Never Rely on Motivation Again: Mindset 101
We’ve all heard the term “I don’t feel motivated right now” when it comes to our fitness, either by saying it ourselves or hearing it from friends and family. While motivation is what gets a lot of people started, it sadly doesn’t last forever and being solely reliant on motivation to get you into the gym will never lead to the long term outcomes you want. So, how do we stay consistent when motivation is lacking? Some might say “just stay disciplined bro”, but that’s not exactly practical advice and doesn’t really scratch the surface of why people fall of track. Today we will touch on a few factors I have seen that can help bulletproof your own mindset when it comes to your Training, Nutrition and Lifestyle.
Finding your core values
Before we touch on anything else, we need to realise that everything we do when it comes to our mindset will come back to our core values. You may have heard the term “finding your why” before, well this is that. Values are principles or standards of behaviour that dictate what we believe to be important in life. When we do things that align with our values, we tend to feel good about ourselves and get a feeling of accomplishment. This is why it is important to align our goals when it comes to fitness with our values.
When we align our goals with our values, we set a standard for ourselves to follow day to day. Here is an example: if we claim to value things such as health, commitment and success, on a day where we would rather sit on the couch and watch Netflix, we can look at ourselves and judge whether or not we are really prioritising these values. Simple ask “what would someone who really values these things do”, acting against our values can be tempting, but there is a reason you always feel bad about it after the fact.
Here are a few common core values and how you can align them with your fitness goals:
Health: Maintain or improve my health, taking care of myself both physically and mentally
Family: By improving my fitness I will be able to stay healthy and keep up with my family later in life
Challenge: I can continuously challenge myself to grow and improve
Knowledge: I can learn more about what my body is capable of and how to keep it functioning optimally.
Self-Respect: Maintaining a fitness routine is a form of self-respect to myself both physically and mentally.
If you are looking for more examples of core values, a list can be found here https://jamesclear.com/core-values. It should also be noted that your core values may change over time, so it can be a good idea to review every 3-6 months to ensure you are still in alignment.
Adopting a Growth/Ownership Mindset
So now that we have our values, it’s time to talk about growth and ownership mindset. Growth mindset is believing success is dependent on time and effort. This attitude tells us that skills and intelligence are not fixed and can always be improved. In terms of fitness specifically, it is believing that with time, consistency, and effort, you will be able to achieve any realistic goal you set your mind to. To do this we need to move out of having a fixed mindset, that being the idea that how you are now is how you will always be, it’s that voice in your head that tells you not to try something new because you might fail. This is your mindset holding you back. It’s talking about you right now, not where you will eventually be.
If we look alongside the growth mindset, we will also find the ownership mindset, adopting an ownership mindset involves taking responsibility for everything in your life. In other words, the things that happen to you are not necessarily your fault, but they are your responsibility to deal with. When it comes to fitness it can be obvious to see who has and who hasn’t taken ownership of their results. People who do not take ownership will always blame outside circumstances “I’ve been too busy and haven’t had time”, “My friends made me go out and binge over the weekend”. When you don’t get the result you want, it’s much easier to blame the program, or diet, or work, or stress than it is to take responsibility.
Here is a few more examples of a deflective mindset versus an ownership mindset:
Deflective
“I didn’t have time to complete all my workouts this week”
“I had to go out so went over my calorie targets this week”
“The gym was too busy, so I didn’t do most of my workout”
“I don’t understand tracking, calories and macros are too complicated”
“It was too hot to train this week”
Ownership
“I didn’t prioritise my training this week.”
“I could have pre-prepared or ordered more easily trackable food while I was out.”
“I need to learn alternative exercises so I can still train in a busy environment”
“I need to ask for help with tracking so I can get it right.”
“I need to train earlier in the morning/later in the evening to avoid the hotter parts of the day”
For the most part, people who have made successful transformations or in roads with there fitness will have adopted this ownership mindset. Taking ownership also gives you back control over your circumstances and puts you in the driver seat when it comes to making decisions. Nothing is ever completely out of your control, so at the end of that day, whether the result is good or bad, its because of you. That can be scary, but the ownership mindset will deliver you better outcomes 100% of the time. Paired with the growth mindset, you can be unstoppable.
Get off Autopilot
Whenever we hear about getting started with fitness, we hear about the importance of building good habits, there is plenty of theory on how long it takes to develop a habit (21 days, 4 weeks, 3 months?) but the important thing is that eventually these habits are developed at some point. In order to form a habit though, we need to be very deliberate in our actions in the beginning. This means getting off auto pilot and not falling into the habits/lifestyle that has gotten you to the point you are at now. Whenever we begin a new thing it always feels like a lot of effort, so it makes sense that fitness, if you haven’t done it successfully for a while, will be “hard”. So you need to be deliberate in making decisions that will eventually create good habits to keep you going.
Here's a few things that successful people do regularly, but can take a bit of time to get used to:
Going to the gym regularly: Training 3-5 times a week consistently, successful people find the time.
Managing food intake: Eating in alignment with your goals, whether you track calories, aim for a set amount of fruit, vegetables and protein, or follow a more specific diet/plan.
Getting over 7 hours sleep: Sleeping properly will help with everything you do while awake.
Managing their time: Introducing new fitness aspects to your life will take time out of your day usually spent on other things, so you’ll need to find the time somewhere.
Getting off autopilot will “raise your average” over time, meaning that your best weeks will be better, and your worst weeks won’t be as bad. Remember, having one good week means nothing if most of your weeks are bad, but having one bad week won’t matter if most of your weeks are good.
Goal setting, Outcome versus Process
Applying what we have learned about finding core values, growth/ownership mindset and getting off autopilot means that goal setting becomes a lot easier. When I talk about goals with people I like to set goals that fit under two distinct categories: Outcome and Process.
Outcome goals are what most people think of when they think of goals, these are the “lose 5kgs in 8 weeks” and “add 20kg to my squat” types of goals. These goals focus on an outcome we want to achieve at some point in the future. When looking at outcome goals we want to find ways to align these goals with our core values, this way we are much more likely to see value in achieving them and therefore work harder to attain them. This, combined with having a growth and ownership mindset (“I can achieve any realistic goal I work hard and whether or not I achieve it is totally up to me”) should bulletproof your goals much better than the arbitrary “I want to lose some weight and tone up” type goals I often hear thrown about.
One you have an idea of what your primary goals are, apply the S.M.A.R.T principle to them as simple way of further solidifying them:
Specific: Is you goal specific or general in nature? The more specific the goal the better. “I’m going to eat better” v “I’m going to include fruits or vegetables with every meal”
Measurable: Can you objectively measure your progress or if you achieve the goal? “I want to get stronger” v “I want to add 30kg to my deadlift”
Attainable: Is your goal realistically achievable given your circumstances? “I want to lose 10kg in 6 weeks” v “I want to lose 10kg in 6 months”
Relevant: Is your goal relevant to the bigger picture of what you are trying to accomplish and not conflict with other goals? “I want to grow my glutes and get abs” v “I want to grow my glutes while keeping my bodyfat under control”
Timely: Does your goal have a deadline? “I want to add 15kg to my bench press” v “I want to add 15kg to my bench press by my birthday”
Now that we have our outcome goals, we can take a look at the Process goals we need to put in place to achieve them. Achieving your goals lies in the process. The process eventually leads to the outcome. Process goals are things we do daily/weekly to work towards our outcomes. So when we take a look at our outcome goals, we want to now think about what we actually have to do to achieve them, an easy way to think about this is to imagine “what would someone who has already achieved my goals be doing”.
Process goals can come in many forms and will usually relate to steps you need to take in order to reach your goals, so here are a few I would consider looking at if unsure where to start:
· Plan your schedule out to fit in more training sessions per week
· Hire a coach
· Follow a Program
· Increase your steps per day
· Track your calories
· Implement some sort of Nutritional plan
· Order less take-away
· Educate yourself on training and nutrition
· Cut down the bingeing on weekends (both food and alcohol)
This may seem like a lot, but chances are the things you’re currently not doing are what would benefit you the most.
So what now?
Now its time to set some goals, remember, we want to identify our core values, believe we can actually achieve them, make them SMART, and put in place the processes that will bring them about. Another thing to note is to WRITE THEM DOWN somewhere, whether that be on an actual piece of paper or in your notes on your phone. The important part being they are somewhere you can see them daily, having them written down and reminding yourself of them every day is just another way to further solidify your mindset. With all this in place, it shouldn’t matter what your motivation feels like on any given day, the systems will be in place to ensure you never need to rely on motivation again.
For more on this you can listen to my podcast episode on all things mindset here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Ka2ZQpADFOTmvIfksMQTE?si=0TWe1eFFRlWBaIt-mZbO0w