Well, I didn’t forget.
Wanna get ahead in your fitness and health?
Ditch your desperate, fruitless appeal for motivation.
Ditch your exhausting, chore-like quest for discipline.
Both help in the short-term, but in the long run they do pretty much nothing.
The only – and I mean only – things that I feel reasonably sure I’ve ever truly seen help anyone get better are as follows:
* A reasonable goal accompanied by a reasonable – but challenging – deadline.
* Habits
* Love
Why? And WTF is love doing in there?!
To start with, your sense of motivation is based entirely on your emotions. Like a castle built on sand, it will stand beautifully until bad winds pick up and cause the sand to drift elsewhere. You can probably guess what happens to the castle. And you can probably guess what the castle represents.
Habits, on the other hand, are a rock-solid foundation upon which to build, and regardless of how hard the wind blows, your castle isn’t going anywhere. For example: when I’m on Cloud 9, I train. When I’m in the deepest depths of despair, I train. Is it a weekday? I’m training. Simple as that. It’s so habitual for me that no matter how big the proverbial wrench in the machine is, I’m going to train if it’s on the schedule, even if it’s not my full workout.
A reasonable goal plus a reasonable deadline requires you to work diligently and consistently and pushes you to succeed without breaking you in the process. if you can barely do 10 pullups and you want to try to do a one-arm chinup in 3 months, all you’re ever going to achieve is greater amounts of frustration (and probably a free trip to Snap City). Reasonable goals and reasonable deadlines set you up for a lifetime of progress and will allow you to achieve incredible things for as long as you’re living and breathing.
As for that love thing…well, discipline is great, but ultimately it is borne out of love; love for yourself and for your activity of choice. As strength coach Charles Poliquin has put it, you must “make loving decisions for yourself.” If you lack love for yourself, you will lack discipline (or “rack disciprine” to quote a South Park episode).
Drop the emotions. Drop the motivational speeches. And drop the Indiana Jones-like adventure for the Lost Fountain of Discipline or some such sh*t.
Find a goal, make it a habit, and make loving decisions for yourself.
You can do this.