Your Dream of Finding Motivation Daily is a Lost Cause

Yesterday I thought I was going to have a crappy workout.

My schedule was off, my phone seemed to keep buzzing right when I was ready to start, and I hadn’t eaten in 7 hours (I get hangry easy).

But I still trained.

Where did I heroically muster up the motivation to workout, even when I really didn’t want to? (LOL – that was sarcasm) … from a 3-year-old. More in a second…

My sad little workout was:

• 1×5 max-effort incline barbell bench (after ramping up of course)
• 3×12 Seated Rows
• 5,4,3,2,1 Weighted Chin-Ups superset with 10,8,6,4,2 weighted push-ups.
• 2×20 rear delt fly

So about this 3-year-old motivator…

My friend’s son has cancer. A 3-year-old boy. He is currently in the fight for his life. Because of the harsh treatments, his body is fighting hard. So hard that he has been spending the last few weeks in the ICU, with tubes, and wires all hooked up and multiple organs coming in and out of failure.

Read that again. Now dry your eyes.

Donate here ==> HELP LUCAS SMASH CANCER

What this boy is going through. What his parents and family are going through. You don’t even want to imagine.

Sleepless nights on a blowup mattress in a hospital. Constant beeping, wondering what that one means, or why that one sped up. Being bombarded by multiple people trying to help, all while their son lies there.

And here I was, upset that my workout was going to be crappy and I was hangry…

You see, I usually don’t look at my phone when I work out, but for some reason I did (because my mind just wasn’t in the mood to train). But I did, and the first thing I saw was an update on Lucas.

He opened his eyes and nodded his head to questions his mom was asking. His status had improved. His mom’s caption “BEST DAY EVER!”.

And here I was, upset that my workout was going to be crappy and I was hangry…

Well. I slapped myself in the face and got to work. No joke…I actually slapped myself in the face. Good thing no one else was at the gym yesterday afternoon.

Here I am, crabby, and hangry over my poor little Wednesday workout. Meanwhile, Lucas’s mom is celebrating the BEST DAY EVER because her son opened his eyes, and nodded.

I lifted with intensity and ferocity that has not been seen since college. Again, good thing no one else was at the gym…and our neighbors at the water treatment place probably had 9-1 dialed into the phone, ready to press the other 1.

As I was doing my rows, I was saying/grunting out loud “Temporary”…over and over again. Because in my head I was telling myself, “You selfish *********, you’re all grumpy about your workout like it’s the worst thing ever, and meanwhile….”

So not only was I going absolute rage mode in the gym, but wiping tears from my eyes between sets. (Fun fact: I’m an emotional dude and I cry. So what?)

You see. This isn’t about me bragging about my killer workout. This isn’t about making an example of myself or Lucas.

This is about putting things into perspective.

So the next time you are too tired to workout. Or just want to eat XYZ even though you know it’s a trigger food and you will eat way too much. Or you want to complain about the scale not moving for one day. Or you say out loud how “hard” life is. You are sad because you lost followers on IG. You are sad because of something someone said on the internet  (who doesn’t even know you). You just want to give up on trying to improve your health because it’s “so hard”…

This isn’t about finding the motivation to work out, to eat right, to prioritize health…because you won’t find the motivation every single day. There will be days that you don’t feel like it. You just “can’t” do it. Motivation sucks. As the great motivator (ironic, yes.) Jocko Willink says:

“Accomplishing your goals is not about motivation, it’s about discipline. — Motivation is fickle, motivation comes and goes. — Motivation is unreliable and when you’re counting on motivation to get your goals accomplished, you’re likely going to fall short. Don’t count on motivation, count on discipline! You know what you have to do, go make yourself do it.”

Put your “hard” into perspective. If you want it bad enough, you won’t wait for motivation.

Now get to work.

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Stay healthy my friends,