You wake up and open instagram and there it is again…
she’s doing those crazy muscle-ups
Then the next photo another friend looking great
You sit back thinking…
It must come so easy to them
They never seem to give up
There always making progress
They say it’s all willpower and motivation
They tell you they have hard days too but they turn up anyway and grind it out
You tell yourself … I could never do that
I don’t have the motivation
Here’s the thing…
You’re being lied to and you were right all along
It is EASY for them
Want to know why
They have 3 key pillars driving their motivation that they aren’t telling you about.
Hell, they might not even know it themselves, but it’s there.
While you’re still trying to motivate yourself to train with those stupid fitspo instagram pages, they’re already on there way to their goals.
So what’s their secret?
The first problem we face most of the time when it comes to motivation is we end up looking in the wrong places. We look at instagram, at other people’s success and tell ourselves I want to be like them. We spend too much time looking for motivation from external and not enough time looking for intrinsic drivers. The three important drivers for intrinsic motivation come down to autonomy, mastery and purpose.
When we look at the people who are successful in their training journeys these drivers are always present. Instead of telling why each of these are important. I’m going to share with you examples from three people as to how these drivers were integral in them achieving their own success.
Owning your path
When we work towards our goals people always want to tell us the best way to do things, or what works for them. The problem with that is it doesn’t always fit us and quickly we lose motivation to follow through with the task when we need to follow somebody else’s way.
For this reason our clients here at Newstrength have control over what they do and don’t do. Love strength training but hate cardio? You don’t have to do it. Feel like a certain exercise isn’t good for you, we will work around it. We aren’t all robots that can follow a rigid plan for years on end and never complain. Ultimately following something like this leads to you having a negative association towards training.
Our focus is to work with our clients on coming up with the plan together that will take them towards their goals and then help them get there. Take Alison one of our superstar clients, she came to us with a history of chronic knee pain, couldn’t run, squat or lunge. Our first primary focus on training was to get Alison back to moving well and pain free. Once we were there, we sat down with Al and found out what she wanted from her training.
She decided to try a triathlon, the kicker was she didn’t want to give up on getting stronger and enjoyed the lifting as well. We worked on finding out how we could balance her training to get her to both goals of getting fitter and stronger at the same time and 12 months down the track, Alison had completed a Half Ironman, multiple shorter triathlons and also Deadlifted 100kg and was hitting pullups for reps.
If we had told Al that she could of only chose one goal, she would have resented the process and possibly not achieve either. Instead we let her take control of the plan, she became more engaged in the process and exceeded everyone’s expectations.
Chasing Mastery
Ever seen the look in the eyes of someone focused on driving themselves towards their goals? It’s something special and to appreciate, these guys aren’t only focused on getting the end result of their goals but mastering the finer points that most of us look past.
Want to see a case of someone chasing mastery in their craft, look no further than Newstrength’s own Nathan who has been working his butt off for the last few years refining his weightlifting technique. From what started as a very strong but technically clunky lift, its been getting consistently better month by month. I’ve even seen Nath working on the tiniest little refinement in the gym to come back close to an hour later and see him still working on the same pattern and drilling it in until it comes habit.
To tell the truth I actually taught Nathan the Snatch and Clean and Jerk lifts a few years ago. I enjoyed them but no more than anything else in training really. The difference between us was that he was completely engaged in the technical mastery component. Quickly he left me for dust and was well above my level in both strength and technique. Robert Greene in his book Mastery talks of the power of engagement. People will spend hours upon hours without realising the time go by plying their craft and slowly moving the needle forward. They will seek out mentors to help take them further. Which once again Nathan would take himself to sydney regularly to work with Martin of Triumph Weightlifting as well as seeking out tutorials online from multiple coaches working with elite level lifters.
These little habits in the path towards mastery create the momentum to keep driving people forward towards their goals. For this reason we focus on developing skills and exposing our clients to a variety of movement contexts to help them find what engages them the most and create the most buy into their training.
Finding your purpose
I spoke about purpose in a previous article but the main point is that we as humans need to feel like we are a part of something, that our actions are making impact on the world around us. The reality is that we all are making an impact, the problem though for most people is whether the impact is the one we are trying to create.
For this final one I want to tell you about a young guy that grew up here in Newcastle. This kid was a little bit shy, a hell of a pokemon player and loved his footy. He found training through a pair of dumbbells his dad got him as a christmas present. Not only did he physically change as a person but training helped transform him into the confident stronger version of himself that was ready to take on the world around him. So that guy is actually me from over 10 years ago.
I remember listening to a podcast with Jim Smith from Diesel Strength in USA. When he was asked his favourite quote he answered with this that has stuck with me ever since then:
“The meaning of life is to find your passion…
Your purpose in life is to share it with the world”
I’m not sure who originally said it but it resonated with me, I found my passion in strength and my purpose became to share the power of training to transform others lives. For me this drives my training to constantly be placing myself in the discomfort and pushing myself to become my best self and inspire other to pursue their own goals in training
The Secrets Out Now
The time is now, stop what you’re doing and start taking action. Don’t let another day of chasing motivation through stuff that you really know isn’t helping you.
Get the help you need!
Fill in the contact form here and we will book you in for our FREE motivation breakthrough session.