My name is Igor and I’m the author of this book, STOP EXERCISING! The Way You Are Doing it Now. In this video, we are going to talk about motivation. How to get motivated to work out. One of the most common questions I get is how to get motivated.
“I want to lose weight.”
“I want to gain muscle.”
“I want to have more energy.”
But… I’m just not motivated to do it.
Well, here’s the truth. Motivation is really a formula. You can formulaically get motivation and stay motivated. How? So here’s the formula:
Motivation = confidence + importance
So if your confidence in your ability to get your goal is high enough, you’ll be motivated. In addition to the importance of your task being high, you’ll be motivated.
So how do you enhance your confidence and how do you enhance the importance?
The way to enhance your confidence is to ask yourself:
- “On a 0-10 scale, how confident am I _____________ (fill in the blank with your goal. This could be “to lose 20 pounds”, “to have more energy”, “to feel better”)?”
If the number is 8, 9 or 10, confidence is not your issue. But if the number is less than an 8, the figure out what would it take, what help do you need in order to be able to reach your goal? Do you need an accountability partner? Do you need more information? Do you need a proper exercise and nutrition program? Do you need a personal trainer? And so on.
These are the tools that you can use to enhance your confidence.
Another one is figure out who else in your position has done what you would like to do. So find a person who is as similar to yourself as possible, who has done what you want to do.
So for example, if you are a 45 year old woman who wants to lose 20 pounds, who has a busy life, stressful job and 2 or 3 kids, find someone who is as close to that as possible, who has done what you want to do. If you take that person as an example, it takes away any excuses of “they have a different lifestyle”, “they’re younger”, “they’re older”, “they don’t have kids”, “they have more money”, etc.
If you find someone as close to you as possible, the excuses fall away, because the only difference between you and that other person is they’ve been where you are, and they’ve reached their goal, but you haven’t. So just copy what they did.
That’s confidence.
How do we enhance importance?
Figure out “why do I want this in the first place?”
“Why do I want to lose 20 or 30 or 50 pounds? Why do I want more muscle? Why do I want to get toned? Why do I want more energy?” What will it do for me?
“How do I feel right now with the extra 20 pounds? Are my clothes not fitting me? Do I not feel attractive? Does it cause me to not have as much confidence as I should? Do I not have the energy because of the extra weight? Are my joints hurting because of the extra weight? Am I afraid of going from doctor’s office to doctor’s office?”
So figure out what your motivation is. Why is it important to you? What’s the consequence of staying in the same place?
That’s part 1. In part 2, you figure out what would happen once you’ve reached your goal. What would happen if you were 20 pounds lighter? How would you clothes fit? How would that affect your social life, your business life, and so on?
I talk about motivation much more extensively in my book, STOP EXERCISING! The Way You Are Doing it Now. You can grab a FREE copy at http://www.StopExercisingBook.com.