Motivation & Decisions

Motivation is an elusive creature.  

Finding the proper drive, determination, or motivation to do anything is exceptionally difficult for me.  I have been a lazy person my whole life.  For example:  "sloth" is a term used pretty often to describe me during my free time. 

Finding motivation to work on my career, no problem.  My career is currently driven by money [student loans, I'm looking at you...]. Solution: work.  

I want more money than I make now?  Solution: work harder. 

Plain and Simple.

Easy mindset.

Finding motivation to workout, on the other hand, eludes me.  

Especially recently.  

When I reached my original weight loss goal of 155 lbs, I felt empowered and proud.  I had done it!  

But wait, do I still need to workout?  

When I hit that original goal, I was riding on happy vibes, and slowing down my workouts.  For a whole week, they came to a complete halt.  I was/am finally happy with the way that my body looks in clothes [and sometimes I even like the way it looks when I'm naked!], and I do not have that heavy, heavy sense of self-hatred that I once had.

A lot of people have strong positive motivators that push them into the weight-loss game.  I did not.  I had a very unhealthy self-hatred, and it pushed me to workout and change my diet, which is why I roller-coaster-ed so much throughout these past five years.  Theoretically, I think I might have had an easier time with consistency if I had loved myself and used a healthier mindset to motivate my weight loss. That being said, I still struggle to use HEALTH as a motivator.  

When I thought about why my workout schedule was slowing down, I realized that this lack of intense self-hatred was keeping me from wanting to go to the gym.  My main motivation had melted away, and hate was no longer pushing me there.  

Trust me, I am happy to not hate myself as much as I once did. 

BUT

Now I am left with the struggle of finding new motivation to push me to get back to the gym.  This past week, I have been soul-searching online and looking for positive, motivational quotations to use as my new mantra on days that I want to be a sloth.  I was coming up with plenty of ammo, but each day, I kept missing the mark.  I avoided the gym again and again, until yesterday when I realized: 

DUH.

Now that I've reached my goal, and I'm pushing myself ahead to lose a little more, there is only one way to make myself WANT to go to the gym now.

I simply have to decide... 

Yes, my health is important.  

Yes, I have time to go.  

Yes, this is more important than my sloth agenda.  

Yes, I want to go to the gym.

Yes, I WILL go to the gym. 

I know...easier said than done.  

I spent all day thinking about whether or not I needed to go.  After work, I then sat in my car for a couple minutes arguing with myself before I finally drove there.

It's going to be a struggle, but every day I will take the time to argue with myself.  One part of me is going to win every day. Sloth-Devin or Gym-Rat-Devin, though?

I'm not sure. 

It's all about will-power. 

It's all about making that decision every day.