Pro-level athletes are not more motivated than you are.
Olympic athletes don’t just “want it more.”
The best CrossFitters in your gym has the same struggles with motivation that you do.
The difference? They know how to get motivated (and what to do when they don’t feel motivated at all).
Ask anyone at the highest levels of fitness: Sometimes they don’t feel like working out. And those folks with ripped abs? They want a slice of pizza and chocolate cake.
So why do they work out anyway? Why do they stick to their meal plan when things get tough?
Here’s how to do it—and the great news is that you can use the SAME strategy they do.
Get a coach. You some accountability from who is objective. Your spouse may not always be supportive. Your coworkers may not don’t want you to succeed. And your friends don’t want you to change at all.
You need someone to:
- Remove the guesswork
- Get you results FAST (you’ll see why in the next step)
- Hold you accountable. You can “ghost” someone over text, but you can’t miss appointments.
- Provide a “pain” for failure. That means you have to pay for coaching. If there isn’t a little bit of pain, you will backslide.
Get a really fast result. Our brains are wired to reward quick wins and novelty. If we don’t see results quickly, we lose motivation.
It’s key for someone to say, “You did really well at X” or be excited that you showed up to class or your appointment. You will get inconsistencies from a spouse or friend. But a coach will take care of this for you, too.
Set up a short-term “challenge” for yourself … but have a plan for after the challenge ends.
A six-week fitness challenge or 75 days of workouts is great for motivating yourself. But most people drop off the edge when it ends, and many actually wind up worse than ever. In my experience, people who do short-term diets (like intermittent fasting or keto diets) usually gain back the weight they lost and far more. The unsustainable nature of the diet, plus the long-term damage to their metabolism, actually leaves them less healthy.
You can do these things; don’t get me wrong. Get the surgery if that’s what it takes. But have the second step all lined up and ready to go before you take the first.
Again, a Coach can build this plan for you.
It will eventually become habit. Meal prepping, shopping for groceries, not going out to eat, even going into the gym won’t always be hard. It WILL get easier, but only if you are CONSISTENT with the habit. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Make a marginal change in your life and see those
changes begin to happen. Set an appointment in your phone for your gym time and don’t miss it. Cut out one bad habit from your day, like limiting how much pop you drink.
Usually it takes around 90 days for our behaviors to become habits and then a few more months for our habits to become “just what we do.”
Track everything. Track your workouts. Guess what, at CrossFit Fargo, there’s an app for that!
Note your personal bests, you weights and your times
Note your wins everyday
Track your sleep and track your nutrition
Note how they all tie together.
If I sleep less, I want more caffeine. When I drink more caffeine, I want more sugar.
When I eat more sugar, I lose motivation to work out. When I don’t work out, I get more stressed. And when I get more stressed, I sleep less.
Then I get dumber, fatter, depressed and UNMOTIVATED (That’s just me…but I know that you can relate).
Use your tools to plan.
For example, instead of just putting today’s food in MyFitnessPal before bed, enter all of your meals in MyFitnessPal in advance. Then add or subtract carbs, fats and protein to make your macros, and voila – you have a food plan for the next day!
Trust me…. it’s far better than standing in front of the fridge at 9 p.m. because you are lacking in your nutrition goals for the day. (At least that’s what I have heard)
CrossFit Fargo Members success comes from the CrossFit prescription of three days on and one day of rest. That’s 273 workouts a year, 22 times a month, 5 times a week or 5 hours a week. Start out by taking three times a week and you are already 60% there. And the beautiful of it is you don’t have to figure out what you need to work on, we al
ready have that programmed for you! Do you need to be in the gym 5 days a week? Nope! Go for a walk or bike ride, BE ACTIVE!
Check your progress.
Look, you’re not going to have a personal best on every workout. But that matters ZERO PERCENT. What really matters is CONSISTENCY. People who show up every day, even if they put out 50% of their best effort, get better results than people who crush it once a week.
The people who “sprint and crash” usually get amazing results, and then they get fat again. Or they get strong, and then they get injured. The people who just show up for their appointments get strong, lean and happy for life.
I want you to know this: The days when you feel the LEAST motivation are the days you’ll get the BEST results.
Consistent, imperfect action always wins.
