Sometimes all you need is to read some #MondayMotivation memes and hit the gym. But by Wednesday? Midweek is when most people start fading from the gym and giving up on their workouts for the week.
Can we have some real talk, guys? Motivation does not matter.
Yesterday, I felt like shit. I didn’t sleep well, it was oppressively hot outside by midmorning, it was cloudy (I’m a sunshine kind of girl), and the LAST thing in the world that I wanted to do after working an early morning was roll to the gym and have my ass handed to me by a tough workout.
So I drove over there anyway, mentally kicking and screaming in protest the whole time. Someone smiled at me from the doorway and asked if I was ready for the workout today. Ugh. Nope. But I changed into gym clothes and pretended I didn’t hate the existence of warm up drills. Went through the warm up, felt my heart rate climbing too quickly, thought how nice it would feel to take a nap…
And then, the misery was over. I survived.
Was I motivated yesterday? HELL no.
Did I show up anyway? Grudgingly, but yes.
Did I survive the workout? Did I feel better afterward? YES!
And you will, too.
Remember this:
Motivation DOES NOT MATTER.
The weights don’t care, the bike and the rower don’t care, the pavement you run on doesn’t give a crap if you’re motivated. Whether you smile your way through a grueling hour-long boot camp or curse the coach the entire workout doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t affect your calories burned, the muscles worked, the weights you lift.
Ok, fine, you probably won’t PR your bench press if you are having a shitty day, but you’ll be there at the gym, doing the work to get better.
The only formula for results – no matter your goal – is to show up and do the work.
Consistency over time produces results. Nothing else.
You will not always “feel like” going to the gym. You will not always “feel like” meal prepping or eating chicken and veggies. You won’t always “feel like” ignoring Facebook and Netflix to go to bed at a decent time and get your 7-8 hours of sleep each night.
But if you do these things more often than not and build the habits of a healthy lifestyle, your motivation won’t matter. You’ll do those healthy things because it’s just what you do to get the body that you want. Fitness isn’t something that people just “have” – they work for it and earn it.
So, in the immortal words of a brilliant advertiser at Nike: Just. Do. It.