One of the most common questions I get from people is if I ever have days when I don’t want to do it, both related to exercise and to food.  When I tell them that YES, totally there are days I feel like I’d give a limb to be able to lounge around instead of go sweat my booty off or to be able to eat pizza for every meal without any consequences then they want to know how I find the motivation to keep going on days when, frankly, I just don’t wanna.

There are many answers to this.  It’s different depending on the day and largely related to WHY I don’t want to do it that day.  If I’m exhausted and sore, well maybe I need a day off of exercise, but if I’m just lethargic because I spent more of the day at a computer and feel stiff and haven’t gotten my endorphins up that day then I just need to find my motivation to push past it.

When I absolutely, positively just do not want to do it (whatever “it” may be…go for the run, lift the weight, eat the salad…) I have a conversation with myself that goes something like this:

 

“Trisha, no one is forcing you to do this and you’re not doing it for anyone other than yourself, so if you don’t do it, the only person you’re letting down is yourself and that’s fine.  BUT you KNOW that if you do it, you will feel better than if you don’t.  The person YOU have decided that you want to be is someone who follows through and if you bail on your commitment today you’re just going to sit here and stew about it and feel bad anyway, so let’s make a deal and do 5 minutes (or 1 set, or eat half, etc, basically [insert relevant compromise here]) and then if you still want to quit then that’s ok today.  But you gotta follow through on your commitment to start.  Just starting is all that matters today.”

 

You may think I’m exaggerating but I am not.  I have some version of this conversation with myself on the regular (yes including referring to myself in the 3rd person) about all kinds of things (#adulting).  Sometimes the talk is conducted in my head.  Sometimes it’s fully out loud. Sometimes I’m sitting at the door with my running shoes procrastinating about going for a run.  Sometimes I’m in my PJ’s standing in my bedroom looking at myself right in the eyes in the mirror.  Sometimes I’m staring into my fridge.  Sometimes I’m lounging on my couch.  Sometimes I’m in my car. It doesn’t matter where it happens, but there is ALWAYS an internal dialogue and on the days I just don’t wanna do the things, that is when it is the most direct.

What do I mean about “relevant compromises”?  Well I mean what are you going to do that will help you to satisfy both your desire to be successful AND your urge to skip it.  The types of compromises I mean here are things like:

    • Don’t want to go for a walk or run – just agree to put your shoes on and go to the end of the driveway, or the end of your street.
    • Feeling like chocolate or chips instead of the healthy food you had planned – tell yourself that you can have the less healthy thing but you have to eat at least half of the healthy item first
    • Want to skip your bootcamp class – commit to just getting dressed and getting in the car, or (if it isn’t far) just driving to the building.
    • Have a full workout planned that you are convinced you’re way too tired to do – commit to just a micro-workout instead and do 10 jumping jacks, 10 squats, 10 push ups and a 30 second plank.
    • Don’t want to meal prep – open up the pantry and fridge and using what’s there see if you can come up with a full days’ worth of meals and snacks that you will feel satisfied about both from an appetite and health perspective.

Does it work?  Almost every single time. If I can get myself to start, with the expectation of doing only a little bit, I’d say 9/10 times, I end up going all the way with it.

    • Once the shoes are on and I’m out, I will probably just go for a longer walk.
    • If I start eating my healthier food I will probably finish it instead of eating just half – and while I will probably still have the treat too, I will definitely eat less of it since I won’t be starving.
    • If I get dressed and in the car for a class, it’s pretty likely I’m just going to go to the class.
    • As soon as I start any workout the endorphins start flowing and I feel more energetic, so I want to keep going and do the full one I had planned.
    • When I don’t want to meal prep I go to my staple “emergency” items – premade canned or frozen things – if I see there are gaps that will be “easy” to fill I’m willing to do the little that’s required to make those items…sometimes I end up feeling good once I’m in the kitchen so I’ll just end up making more than I planned and not needing my premade stuff.

That’s not to say that it goes that way EVERY time.  Sometimes I complete the bare minimum I committed to and that’s that. But the vast majority of the time starting is the hardest part.  And even if you’re still not loving every moment while completing a task, sometimes since you bothered to drag your butt into doing it you end up just feeling like you might as well do a little more.  And if you do the bare minimum?  You still succeeded because THAT was the expectation anyway!  You don’t have to leave the situation feeling bad about yourself because you did what you agreed to do.

The absolute enemy of making progress with our health is the all or nothing attitude and feeling bad about ourselves for anything less than perfection.  Feeling like a failure is not motivating.  Telling yourself you’re not good enough is not incentive for improvement.  What is motivating is when you feel like a badass!  When you feel like you’re making progress and that you’re following through on what you said you wanted to do.  But sometimes we overcommit, or life happens and we HAVE to learn to roll with the punches…to adapt and do the best we can in the circumstances and still call it a win.

I was supposed to run my first full marathon this month (actually I’m supposed to run a 10K, Half-Marathon AND a Full Marathon this month in an event called “The Whole Shebang”) but I’ve been plagued by issues with my calves since January this year and trying to push through was not making me feel good.  I already signed up.  They were sending me a shirt and a medal for completing these races.  I KNOW if that shirt and medal get into this house and I don’t do those runs I will feel really upset.  So I’m adapting and walking them.  It wasn’t the plan.  I’m not AS excited about it; my first instinct is to be disgruntled and sulk, but I know that it won’t help.  And at the end of the day I know when I’m out there I’ll enjoy that time and when it’s done I’ll feel great.

And that’s why I run in the first place.  To feel good!! So this is not a loss.

I’m a huge advocate for follow-through; for digging deep when things are tough.  But if we try to do that EVERY SINGLE TIME, we run out of reserves of energy.  There is only so much to go around.  Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is to know when to cut our losses. And while you can’t compromise every single time, you certainly can sometimes, and if you start to see that you can do more than you thought, that the thing you think you dread actually feels good, then as time goes on you will find you have to compromise a lot less than you used to.

There are no medals for punishing ourselves the most, so this week, let’s make a deal – next time you want to cut and run try making a compromise instead and in exchange you’re going to stop making yourself feel bad about things that are expressly meant to make you feel good.

Deal?