The Movement Motivation

Here is a simple question: ‘what motivates you?’  Think about it for a moment.  What captures your attention like nothing else?  What grabs on with a tap-out hold and does not let go?  What stirs such deep enthusiasm within you that it becomes a consuming and passionate fire that burns until it pours into an act of creativity and energy?  Got it?  Now, what triggers this passion?

Hold that thought for a moment.  We will come back to it.

This time of year flocks of people inundate the local fitness clubs and gyms in an attempt to make good on that New Year’s Resolution.  The overwhelming increase in the presence of these “resolutioners” will drive the regular fitness enthusiasts underground, or at least, to different times of the day for workouts.  By mid-March most of these people will be gone; a few will stick around and become a part of the crowd of regulars.

What separates those who stay with it from those that drop off?  Go back to the opening question, ‘what motivates you’?  For a moment, forget about nutrition and fitness programs.  The newbies that are still around after March, may have discovered an edge there.  But, before establishing effort something lit a fire within them. Something got those individuals motivated in a powerful way.  I can’t tell each individual person what should form their personal motivation.  But I can tell you that if ‘being healthy’ is the primary motivation it probably will not happen.  This is where most people begin to fail.  Successful motivation must begin deeper than that.

At sixteen years old, and 260lbs, being healthy felt like an impossibility and would have remained that way if the only thing I wanted was to ‘feel healthier.’  Becoming healthier and feeling better are fantastic by products of a healthy diet and regular exercise.  But as human beings we tend to be impatient and fickle.  Experience has taught me that the more personal something is, the more we tend to be this way.  What is more personal to a person than a person’s body?

In this lies the key, “personal” is necessary to finding motivation that will bring about real life change.  Motivation that moves a person into action that will result in real life change must be deeply personal.  For me it was simple, I wanted the life I have now: with a loving wife and a wonderful child.  I did not view that as something attainable when I was an obese teenager.  Find something that motivates you this strongly and nothing will be impossible. Grab on to something that is important to you because:

Nothing happens until something starts moving.- Albert Einstein

Action does not happen until something begins to move.  Getting the body in motion is not difficult.  Keeping it moving is.  Motivation to obtain a goal is best accomplished by identifying and firmly grasping an idea or vision that is worth putting aside fear to pursue.  Fear is beatable, motivation is the bat.  Issue fear a beating.