Motivation.....you just can't rely on it these days....

I have spoken to a couple of clients this week during my normal check ins. During the current world we live in of uncertainty and chaos, no gyms open and all of us finding new ways to keep active, one of the comments fed back was they are struggling to find the motivation to do their home workouts that week. (hence the inspiration for this blog). I've been a little more blunt in the honesty to my response. Being in lockdown has given me time to really think about the way I work with my clients and how I want to best help them moving forward. Its given me a change in approach and I think thats a good thing. Motivation will always come and go...for all of us. Let's be honest, if we only did things on the days we felt motivated to do them most of us wouldn't achieve anything much at all. Its what do on the days you don't feel like it that makes the difference. Motivation is fickle, here one minute gone the next. Its unreliable as you could wake up motivated to get to the gym that night and by the time the evening roles around, work has been busy, or traffic has been bad and you just can't seem to find the motivation you had earlier so you don't do anything. But guess what, if you'd forced yourself to go anyway despite the bad day, just go and do something, you'd probably end up having a decent session. You wouldn't be the first....and if your really don't feel like it then thats absolutely fine. Don't feel bad about it. There is nothing that says you have to do it. We just need to reevaluate your goals to reflect your lifestyle. 

Now I must stress at this point these are my personal thoughts on the matter and feel free to disagree. As a Personal Trainer one thing I've been told time and time again during consultations or from talking to  clients, is that they need me to help motivate them to train. In the past I have always responded with "Sure no problem, I've got just the right thing in mind..." or "Motivation is my middle name..." well maybe not but you get the idea. In truth.....I can't give motivation. WOW! Big truth bomb has just landed and blown the myth apart...thats right sorry to burst the bubble of hope, but I can't make you motivated to train.....you have to find that for yourself.

Well, goodnight, God bless, sweet dreams i'll leave you all to it. Clearly i'm not a very good Personal Trainer so I shall hang up my stop watch and gym shorts. Its been a pleasure and all that. 

Now hold on....before I clear out my locker and pack up my gym bag let me clarify a couple of things and explain myself. I can't motivate you to start to train but I can motivate you whilst you train. There is a difference. Now you see, during a class or a personal training session its part of my job to motivate you. I'll actively encourage you to make that extra rep when you feel you can't. Praise, congratulate and celebrate with you when you achieve a personal best, or run further/longer or make the goal weigh in each week. I can inspire you to try new exercises that you haven't done before and teach you how to do so correctly and effectively. In a class, a healthy "Come on team we can do this together...lets keep going..." can be the difference between getting through it when your lungs want to burst and stopping short. But all of those things, encouragement, inspiration, positive and constructive feedback,  build motivation within YOU to keep going...its not something I can make you have. 

Personal Trainers are not cheerleaders we are coaches....we'll I'm not... I don't have the legs to pull off a skirt...and the lipstick clashes with my ginger hair...

  We CAN'T make you get out of bed in the morning for a workout. 

 We  CAN'T make you book on to a late night fitness class after a long day at work.

 We  CAN'T force you to make changes to your diet.  

We CAN however work with you to build good habits and routines that become part of your lifestyle and over time result in getting you closer to achieving your fitness goals. Setting up habits such as food prep and logging, setting realistic goals and challenges to keep you on track, provide accountability knowing that we're monitoring your progress and re-evaluating the process to continue to achieve the results. We work with you on an individual basis to find solutions to the barriers to change that you come up across, be it time focused training sessions, advice and guidance on nutrition and the role it plays or you, we listen to your fears and concerns, your problems that you feel are holding you back or causing bumps in your progress and help figure out what will work best for you to overcome them. We can give you all the information, advice, guidance and support....but we CAN"T do it for you....you are all adults and have to take some responsibility for our own actions.   

For example, Sunday night (10th May 2020) I set my alarm for 6 am the following morning to get up and get out for a ride on my bike. Because I have an iPhone with an ultra annoying alarm tone, you know the one..."aeggh aeggh aeggh", well that went off this morning at 6am like clockwork (11th May 2020) and I could hear the wind outside blowing the trees. I also heard my duvet saying "Stu....let me give you a hug...its warm and cosy here...those trees are having an awful time in the nasty wind and you are going to be in shorts! And that bike...well its hardly going stay upright is it, you'll end up working twice as hard to keep moving...stay here mate I got you covered..." and thats the point at which a lot of us would have gone....f3@k me a talking duvet...and then ..."Do you know what duvet...you make a compelling case...I'll take you up on your offer" Zzzzzzzz. Knowing that this would be my only chance today to get my training ride in today, and knowing I would regret it if I didn't, I got up as normal, dragged myself downstairs to get ready and told myself, just do the short lap this morning, quick 30 min blast....something is better than nothing....

Well fast forward 18.2 miles and 1hr 18 minutes later and at home feeling good! Yes it was windy and chilly and riding out through the country lanes sure did push me all over the place but less than 1 mile in I was glad I got up and got out,  years ago I made exercise a habit, its a vital part of my life. It keeps me sane, it's something I enjoy, the physical push and challenge to myself. (They say it takes 21 days to make an action into a habit and 90 days to make it part of your lifestyle well I've been training since I was 15 and i'm 40 now so i'd say its ingrained into my DNA) I've trained on the days I'm positive and up for it and definitely  more so on the days where i'm tired, and find it tough to get going. We are all human.  

Its what you make yourself do on the days you don't feel like it that makes the difference. Its my core business value...'Consistency over time beats short term perfection'....consistent to your training and consistency to making better choices with your diet....even when you don't want to. When you start to see the changes to your body shape, to your performance, to your mood and self confidence, that builds YOUR  MOTIVATION  to keep going...the feeling that makes you stick at it when you really don't feel like it. It comes from you it's not given to you from someone else.