Motivating yourself to do things you don’t want to do

Do you know what to do to lose weight but struggle to do the right things?

Meal planning, meal prep, getting up early to exercise, lower calorie choices on nights out, swapping to gin and slimline and having 1 instead of 14. You don’t need to do all of these of course but do you struggle to do enough?

Do you start the day with the best intentions, plan your food and feel full of motivation only to go to bed wondering where it went wrong?

This is not just you. This is the majority of people. Across the majority of areas of their lives. With exercise. Food. Relationships. Their time.

There are 101 ways to help, many of which we use. The trick is to experiment with enough to find one that works whilst being diligent enough with the application.

If you wrote one affirmation about your goals, once, in chalk on a board, because it was the mid 1980’s, then it might have been a bit hasty to cast it off as ineffective. 

Ultimately what we need is leverage to maximise our chances of effectiveness. 

Human beings move towards pleasure, away from pain and via the easiest route possible.

Sadly, as you likely know, fat gain is often the result of the easiest, most convenient life and therefore fat loss is the opposite.

We must accept it will be more inconvenient to go to the gym and eat healthy than to do nothing and eat what we like.

BUT, what is the inconvenience of that? How does your life suffer? What do you lose out on? What do your friends, family, parents, children, colleagues and strangers lose out on?

Here is where most people back off. Because it’s PAINFUL to admit we aren’t living to higher standards. That we are falling short of what we are capable of. That we are the contributor to our own, (and those we care about) unhappiness. 

So what do successful people do here? They face up to it and find solutions. So keep reading! I’ve not forced you onto a moving treadmill or slapped a jaffa cake out of your hand yet, just keep reading.

Here’s the truth from my experience. Your friends might be around you in a low mood, avoiding nights out, socialising, photos and experiences. Your family may have the same. Your children and partner may have fewer holidays, days out, memories, photos, nights in ;) they may pick up your unhealthy habits and incorporate them into their own lives. Even your colleagues and strangers can suffer if you are in a low mood, negative, unhappy and generally not being the best version of yourself.

But this can ALL change. If you harness the reality of the situation.

And this still is unlikely to be enough!

9/10 people who have a heart attack don’t change their lifestyle. They go back to the very habits that put them in the hospital in the first place.

What you need, and I recommend, are new habits, backed up initially by external drivers and eventually internal drivers.

You need a REWARD for doing these things.

All of the rewards for fat loss come WAY after the actions. One week of meal planning, prepping, exercising and turning down treats will not see you fit into all your clothes and change your world. 

Putting something in place so you do get a reward after a week is a great way to get started and motivated to do another week. This can keep us motivated long enough to see the actual result we want.

Personally, when I get up early in the morning I put a small sum of money away and buy myself a nice bottle of gin. Each week or so I get something physical that I have looked forward to as a reward.

Over time this becomes more habitual, my business improves and so the behaviour becomes more self gratifying.

And if this slips I can go back to the internal reward.

You can choose ANYTHING here. A magazine for your kids, a donation to charity, or something for you. The key is that it is near immediate so there is pressure to act TODAY.

I also set this up so I am rewarded for consecutive days, (if I miss a day the amount returns to zero). And I reward successful weeks, (4 weeks of 6 early starts from Monday to Saturday) means I go out for a nice meal with my missus.

You can work this in any way you see fit, it’s just a suggestion that helped me to overcome the biggest hurdle I ever had. It is by far the most effective tactic to make me complete a task that I was completely unmotivated to do!