So how do we become motivated? What is the secret to that attitude in people that you envy…those people you see at the gym, doggedly working out on the Stairmaster, who eagerly get up to jog in the early morning, who consistently bike longer, climb higher, and for whom it seems like it’s not even really that much of an effort?
What do we do on those days when, for ourselves, getting out of bed seems the furthest thing from our mind?
What do we do when we are in a slump or—even worse-when we are giving in to the monster within that seems to be saying “oh who cares—let’s have some burgers and pizza and binge watch _____???”
What I have found is that just one good day can launch 1,000 more. Try to have that one good day and watch how wanting to have that day again can fuel a whole new desire in you to make positive changes.
Over the past 11 years, I’ve studied the work of countless doctors, motivational specialists, and trainers who have changed themselves and the lives of millions with their theories in how to enhance motivation.
What I have learned through careful study, personal experience, and working with clients is that if you want to become motivated and make positive changes in your life change must come from within—it cannot be forced from without.
To do this you must:
For me, one of the best teachers about the art of motivation I have discovered and whom I read religiously is Tony Robbins, and he says something I’ve found to be fundamentally important: “There’s two worlds to master – the external world and the internal world. They both have to be mastered, but if you master the external world…but you don’t master the internal world, there’s a big price.”
I’ve found this to be of great value to me in mastering the art of motivation. The more I have gotten in touch with who I really am and tried to work on my inner self, the more manageable all the outer stuff becomes from becoming motivated about work to working out.
For the past 11 years, I’ve been studying professionals whom I feel are the real “greats” when it comes to becoming a truly motivated individual: Dr. Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, and Tim Ferris.
Here are some of the keys I’ve learned from them and from myself and helping clients to become more motivated as I’ve studied and grown over the past decade.
First, Create an Authentic Goal
In order to find myself as a person and a trainer, I first had to give up one specific behavior which was really holding me back from becoming successful.
I had to stop doing something only to get the result I wanted. I had to stop working out, say, only to be attractive and, instead, take a look at who I really am, who I wanted to become, and to create authentic goals.
What I’ve learned from this triad that I call the Masters of Motivation is that good things flow from knowing who you are, owning who you are, and creating authentic goals.
So, let’s talk about some fundamental questions:
Let’s talk about just that.
First, let’s talk about sweeping away the negative and embracing a more positive flow of energy within ourselves.
Your Morning Routine: Try Nine Minutes to Tap into Positive Energy
In order to begin getting better in touch with ourselves, crafting authentic goals, and trying to look within to understand ourselves on a deeper level, I cannot recommend anything more than these three positive habits.
Brief Morning Meditation
When I first get up in the morning, I practice short three to ten-minute sessions of gratitude. I thank God, the universe (or whomever you consider the great Creator) for everything in my life I possess. I say “Thank you for my family,” “Thank you for my significant other,” “Thank you for my body, my spirit, my intellect, my success.”
I then spend three quiet minutes with myself just taking deep breaths and preparing myself for the day, mentally, physically, and spiritually. I try to “open up,” so to speak to the positive flow of energy in the world around me and to let this nourish and nurture me.
Priming: Moving and Clearing the Mind for Motivation
I cannot stress enough how finding a really positive morning routine can really help you tap into a whole new level of personal potential.
First, what you do from the moment you get up can shape your entire day. For me, if I flip on the news and immediately hear about how __________ has more nuclear bombs now and may be testing another today or how many murders there were in the city last night, how will that affect my outlook for the day? How can that possibly set me up for a positive day?
One great technique I’ve learned about is called priming— I’m a big believer that physiology changes psychology. So, my morning routine is about moving and jumping up and down. With all that movement, I’ve found, I create positivity and motivation for my day.
As far as music goes, I try to use some really positive music with big beats and a nice tempo, like Melvin House. Or some days, if I’m feeling more meditative and quiet with myself, I might use classical music.
But the goal is to clear your thoughts.
Some people call this Zen Meditation and trying to reach a Zen State. Tony Robbins calls this “priming” and I learned about it from him.
During the last three minutes of this jumping and clearing, I try to visualize what I want to create – that nine minutes – that’s priming – that kind of sets up everything else.
Priming is a big part for me and my clients. When I see them start doing this, I notice I really begin seeing positive change in them.
In the morning I think we are very receptive to ideas. When you get up in the morning we are very receptive to ideas.
Priming helps you access your true potential within and create certainty for yourself.
Journaling
Stress is huge now. Stress can be good or bad. Depending on how you view it and what type it is. IU like meditation before you journal.
I’m a big believer in deep self-exploration. If you can find a way to be quiet with yourself, to pay attention to the now and that moment only, that alone reduces stress exponentially.
All these subconscious thoughts you’ve tucked away start to show up. I don’t know about you but there are times in my life I’ve been uncertain and there’s all these pressures raining down… but when you write them down, all these fears and self-doubts suddenly seem small and irrelevant.
Some of these fears and self-doubts can hold you back for years. For decades even.
When you finally write them down, however, you won’t believe how much better you’ll begin to feel and how these fears will eventually begin to seem almost laughable to you. You won’t believe how much you’ve let these small things hold you back for so long.
Eventually, as you keep journaling, you begin to peel back these layers of social conditioning one by one that have been holding us back from true self-actualization.
I work with some of these very masculine men who are power-businessmen. They work hard and they pride themselves on working hard.
But when I get them to start journaling, even they begin to see a. how their fears have been holding them back from even greater success and b. that “hey,” as they tell me, “this shit really works.”
How does this relate to health and fitness?
It’s all about action and if your mind is clear and pure the results are incredible.
Get your psychology right and everything else falls into place.
Be Unapologetically You and Create AUTHENTIC GOALS
= Stress is huge now. Stress can be good or bad. Depending on how you view it and what type it is. IU like meditation before you journal.
I’m a big believer in self exploration when you meditate and pay attention to the now and the moment, that alone reduces stress. All these subconscious thoughts you’ve tucked away start to show up. I don’t know about you but there are times in my life I’ve been uncertain and there’s all these pressures and when you write them down they begin to seem small and irrelevant.
Some of these can hold you back for years. For decades even.
When you finally write them down, some of these fears, as you get better and better, will become almost laughable to you. You won’t believe that you’ve let these small things hold you back for so long.
Eventually, as you keep journaling, you begin to peel back these layers of social conditioning one by one that have been holding us back from true self-actualization.
I work with some of these very masculine men who are power-businessmen. They work hard. They pride themselves on working hard. But when I get them to start journaling, even they begin to see a. how their fears have been holding them back from even greater success and b. that hey “this shit really works.”
How does this relate to health and fitness?
It’s all about action and if your mind is clear and pure the results are incredible.
Get your psychology right and everything else falls into place.
Create Authentic Goals and Be Unapologetically You
I was rereading 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Petersen the other day. As always happens when we reread closely and more slowly, I noticed some things I hadn’t noticed before. One of the most important ones for me was when Petersen discusses how he realized somewhere about middle age that he’d always been a chronic liar—mainly ego things, retellings of stories recast in ways to make him seem the shining star. Either way, he realized he was being inauthentic in his storytelling, in everything he said about himself, and set about to change it.
I believe strongly in being precise in our speech, especially about ourselves. Being unapologetically you means you don’t have to embellish. You will learn through soul work and self-work that you ARE enough, you don’t need to always be the hero.
The real hero’s journey is one of journeying to the center of your authentic self.
One way to learn to love and embrace yourself as you really are is to create authentic goals.
I really like what Vishen Lakhiani, author of The Code of the Extraordinary Mind has to say on authentic goal setting. Lakhiani explains that most people make the mistake of choosing their goals based on what he calls “The Culturescape” – the whole web of beliefs and habits and mythologies we inherit and absorb from society like “You should get a college degree.” “You should have a kid before age 35.” “You should get married to attain real happiness.”
But these are not authentic goals for everyone. Instead, Lakhiana advises us to ask three very smart and, really, beautiful questions, I think, in order to help us identify what we really want out of life. He calls the Three Most Important Questions:
1) What beautiful human experiences do you want to have?
2) What will help you grow and become the man/woman you want to be?
3) In what ways can you contribute to others and the world as a whole?
Try journaling out answers to these questions. It may take you several times to cut through your own conditioning by society and to really hear your true authentic inner voice. I do these questions at least once a month and it has really helped me to reach a whole new level of self-understanding.
At the bottom is this: we need to stop setting goals to get what we want—money, fame, being thin and beautiful—and start making goals based on who we really are at our core.
Anymore, it is so hard to sweep away the aesthetic influences of sites like Instagram, Facebook—all of these influences which can give us highly inauthentic photographs of people and prompt us to create goals based on lies.
Instead, try to articulate what you want to achieve as honestly, carefully, and authentically as possible. Then know this:
Your goals, if lived and achieved will produces the best possible outcome that is reflective of the real you.
The Keys to Self-Transformation and Self Actualization
The creation of a life of significant meaning. There can be no more of an authentic goal than that, I believe. The pursuit of something truly meaningful takes us out of transience and into a life of permanence, out of the desires of the day and the textures of the times and grounds our roots in long-term aims.
The pursuit of only the impulsive, and immediate leads to a zero-sum contribution to an ideal future.
Meaning is what is key here. Identifying who we are, what we want, and then crafting ourselves a life where we are doing something authentic, positive, and creative with our lives. When you are guided by truth, speaking truth, and living authentically, you will never fail.
A favorite professor of mine once said, “Do what you love and success will follow.” I have found this advice to be true a gazillion times over for everyone I’ve ever known. Self-transformation lies in doing what you are meant to do in life, I believe, and becoming who you were meant to be. Somewhere, deep inside, you know what you are meant to do. You may have to sweep away some cobwebs of social conditioning, the influences of social media and your friends who may or may not wish you well, but with some self-work and soul work, you will find your true purpose.
In 12 Rules, Petersen advises,
Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that…The person who wishes to alleviate suffering—who wishes to rectify the flaws in Being; who wants to bring about the best of all possible futures; who wants to create Heaven on Earth…He will pursue the path of ultimate meaning. And he will in that manner bring salvation to the ever-desperate world. (from Rule 7: Pursue What is Meaningful)
If your health isn’t going the way you want, if things aren’t optimal. Say, you don’t look, feel and exist the way you would like.
How can you start fixing them now? But where to start?
Start at the beginning. Start with something small, something flawed, something done authentically but not necessarily “perfect.”
Just take 15 minutes, look at yourself in the mirror and ask: how can I make this better?
You must do this seriously, and be honest with yourself. When you look at your yourself, you will be surprised how easy it is to come up with a multitude of small changes that are easily manageable.
Pick one.
Pick one you could do in the most chaotic of environments. Do it badly even. But make that start.
Your objective should never be perfection, in fact.
The pressure of having to start a detailed meal plan or and intense week of training will stop us before we even get started when we aren’t ready for that level of stress yet. Keep it simple and success will follow
So choose 1 simple habit that will work in the most chaotic conditions and just do it.
Something is always better than nothing and at the very least, your life will have improved
because you are taking action.
More importantly, it means you are now heading in the right direction.
Taking responsibility for your spiritual, mental, and physical health is one of the noblest things we can do for ourselves, and it empowers us to make choices that shape an ideal future for ourselves and those around us that we love.
Below, I have listed habits for all fitness levels to try. They will really
Help you become more fit, more healthy, and more motivated with every single day that passes.
Beginner Habits
Intermediate Habits
Advanced Habits
I wish you the best of luck,
Jackson.