So I have always had a really hard time staying motivated and I never understood why. After all, my desire was still there, but when it came down to doing, I lose it after a precisely 3 month period. This is especially true with trying to loose weight and keep up with a regular workout regime.
Being unemployed has been an interesting rollers coaster for me. The first month or so was rather pathetic and I fell into my usual unmotivated slump where I basically sit on my ass watching Netflix and browsing Reddit for hours on end. I was beginning to think that it was impossible for me to be motivated without something like school or work kicking me in the ass. It brings me back to my summers during high school and how I've basically always been like this. After all without a deadline, what's keeping me from doing nothing at all.
Suddenly, at my lowest when I stopped bathing and seeing sunlight, it hit me that I needed to get my brain and body back on track. So I went and got a library card and now every day I make sure to get out of the house, which usually consists of going to the gym and then chilling out at a coffee shop for a few hours and read. This is now my favorite thing in the world and for the first time, I was able to pull myself out of this lazy slump without school or work cracking a whip to get out of the house.
Personally this was a huge breakthrough for me because as we all know, School doesn't last forever, and I know so many people who struggle without having those short term goals of school semesters.
Back to my weight loss goals, I have struggled with keeping weight off since I hit 20. I work my ass for 3 months, get really close to my goal and I loose interest and stop. Then I spend the next 6 months gaining it back; it has been a vicious cycle.
So lately as usual, I've hit my usual 3 month period and I was absolutely losing it. I was only going a couple of days a week and even then, my workouts were pretty lazy. However, due to some scheduling error I ended up with a different personal trainer than usual, and not only did he kick my butt, he gave me a new exercise routine to try. I did it yesterday and it was honestly the hardest workout I've ever had. Today I couldn't wait to get to the gym to do it again, and that's when I realized the reason I lose motivation at exactly the same length of time is because I get used to my routine and it is no longer a challenge, so I get bored and I stop.
This is when it hit me. The reason why I lose motivation in all points of my life is because I am no longer being challenged. This is why people (at least a few in my experience) struggle when they leave school, it's because we are no longer being challenged with new subjects every 3 months.
So at least in my case, the key to keeping up motivation is to continually challenge yourself, and keep the difficulty up. If you find yourself losing motivation after a period of time, change things up, give yourself a slightly more difficult goal to work towards and if you find yourself failing, say to yourself "tomorrow is a fresh start, and I can't fail if I don't give up." Maybe this is common knowledge and I'm just late to the party, but this idea is helping me a lot. So now, rather than waiting for an outside source to challenge me, I'm trying to learn to challenge myself. And now my goal is not to reach perfection, which is discouraging and leads me to quit when I fail, but to continually challenge myself. And when you are constantly challenging yourself there really is no true end, no finish line, and no limits.
Finally I'll finish with one of my favorite motivational pics. Bruce Lee everyone!
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