I Don’t Wanna

Just oozing with lack of motivation. Or a toothache, hard to say.

I don’t know about you, but I have motivation struggles constantly. There’s always a “good” reason not to work out. 

I’m too tired. I’m too sore. My puppy is being needy. I have too much to do.

Sometimes life conspires to make it nearly impossible to squeeze in a long workout, but that is honestly rare. And even on those occasions, it is still possible to do 30 squats or take a walk or do some stretching. 

I’m fortunate in that my work and hobbies often are what take the time away, but just as often involve a lot of movement and lugging heavy things around. So I get a workout of sorts when I’m working some of the time. But then, even when I don’t get much movement while working I’ll still convince myself I’m too tired to workout. 

It’s a constant back and forth in my brain. And here’s the thing: I always feel better after I workout. Always. 

When I have a goal - getting in shape for Nationals, for example - it is easy to push through the noise and get a workout in. I know it’s going to help for that weekend, and I make sure to push to train no matter what. But the general goal of “being in shape” is not enough motivation for me. I ease off the intensity and that leads to convincing myself it’s ok to take two or three (or four, or a week) days off. 

So, for me I’ve learned to give myself goals throughout the year. Here are some that have kept me going recently: working toward a front split; increasing the amount of push ups I can do in one go; learning calisthenics; being able to touch my toes. And now I have a pretty fun one that I’m doing with a group: pass the Special Forces fitness test. I’ll talk specifically about that soon, but of the exercises in the test there are only two I failed when we did an assessment a few weeks back. My goal is to pass each one when we all do the test in the fall. 

One other factor that helps me get out of a rut of not working out is how my body feels when I don’t. The less I move, the less I activate muscles, the worse I feel. Joints start hurting, my knee begins to ache more and I sense that everything is beginning to atrophy. I don’t like that feeling, so that pushes me to do something about it. I feel fortunate I have gotten to the point where my body keeps me honest like that. It is the “healthy addiction” that Master Kwon talked about back when I was training in martial arts and like a lot of things in fitness, it just took a few years before it fully made sense.