We’ve all been there, the alarm goes off at 5:30 am (for example) and we hit the snooze button and roll over to our other side. Falling back asleep feels so effortless, necessary, it just feels so right. If our body is asking for it, we must need it right, at least that’s what we tell ourselves while drifting away.
An hour or two later, we finally get up, even more tired, disappointed with ourselves and almost late for work. There is no time for breakfast, so we skip it and grab a quick coffee on the way to help lift the brain fog before arriving at work.
We all experience our own version of this, but the bottom line is that it usually leads to disappointment and a bad day, possibly even a week. This habit of procrastination causes the exact opposite of what we want to accomplish.
What can you do to motivate yourself
to just get up and go?
1. Plan For Success
First of all, you must to make sure that you plan to succeed, not fail. If you are up past midnight, the chances of you getting up before 6am are already lowered. Use common sense to evaluate how much sleep you really need. For most of the population it is between 7-8 hours. Do the math and figure out what time you need to be in bed to get the rest your body requires.
2. The Best Form of Exercise is the One You Will Do!
Choose a morning activity that you actually enjoy and look forward to. If you are an outdoor person who loves being connected to nature, avoid committing to a workout in a building (gym) in which you have to drive, take forever to find parking, and finally be locked in a room with no windows.
3. Get Organised & Simplify Your Process
Prepare your clothes and the gear you will need the night before. Lay your items out on the floor close to your bed. This will eliminate any extra work and reasons not to get up. All you will have to do it just get up, get dressed, and head out. It’s all about simplifying the process.
4. Become Accountable
Find an accountability partner. Having a running buddy that you will meet with on a trail at a specific time will give you instant motivation because it will no longer be just about you. Knowing that there is someone else relying on you will motivate you to be there and not disappoint them. Same goes for a gym buddy. If you want to take your fitness experience to the next level, hire a personal trainer or a coach to give you structure and hold you accountable.
5. Fuel Your Motivation
Remind yourself why you want to workout in the first place. We all have a deeper reason why we do it. Health, aesthetics, stress relief, setting an example for your children. There are endless reasons, but whatever yours is, you need to bring it to the forefront in your mind. You want to go as far as imagining that you have already achieved your goal. Whether it is losing 20lb, putting on 10lb of muscle, running a half marathon, or completing a triathlon. Imagine that it is six months or a year later and you have already achieved your specific goal.
Go deep and really try to feel it, identify the emotions that you are experiencing as a result of stepping on the scale and seeing the transformation or fitting into your jeans from 7 years ago. Think about the compliments you may receive from friends and family and how this makes you feel. Acknowledge the wind in your hair and sweat on your body as you’re running across the finish line while everyone is cheering for you. Are you feeling proud? Does it feel amazing? If you achieved this, what else are you capable of? Now harness this feeling and remind yourself of this emotion daily, especially when struggling to get up in the morning.
By having experienced and felt this emotion before actually physically achieving the goal, you just made it real. Now it’s just a matter of connecting the dots. Maybe you went so deep into your visualization that you actually felt goose bumps on your arms. That’s exactly what you want, coding it into your subconscious will make it so much more achievable. Feeling that emotion as you’re taking action will cause achieving your goal a matter of when, and not if.
One thing to remember about true lasting motivation is that it doesn’t just come to you, you have to go to it. You need to make a conscious effort to seek it out, foster it, and when in doubt, just take action.
As a 9x Ironman finisher himself who still remembers struggling through his first 5k run, Peter strives to inspire his clients and athletes to unleash their potential and rediscover new possibilities.
Since 2001 Peter has worked with individuals from many backgrounds, some taking up exercise for the first time looking for weight loss and toning, and others seeking guidance with a more extreme goal of training for an Ironman triathlon.
Peter has published articles in the Chicago’s Competitor Magazine, some of his work was also featured in the Colorado Runner and Golf Fitness Magazine.
