Lessons on motivation from my trainer

I make a physical fitness trainer a part of my social environment. I use a personal trainer, John Fahey, because of his expertise and because he encourages me to work harder than I would by myself. Further, having a set time to work with him means I will work out even on those days I don’t feel like it.

I was talking with him the other day, in between sets, about people he had worked with who refused to worked hard. It didn’t matter how much he tried to encourage them, he said, they just refused to put out the effort.

People who don’t train hard, whether they are his clients or not, doesn’t make sense to my trainer, “Why wouldn’t you want to be as strong as you can be?”

We talked about the reasons people don’t exercise hard:

1. They are lazy
2. They aren’t familiar with working hard
3. They think they are going to hurt themselves
4. They don’t think getting really strong is important.

All these reasons come down to one reason. These people aren’t motivated to train hard. Each one of these reasons can be resolved, if the person wishes it to be resolved, by application of the model for self motivation.

This the model:

MOTIVATION = ƒ (VISION, SUCCESSABILITY, ENVIRONMENT).

This means that your motivation is related to your vision (How worthwhile to you is the change you want to make?), your successability (How confident are you in your competence, your ability to make the change?) and your environment, both your physical environment (where you will do the work necessary to make the change) and your social environment (the people and organizations available to you).

The first reason, they are lazy, has to do with factor number one, the vision. Though it’s conceivable that someone might be a lazy person in general, I believe most people are lazy just about some particular facet or things in their life. For these people, those things they are lazy about are just not important to them. They may give lip service (claim it is important) to some principal, but if it were important, the person would not merely be given lip service, they would be doing. In order for you to be motivated to do something, it has to be important to you.

The second reason for the lack of motivation, they aren’t familiar with training hard, is similar to the third reason, they think they are going to hurt themselves. In both cases, the person lacks the confidence that they are able to work hard, either at all, or at a minimum, in a healthy way.

The fourth reason is similar to the first reason. If someone doesn’t think getting really strong is important, there is no way they will be motivated. John and I disagree with this, but I think it’s more important to find the exercise you enjoy, that gives you pleasure, even if it doesn’t make you the strongest you can be.

So why am I motivated to do these ridiculous tough workouts, even though they are not pleasurable? Three reasons:

1. The payoff is great. Though I don’t like having to buy bigger suits, the bigger shoulders and lats look great. This makes working out more valuable to me, which motivates me. If I can just get rid of the love handles, I will look as good as I looked in my twenties (below the neck, anyway).

2. I like the intensity of working my hardest. My knees and hips have kept me from running as hard as I did when I was younger, so I had to find something else. This, like #1, makes it hard workouts more valuable to me.

3. Small successes. If you don’t know what a calf ham glute raise is, check it out here.
No, that’s not me, but I actually have done six of these, and that success has fueled my desire to be able to do twenty in a row. The more confident I get, the more successes I want.

Motivation is a personal decision. If you don’t want to do something, if it isn’t valuable to you, it’s going to be an uphill battle for you to get motivated. But if you want to do it, the model for self motivation will help you achieve what you desire.