Learn How to Be Disciplined

Reaching Your Fitness Goals 

It’s not about motivation. Motivation is a fleeting emotion one day you have it the next day you don't. Its easily lost, say you are exhausted or in a bad mood, bye-bye motivation. 

It's a mistake to focus on ways to get motivated in order to achieve your goals. Instead, concentrate on reigning in your discipline. You must develop discipline and slowly you will be more disciplined. 

Motivation requires you to be in the proper headspace to have the desired result. Discipline, in contrast, separates your decision from feelings. It's a paradigm shift; a different perspective will lead to better outcomes. 

Put in simpler terms you don't wait until your super fit to start training. You train to get fit. Yes, it's that simple. Many people will be naysayers to themselves. "If only I were in better form I could do..." It's debilitating and leads to nowhere, fast. 

If your actions are dependent on your feelings and for the right mood to arise you're just having another form of procrastination. Shoot, I know this all too well. There are many times I've missed a workout or eaten junk food to my heart's content because I was just not feeling like working out or eating well. We can all fall prey to our feelings.

Nothing will happen if you are waiting to feel like doing something. That's how the vicious cycle of procrastination begins. 

With motivation, the question is "how you get yourself to feel like doing what you have rationally decided to do?" But discipline changes the question to "how do I make my feelings irrelevant and do the things I want to do without grumbling?"

The goal is to cut out the emotions and do what you said you would do. 

In life, we all do things we don't feel like doing, but we do them anyway. But for some reason when it comes to eating healthy and working out all we keep searching for is motivation. But motivation has such a short lifespan, and it needs constant revitalizing. 

For consistent, long-term results, focus on discipline, not motivation.

How can you cultivate discipline?

It all starts with habits. Start small, and you slowly will gain momentum and strengthen your discipline. 

Little by Little

Make small changes that you will notice but won't disrupt your life. Once you become used to these changes, make more. And before you realize it you will be closer to your goals. 

For example, take the stairs instead of the elevator. It’s just five or ten calories, but in a year, that adds up. Small, but consistent changes will win the race. 

Most of us resist significant changes, but if they are gradual, you will most likely not even notice them. It helps to break it down in small incremental steps so that the change is manageable. Have you noticed that when you omit a food group all you can think about is that food, group? The same goes with big changes you will resist and be tempted to fall back to your old ways.

Want to get fit? Take a walk. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Move at least 15 minutes a day. Want to eat better? Remove one item from your diet that's your biggest downfall. 

Schedule cheat meals or rest days. 

If you schedule a cheat or rest day will release you from guilt. The worst is when you did not schedule a cheat meal but you stuffed your face anyway and as soon as the meals over you are guilt ridden. Scheduling will take away the feelings of guilt as you knew this was all part of the master plan. Guilt free eating, yes please!

Consistency

The more you do something, the more likely you are to continue on this path. It is also true for your health and wellness goals. I've been working out consistently for six years, and it all started with small changes and staying consistent. That is a stark contrast to how I was a  before; I was a skinny-fat person who could not even run a mile or do one push up. I was in terrible health and tired all the time. I ate poorly and had little to no muscle. 

Rest

If you want to get closer to your fitness goals, you can't be tired and stressed...ha! That's easier said than done.

When you are exhausted, the things you decide to do will be more likely on how you feel. If you're tired, you are likely not going to feel like working out or eat healthily. Find ways to unplug and rest. Your body needs it as much as it needs you to work out and eat well. 

Go and tackle your big scary fitness goals, just don't rely on motivation to keep you going!

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