Motivation

A friend of mine posted an article the other day about the top excuses why people skip exercise. The old stand-bys are there, like "I don't have time", "I'm too lazy", "Exercise is boring". I've used all of those at one time or another. The author offers some good solutions, if you are in a place in your life where you need a little help getting around your excuses, this might be a good read for you. You can find the article here.

The first item listed was my biggest excuse for years, and the one I hear from people all the time..."I just don't have any motivation". Seriously, if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me "where do you find the motivation to work out?" I'd retire to a warm tropical island and spend my days running on the beach and sipping fruity drinks. If I had a dollar for every time I've had a good answer to that question, I'd be broke.

See, I used to be a classic start/stopper. I would get all worked up to start an exercise and diet plan, or a new fitness routine, and it wouldn't last. I had no motivation to keep it going. This has been going on since college. Some stints lasted longer than others, all with varying degrees of success. There was this one time back in the early part of 2000 that I got into really good shape, but that was because I was working at the Olympic Training Center and my best friend at the time was a World Record holder who made me swim with her everyday. Then, there was another time I lost a bunch of weight doing Weight Watchers at work, but that was because all my coworkers were doing it and we were allowed a free lunch hour to attend the meetings! Looking back at most of my failed attempts at sticking with a fitness plan, there is one recurring theme that I can pin my motivation to...someone else wanted me to do it more than I wanted to do it. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that having someone else pushing you to do something healthy is bad, or that the guilt you might feel about letting someone else down doesn't work for some as motivation. As a recovering Catholic, let me tell you, guilt is a HUGE factor in making me do just about anything. But, I know that in my case, I had to find a way to make myself want it more than anything before I could make it stick.

So, that leads me back to the question, where do I find the motivation to work out? And I finally think I have a pretty good answer. Learned Ignorance. See I am beginning to have a hard time remembering what my life was like before I started running and exercising regularly. I'm forgetting who I was before I found this new athlete that has taken over my body. I can't recall what it was like to not haul a huge gym bag with me to work everyday. And I have certainly pushed that out-of-shape mommy who got winded playing with her kids out of my memories. I was going to call it fear, because I am afraid to think about when fitness wasn't a part of my life. I'm afraid that if I don't go exercise that I am going to be right back where I started a year and a half ago, a sad, overweight, unmotivated woman who was jealous of all her friends who were fit and active and loving life. But that didn't really seem to capture what it is that gets me off my butt and into my workout gear everyday. I don't want to think of fear being my reason for doing anything. I instead will consider my motivation to be the fact that I have learned to be ignorant of my old excuses, that I don't need motivation anymore. I just AM this person who exercises regularly, who tries to eat healthy, who has fun competing in triathlons; this person who is training for a marathon and loves to talk about running to anyone who will listen. My motivation is that I have done this for me, but it has gotten so much bigger than me...just by doing what I've been doing I have helped my husband, my kids, my friends, and some strangers, get fit, start exercising, and to embrace their inner athlete. And I want to be a person like that!

I wish I could tell you why it stuck this time, I wish I could tell you that the road to this place I'm in is an easy one. But I can't. I don't have those answers. I can't create motivation for you and I can't make sticking with it easy. All I can do is to keep talking about it, keep sharing what I'm doing. Because the more you hear about the success stories of people leading healthy lives, the harder it will be to ignore your own desire to do it too. I can tell you though, that if you find your motivation and you stick with it, you will come to be in the same amazing place I am right now. A place where I don't need to find a reason to go work out, it is just part of who I am; and it's a much happier place than I've ever been before!