It seems wild to think about that other state of being now. But, sometimes in order to find motivation when we are lacking, it pays to look back and realize how far we've come.

It's way too easy to slide back into old behaviors if you don't keep on your toes.  It happens not with a bang, but little by little until all of a sudden you "wake up" in a state where you're breathless trying to walk into the office.  Trust me, I've been there and done that and I am determined never to go back to that bad place again.   Not that I don't have my times of doubting or wane in motivation.   We all get frustrated, angry or down.  We all find ourselves at the gym some days not feeling it.  We all look at a piece of cake, or some french fries, or a box of donuts and think to ourselves, "why not this one time?"  If you feel your resolve or motivation waning, here are a few things that have worked for me:

• Imagining the way I felt at my heaviest and how polar opposite life is now.
• Finding someone I want to catch up with and working out with them.  Good gossip makes the time go by.
• When I'm feeling frustrated I find my angriest music and take my aggressions out on the punching bag.  It's great cardio and helps the mental state as much as it does the waist line.
• Making short term goals.
• Feeling the way my clothes feel now and remembering how uncomfortable I used to feel.
• Writing, whether its on this blog or in a journal.
• Finding someone like Rick that I can be accountable to and who can be accountable to me.
• Shaking up my workout with something I like (like karate or a game like workout poker) that feels like fun and not like work.
• Remembering the past, the aches and the pains that are no longer a part of my life.
• Enjoying the present and the awesome spot I am in today, even though I'm not at my goal yet.
• Imagining the future and how I will feel and what I will do when I get to my goal.

Finding motivation and keeping it going is often hard and something we all struggle with whether we have five, fifty or one hundred pounds to lose.  We get frustrated, down on ourselves, mad at ourselves or others...all of which are deadly triggers that have the potential to derail us or even make us want to jump off our path to our goals.  During these times sometimes the best route to motivation and determination is to simply fake it until you make it.  It's a tired old saying yes, but if you do it long enough...it definitely works.