Want To Lose Weight? You Need Discipline Not Motivation!

“I really want to work out and lose weight but I am just not feeling motivated enough” and with those infamous words you gave yourself another excuse as to why you still aren’t in shape and why you might never be!

It’s an annual ritual, people wake up every New Year’s Day with their resolutions made up (I hate that word!) one of the most common resolutions is “I will get in shape this year” and guess what? Six months later, nothing has changed, it was the same last year and the year before and the year before that!

The problem with motivation is that it comes and goes, some days you feel so invisible that you could beat up King Kong, some other days; you can’t even get out of bed.  The truth is nobody feels motivated all the time, so focus less on your motivation and concentrate on building discipline instead.

DON’T WAIT TO GET MOTIVATED

Let me be honest, sometimes I hate the thought of exercise, those days, I don’t want to go to the gym, I do not want to skip or run, I just want to eat and watch TV, but guess what? I get up and go anyway. I do my thing whether I am feeling motivated or not, because something stronger drives me, it’s called discipline. When you have discipline, the fact that you don’t feel like doing something, does not stop you from doing it. Motivation can come and go in a flash, but discipline is rooted in consistency and it becomes part of you and what you do.

Today I want to give you 3 tips that can help you be more disciplined and help you achieve your goals this year, be they in fitness, business or life in general. First of all I want you to throw away the notion that people are born with discipline and that  you either have it or not. Nothing could be further from the truth; discipline is like a muscle, if you don’t have it, you can build it. So if you want to break the jinx and finally drop those extra pounds around your thighs or that beer belly that is pissing you off, these tips can point you in the right direction to a leaner fitter and happier you.

1.       KEEP IT SIMPLE IN THE BEGINNING:

One of the problems with failed efforts and motivation is that most people try to radically change everything at once, only for them to quit exercising and go back to normal when that burst of motivation wears off. Let’s take some advice from Arnold Schwarzenegger, with 7 Mr. Olympia bodybuilding titles he could write the book on discipline!

“Start small with an easy program. Don’t go trying to do everything at once. Tease yourself. Even when you want to do more, don’t. Hold yourself back; build up an appetite, so that you want to do more.  Don’t be one of those people who do it all perfectly for 3 weeks then get burnt out and fed up, let yourself stay hungry for more.”

Let me illustrate, instead of overhauling your entire diet at once, change one meal. Eating one healthy meal a day is better than none, and will help you build momentum. 

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