By far the biggest challenge we've been hearing from clients through Shelter-in-Place is simply rousing the energy/motivation/drive to work out at all.
During the best of times, getting yourself to do the thing can be a challenge, and these certainly are not the best of times. Even when you rationally know that moving your body is good for you--and will make you feel good--getting started can still be an imposing obstacle.
Motivation--specifically, helping people summon the Get-Up-And-Go--is our white whale, our holy grail. It's the thing we think continuously about, and yet it's still the part of building a regular training habit that is most challenging for our students.
If you're curious to read my deeper thoughts on the topic, click here for the full article. If you wanna get straight to the actionable tips, read on!
When I stop to really drill into this question of the "best" way to get people moving, I run into a pile of big obstacles.
First--motivation means different things for different people. The popular notion, the one summarized in countless Nike ads, often involves early mornings, "brutal" workouts, aggro trainers yelling at you to dig deep, and a virtuous glow after all is said and done.
This kind of fits-po (fitness inspiration) makes my skin crawl.
Beyond the fact that no one who has ever coached anyone successfully for very long yells at their athletes (coaching is built on trust, and trust is not borne of yelling), the subtle virtue-signaling inherent in these narratives can wreck havoc on our self-esteem and can, if it goes unchecked, totally undermine our ability to exert any sort of control on the direction of our lives.
Further, if we buy into the ads, we believe the idea that there is moral virtue at stake when we do (or don't) exercise.
This significantly raises the pressure on our decision. After all (according to the ad), our worth as a human, our health, our attractiveness to others can all be decided by our ability or inability to motivate on any given day. This kind of thinking can make the pit of self-hate just too deep to climb out of if/when we fail (because all of us will fail to motivate at some point).
This is definitely another reflection of the insidious way diet culture convinces us that feeling shitty about ourselves is our own fault, which it is not. Always remember: it is possible to be happy, healthy and fulfilled at any body size and any level of activity, and your worth as a human is not tied into how strictly you stick with an exercise program, diet, or anything else.
And as I mentioned, this cloud of shame can completely undermine our best intentions for ourselves, so getting out from under the oppressive pressures of diet culture must be part of the journey toward having a kick-ass relationship with your body, including the movement of your body.
Which brings us back to the confounding question of getting yourself to do the thing, even when you're doing it on YOUR terms. As someone who has "motivated" to practice music and exercise almost daily for 20+ years, the very experience of being motivated does not (and should not) always require digging deep.
In fact, I'd say that most of the time (all the time?), motivation feels more like adding that last penny that tips the decision-making scales in favor of doing the thing.
"Motivation" really comes down to a choice that you make many minutes or even hours before you do the thing that really takes motivating. Let me give an example:
You are lying in bed, trying to "motivate" to get up and do your workout. You've noticed your day goes much better if you can get some movement in early, so you rationally want to do the workout, but you also feel a great resistance.
Imagine the decision-making scale in your head (think Greek goddess Athena's scale--not a weight scale), with the not-totally-understood resistance to doing sits on one side, and your more conscious desire to get it done sits on the other.
In those quiet moments right after waking, when you still have time to do the thing, this scale can feel stuck, balanced right in the middle. But you also know that if you don't get up soon, your window of opportunity will close and the scales will tip towards inaction.
It's this moment that could benefit from "motivation". That's because, while it might seem like the decision is momentous--remember, your very worth as a human can get tied up in this--a small push in either direction and the choice is effectively made.
So the question that I encourage you to explore relates to this moment: what tiny action can you take that will tip the scales for you?
If, lying in bed, you can decide to put on your favorite sweats and take a big sip of water, you have tipped the scales. If you can decide to get up and make coffee, you have tipped the scales. If you can decide to just commit to some neck CAR, and that smaller task feels easier, you have tipped the scales.
This works because we all rely on previous action to make sense of the next action. Our brains rely on established patterns, or scripts, to follow in getting us from Point A to Point Z; jumping all the in-between steps is too hard.
From any of those tiny decisions you make upon waking, the next action flows a little more easily, then the next, and pretty soon you find yourself doing the thing.
So today, I have 3 tiny tips for you to try that can make a gigantic difference in tipping the scales in your favor. All of them can be adapted to your situation, and you can implement them immediately.
Shrink the ask: just commit to doing the first 5 minutes of the work out/class/whatever. Tell yourself that after the first 5 minutes, if you're still not feeling it, it's totally ok to decide that today is not your day. That said, at the end of that first 5-minutes, if you feel good, try 5 more minutes, then check-in again. Alternatively, you can just commit to trying a single exercise, and only moving on if you are feeling good at that point.
Stay in this moment: another landmine is to see the day's workout as representative of all workouts, or even your worth as a person; maybe you think that if you can't do it today then all your previous work goes out the window (wrong), and/or you'll never have the heart to do future workouts if you "lose your momentum" (also wrong). Just focus on today, right now, and see how those first 5 minutes feel.
Bring the challenge closer: in that moment, when you are trying to summon the will-power (or whatever) to do the thing, try to feel out the ways you could imagine actually enjoying the workout. Put on a favorite t-shirt, make yourself a nice glass of iced lemon water, and (most important) put on some excellent music. The research is pretty clear on this last one: music can both elevate your mood AND lower the perceived intensity of a workout. Give yourself a leg-up, and bump the tunes!
Have you tried any of these things before? It's truly amazing how well these small mindset shifts can help.
As you consider how you might implement these things, I'll leave you with one more thought to ponder: Action always precedes "motivation". If you can rouse the energy to do the first (tiny) step, it's amazing how your body and mind switch into doing mode.
Pretty soon, you're not feeling dead-set against working out, but you're actually (gasp!) enjoying it.
Go be your own hero,
Coach Will