2633: [Part 2] Fitness Motivation: How To Never Lose Your Motivation Again by JC Deen of JCD Fitness on Discipline

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[00:01:40] How to Never Lose Your Motivation Again. Part 2 by JC Dean of jcdfitness.com. And I'm Dr. Neil, your very own personal narrator. Hello, happy Tuesday and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily where I simply read to you from the best health and fitness blogs for free.

[00:01:57] I cover fitness, nutrition, stress management, weight management and lots more. Just like an audiobook but from a bunch of different authors and always with permission from the sites and always with a little bit of my commentary at the end. Now today's post is part 2 from yesterday.

[00:02:14] So if you're new here or skipping around, I'd recommend listening to yesterday's episode first. That's episode 1116. But if you're all caught up, let's jump right in and hear part 2 as we continue optimizing your life. Fitness Motivation. How to Never Lose Your Motivation Again.

[00:02:35] Part 2 by JC Dean of jcdfitness.com. Don't Let Your Emotions Rule Your Actions. Look, we've all made decisions in the heat of the moment. And when we look back at those decisions, they're almost always clouded by emotions. Emotions are strong.

[00:02:53] Feelings can have a huge impact on your ability to think objectively, especially when you're wrapped up in the process of feeling a particular emotion. I've made some very bad decisions when my emotions were involved. In fact, looking back over my life,

[00:03:07] I've thrown away lots of money and time due to my emotions rather than my intellect, rationale and ability to think logically. But guess what? It's gonna happen because I'm human. And as humans, we have proven over and over and over again,

[00:03:24] we're quick to act irrationally when our emotions are involved. Just because you don't feel like training doesn't mean you shouldn't, especially if your end goal requires a certain level of consistency with working out. So the next time you think about giving in to emotions or feelings

[00:03:40] that steer you away from your fitness goals, remember that you have a choice in how you act. And you can, in fact, act differently if you choose to. The next time you feel like sleeping in when you should be getting up for that early morning session,

[00:03:55] you have a choice. The next time you feel like eating that pint of ice cream because you had a stressful day at work, you have the option of acknowledging how you feel and making a choice about eating it or not. Always ask yourself these questions.

[00:04:11] 1. Am I serving myself now or later by making this decision of whatever I want in the moment? And 2. Will I look back tomorrow and be happy or upset with my decision? If you wanna be happy in the long run,

[00:04:26] the way you answer those questions will steer your ship. I'm not saying this is easy, but understanding you have a choice in whether or not you give in to your emotions or feelings is a big first step in the right direction. Action Step

[00:04:40] You can't always control what happens in your life, but you can learn to view your circumstances in a way that serves you better. I'm not a huge fan of stoicism, but the personal meditations by Marcus Aurelius that Gregory Hayes' translation is highly recommended

[00:04:55] is a great read for helping you understand that emotions are a natural part of our existence. And when you see how Marcus dealt with this, you'll see you indeed have a choice in how you interpret them. Understand your excuses. Let me first say this. I hate condescending questions

[00:05:13] many so-called fitspirational people love to throw around. What's your excuse? is a quick opener for a barrage of text meant not to inspire, but ridicule you and make you feel bad for not having enough time or willpower to get yourself into the best shape of your life.

[00:05:30] You might see the photo of a lean, fit person smiling with the what's your excuse mantra overlaying the image. But who is this really helping? No one. It just serves the ego and self-righteousness of those who like to belittle others. Instead, it's better to ask yourself some questions

[00:05:48] to get a better understanding of why you're not feeling motivated to keep doing all the things that equate to being in good health and great shape. Are you struggling with making time to train or eat right? Figure out why and get to the root of it.

[00:06:02] Do you miss your gym sessions? Is it because the gym is really far away? Is it because you lack the equipment at home? Maybe joining a gym would help you stick to your training. When we make excuses, it's often because change is hard

[00:06:15] and getting ourselves to do what we want to is not easy especially if we're trying to change too much at once. So you can either power through with willpower which rarely works or you can establish forms of constraint and accountability.

[00:06:33] When you embark on a new training program or a new diet, you're creating constraints for yourself. When a coach sends you a macronutrient plan, this is a form of constraint to keep you within a certain caloric range. When you are scheduled to train upper body twice

[00:06:48] and lower body twice in a week, this is a constraint formed to keep you from training less or more. These are guides that serve as some structure to help you progress. When you have a coach or a training partner,

[00:07:01] you're getting accountability to do what you said you would. It's easy to say you're going to train four days per week and stop eating junk food but when you only answer to yourself, it's easy to let yourself slide into the old habits of

[00:07:14] training sporadically and giving into the junk food cravings. Change is hard for everyone so don't go it alone and don't rely on your own willpower to get you there because it's that statistics don't lie. The most popular New Year's resolution is always weight loss

[00:07:30] but less than 2-3% ever follow through. So, what's the solution? Don't rely on motivation to keep going. Motivation is fleeting. A common concern I get every single day via email has to do with someone not feeling motivated enough to do something they should be doing.

[00:07:50] Most people say they want to work out regularly, eat better, get up early, go to bed before midnight or fill in the blank with whatever it takes to reach a fitness goal. And the common assumption is that we must feel motivated in order to get something done.

[00:08:06] It's like, we must feel that fleeting emotion motivation is pretty much just a feeling or emotion in order to go to the gym or cook a healthy meal. But the problem with this is motivation doesn't come around too often. We might experience a motivational thought

[00:08:22] to work out or eat our veggies about twice per month, if that. Most of the other times, we're not feeling the motivation because working out can be hard. Eating healthy is not always easy or as fun as eating Chinese takeout.

[00:08:38] However, even the most accomplished people in the world don't feel motivated all the time. So that's good news, right? But if you're asking how they get anything done, know this one thing. They get things done because they have a big enough reason why they do what they do.

[00:08:55] They're consistent regardless of how they feel. Every day they work toward their goal regardless of whether or not they feel motivated. So my recipe for this issue of motivation is to act anyway. Do the thing regardless of how you feel. Instead of waiting for motivation, build momentum instead.

[00:09:17] You just listened to part two of the post titled Fitness Motivation, How to Never Lose Your Motivation Again by JC Dean. How to Never Lose Your Motivation Again by JC Dean of jcdfitness.com and I'll be right back with my commentary. Dr. Neil here for my commentary.

[00:09:39] Even as the most intelligent beings on the planet, humans are still not very good at something, looking beyond today. We're not very good at thinking beyond what's happening this afternoon. Those of us that are planners are a little bit better at this but we still struggle.

[00:09:55] How do I know this? Well, I'm not the only one that knows this. JC does too. And a comedian, Jerry Seinfeld whom I mention on this show all the time, does as well. One of his most famous jokes is based on this very premise. It goes like this.

[00:10:12] I never get enough sleep. I stay up late at night because I'm night guy. Night guy wants to stay up late. What about getting up after five hours sleep? Oh, that's morning guy's problem. That's not my problem. I'm night guy. I stay up as late as I want.

[00:10:30] So you get up in the morning, the alarm rings, you're exhausted, groggy. Oh, I hate that night guy. See, night guy always screws morning guy. There's nothing morning guy can do. Oh, but Jerry, there is something morning guy can do. He can get up.

[00:10:47] Or better yet, morning guy or morning gal can ask themselves, before hitting the snooze button, why is it important for me to get up and get moving right now? It's important because as J.C. Dean mentioned, we need to be consistent with our behaviors

[00:11:04] regardless of how motivated we are in the moment. So understand that even though we're the most intelligent beings on the planet, we still struggle with planning ahead. The way to get around that is to ask ourselves, why is this important for me right now?

[00:11:21] And why is this important for me and my future? All right, that's enough out of me. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening every day. Thank you for sharing this show with someone. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day

[00:11:33] and I'll see you back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.