Hi Everyone – and welcome to another week,
Welcome to a BEAUTIFUL Sunday!
Who even knew the temperature could possibly EVER get above, like,
20-degrees ever again! This winter has been harsh but today was a great
reminder to us all what an amazing place we live in – where the sun shines and
getting outside is simply the best…and also (of course) that summer is just around
the corner. I know for me – after missing
an entire week of training with this stupid ongoing back issue I have – I really
need to get back and do SOMETHING this week (my mental health needs it more than anything) as I am
beginning to get a bit worried about what will happen next time I jump on the
body scanner.
Oh well, I guess I know what I need to do! Unfortunately the knowing it is easy…the
doing it is a touch harder. L
That said, aside from my recent back injury, I have been finding
it really hard to get any ‘real’ training done lately. As a few people will have noticed, we have
lost quite a few staff hours over the past 12-18 months with Elie, Kirei and
Eden all moving from full-time work at Round1 into full-time study positions
and part-time/casual work at the gym.
This has put a fair bit of extra workload on the rest of the team – and meant
that I have probably run as many group sessions in the past 3-months as I had
done in the preceding 12-months. This is
good in a lot of ways – running classes is certainly one of my favourite things
to do AND the #1 reason I left the corporate life and started a gym (I LIKE the
coaching and particularly enjoy coaching groups) but unfortunately there is a
lot of other stuff (who knew) that also has to be done in order to keep the
place running – and that has only been added too with the challenges of
obtaining planning approval for the extension (and more recently, the
challenges of getting ON with the extension).
I have certainly become really ‘time poor’ and whereas once upon a
time I could pretty much bank on having a spare 60-minutes or so every
lunchtime to do a class, lately even that has been a push. And even when I have ‘HAD’ the time to train,
finding the ‘WILL’ to actually do it has been a little harder. Each Thursday is a good example – I finish
work at around 9:15pm on Wednesday (after a 5am start that morning) and am back
in the gym at 5am Thursday morning…I then run all the classes through until the
12pm boxing session but from 1pm am ‘done for the day’. So I *should* be able to train at 1pm every
week…but I am finding it harder and harder to find the drive to change my
t-shirt and get stuck into it – it really is a battle.
I know it is a battle so many of you guys go through every day – after
a long day at work it is HARD to get into the gym (or equally, it is hard to
get into the gym when you have a long, hard day ahead)…and even though you
physically have the time, having the time AND the drive to use it? Well, that’s another thing entirely.
So…how do you do it? How do
all of us do it? And more importantly,
how do you continue to do it day-after-day, week-after-week when it feels like
the results aren’t worth the effort and the couch and a beer are calling
LOUDLY. After all, there are sure as
hell easier things to do than slog your way through a session at Round 1 –
particularly when it so often seems that there are just no hours left in the
day for ‘me time’?
I wish I knew the answer – I guess if I did there would be a chain
of Round 1’s in every town across Australia.
But I think I have a fair handle on how to go about ‘getting motivated’
so here goes:
1/. Remind yourself that
you are ALREADY motivated. You WANT to
be known as a person who is active and who trains…after all, that is why you
have a membership at Round 1!
2/. Given that, you have to
recognise that you aren’t MISSING motivation…your motivation is – for the
moment at least – being spent on other things!
Like what? Like a stressful job
or a challenging family situation maybe?
This is why it is so hard to get your training done when life is
stressful…because it IS hard.
3/. Think of things this
way – an object in motion will STAY in motion.
So make a commitment RIGHT NOW to attend a set number of classes (pick a
number between 2 and 4) before you read this blog next Sunday. And pick the times that you are going to do
them. Select a ‘REWARD’ that you will
give yourself for this positive behaviour.
(Ice-cream after dinner next Sunday – nice Ice-Cream – works for
me. It might be something else for you).
4/. Rinse and repeat for a
couple of weeks – staying focussed on the POSITIVE outcomes of your
efforts. If you miss – don’t worry about
it. What you DO is way more important than
what you DON’T…and your efforts to stay on track ARE worthy of celebration.
(sorry in advance for the cheesy image but it's kinda true!)
That’s it. Because if you
do that for 3-4 weeks in a row, you will find your gym ‘HABIT’ is back in full
swing. And one thing I do know about
people, is that whilst motivation might come and go and ebb and flow, habits –
whether they are good ones or somewhat less than ‘ideal’ – are bloody hard to
break. So give yourself a chance to get
back on track by doing the same thing I am going to do…set a little mini target
for the week ahead, setting up a little reward scheme, then – head down, bum up
– GET IT DONE!
Let me know if any of this sounds good (or not) with an email to Michael@round1fitness.com.au
See you in the gym,
Michael.
p.s. I don’t
want to gloat TOO much but I am happy to report my victory for the second
successive year in the R1F Dream Team competition. Whilst the revised blog format has made it
hard to report on the competition, congratulations to Liam Blampied for
finishing atop the ladder at the end of the year, and also to Michael Campbell
for making it through to the semi finals…ultimately though, well…J.
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