[comment]

Yep, this is the ‘discipline’ side of it. You do it because it’s what you do. You experienced the fact that ‘motivation’ is fleeting and your brains always going to try to move you toward something easier.

I wish I could explain this to my mom, I just don’t know how to explain it in our language :(

Nice!

Thanks for this, friend. +1 follower.

I don't have just one life. There are a lot of people who care about me, who I care about, who depend on me, or who for some other reason I need to consider when I make decisions. I can't pack up and leave all this and I'd feel awful if I did. My wildest dreams are just dreams; all these lives touching mine are real.

Framing why you are there is huge as well. It cannot be about the sometime arbitrarily in the future end result, such as "lose weight" or "be in better shape," because then every single individual workout actually is the chore you are experiencing it to be. Your brain is experiencing the workout as a sacrifice today for that far off future result.

My advice would be to instead try to focus in on what you are doing as "training for [something]." Then it is never about the ten thousand foot goal of "lose weight" and becomes more about incremental gains you'll feel and see week to week, month to month. What is exciting about this, once you are "training" you start to really customize what you are doing and things don't feel purposeless anymore. What that [something] is for you can be and absolutely should be absolutely up to you - a sport, longevity/mobility, a certain specific aesthetic, its whatever you fancy mate!

For instance, I started in March 2022 at 265 pounds just running outside as much as I could every week (it started very slow and painful if I'm being frank) with a goal to lose weight and improve my mental wellbeing. While I kept up with it every week I totally hit the "chore" wall you are communicating in your post. Well, as described above, I pivoted my objective/mentality and now treat long-distance running as my sport; I now "train to be a runner." This initially led to me varying up my cardio workouts between shorter runs and longer runs as well as low heart rate zone days and high heart rate zone days. I then integrated kettlebells into my routine and do a lot of weird foot exercises with the added weight to help avoid injury/runner's foot/etc. (my distance frontier is directly correlated with foot/tendon injuries I experience so it just became a necessity if I wanted to run further), and of course the weight lifting aspect only helps with my base daily at-rest calorie burn which by pure coincidence circled back to why I started running back in March 2022 at 265 pounds. Win/Win. I'm currently at a weight of 205, am able to run a distance of eight miles (10min pace) before experiencing injury, and most important to me, my mental health is greatly improved!

Don't expect big visual changes in a month. It took me 3 months for people to tell me I was putting on muscle. I see a lot of people are telling you to force yourself to go and to force yourself to get disciplined etc. but discipline only comes after getting used to it. I was in the same boat as you. What worked for me and kept me consistent and disciplined for the past 10 years is doing the opposite.

I'll go for three days, if I feel like to stay home the next day then I will. I'll continue for two more days, if I feel like to stay home after that then I do. Some weeks I'll go everyday, some I won't. It's helped it not feel like a chore for years. I've gotten extremely fit doing this routine for the past 10 years.

Here’s what I’ve found works best for me. It’s pretty simple:

Get a cheap shaker bottle

1 scoop of deep, crippling body-image issues

1 scoop of powerful feelings of self-loathing

1/2 scoop of fitness influencer Instagram pics

Handful of selfies at your worst physical shape

Shake that bitch up

Drink it down in one go, and you’ll never be satisfied with your body again!

Oh, but it’ll get you to the gym.

This is so true but I never thought about it like that. For me I book workout classes or plan to go to the gym and I NEVER question if I want to go. There’s never any drama about it in my head if I want to go or if I like going, I just go.

Well, that's just it. Discipline is not motivation. What you had was motivation. What you need is discipline.

Motivation is wanting to go, and that fades. Even if it's something as simple as "it's freezing rain right now" will make it at best less-fun, and lower your motivation.

People commit to new things when they are disciplined. That doesn't mean you find a way to always feel like going, cuz that's unlikely to ever happen. You remove the "feel like" from the equation, and you just always go.

It's not as "fun" an attitude but it's the attitude held by most of the people who commit to positive lifestyle changes.

Just a doodle, it's meant to be a expanded broken clock.

You can't rely on motivation so it's usually useless to rely on trying to find or build that on a regular basis. You are building a new habit and that takes time. Also the idea that it takes 21 days to build a new habit is for the most part untrue. Depending on the individual and circumstances it can take much longer than that and often does. Discipline is the only thing that's going to keep you going until the habit is truly a part of your life and even then there will be times when you need to get yourself back on track. Nobody is perfect and the more consistent you are, the better chance you have at succeeding.

As an overthinker who can't maintain a relationship/keep dating women, this hits hard. I wish I could turn my brain off, ffs.

How’d they get a pic of my wife?

This could be mental plateau where working out loses its "excitingness" and it's pretty normal.

The first 30 days or so, usually is where you get most of your huge strength gains cause you are relatively starting from "0". We get that high of seeing ourselves change for the better but after a while, our body and mind gets used to it which makes it "less gratifying", "less motivating", etc. for us... which may lead us to getting bored and not going as much.

Aside from all the healthy and positive comments here, I would also recommend changing up your workout program and achieve progressive overload.

When I was new with all this, the biggest guy im the gym gave me an advice: it doesn't have to be big changes, just minor changes that could be as small as just changing your water bottle to make your session exciting.

I hope this helps and good luck!

If you enjoy reading, check out Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”. It’s a pretty quick read that deals with a suffering and misfortune in a very powerful way

Lol that's the best call-out I've ever read. I hope you get better soon!

This doesn't make any sense!

Because life is a series of ups and downs. The downs are increasingly hard to manage in an ever changing world. 3 years now is so mucj progress with how businesses and people live amd operate. It's a difficult situation to navigate for most, as industries change constantly quicker than before. You always have to be on top of your game if you want to succeed. Part of my dreams are feeling fulfilled, amd that makes it hard to obtain. Our evolution as a species is at a pretty big crossroads.

Well if you want to feel validated in your choice to shy away from exercise, about an hour after writing my original post I injured myself climbing. I’ll be out for a few weeks with this one. Too bad the fun stuff has an element of danger, and prohibitive cost of entry, like you said.

Thankfully you can get most exercise benefits by being lightly active (walking, calisthenics) as long as you do a little every day. I hope you at least try that. Gradually losing bone density, strength, and mobility as you age = pain. Pain will get in the way of the things you enjoy too. Just my 2 cents.

Motivation is more akin to an emotion than anything. Sometimes it's there, sometimes not. And you're not particularly in control of when you have it.

Discipline is something else entirely. Discipline is what you have when the "why" question becomes meaningless. You do it because it's what you do. Some say it takes time to build, I'm of the belief that it's a choice you make, both when you initially decide to commit and every day thereafter.

You go for a day, your body won't change. You go for a week straight, your body won't change. You might even go for a month straight and you will barely see any change. But then 6 months goes by. Then a year. Your combined effort of being disciplined and wanting to look good has finally added up to you finally looking alright, and that may be what just keeps you going. You won't always have motivation, it will fade, just as it is right now. But if you stay disciplined and stay focused, you will soon notice a lot of growth, not just with those muscles.

Is that symbol from something? It looks familiar

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