i had a comment on one of my videos recently that said something like i
love the mountains when i get out in them but i struggle to train or get going sometimes
i think we all feel like that sometimes i think right now most of us feel that more than ever
so in this video i wanted to address and talk about that issue this is chasing motivation
in a perfect world i would tell you to completely forget about motivation
it doesn't work like that it's important to be motivated but my point here is that motivation
isn't everything motivation will come and go and i'm sure if you've looked into this before you've
seen military influences who go on and on about motivation and often the final point of guys like
goggins or jocko is generally that discipline is something that's replaced with motivation work
late nights early morning discipline whilst i'm not a huge fan of this i'm not really a disciple
of discipline i think there's a lot to be taken out from that world one of my favorite quotes
is from david goggins goggins is an absolute machine he says be more than motivated be more
than driven become literally obsessed to the point where people think you're [ __ ] nuts and
i know that most people when they hear that they're just going to be like me and think just
calm down bro like that's way too intense and if that's what you think when you hear a quote like
that then i think we're probably on the same page with that so my first point here is that
if the self-discipline route hasn't worked for you then it's probably not going to if you're like me
most of the exercise that you get is outside when you're hiking or climbing or enjoying your sport
and we do these things not because we're disciplined we do things because we enjoy them
and you can take that approach and apply it to your training as well just do something you enjoy
i train my body not because i'm not unstoppable killing machine i train my body simply because
i enjoy training it i didn't always enjoy working out in fact i kind of used to hate it i was never
into going to the gym i didn't fit into that crew or that crowd i would just much prefer to
be outside and i'd be lying that i said now that i loved every second of it but i think
it's important to take this common phrase that you hear in the outdoors which is embrace the suck and
i think if you can do that in the outdoors you can certainly do that in your training as well
it'll really pay off in terms of gaining that mental strength edge that we probably all need
my personal view on this is that you don't have to suffer through every workout you don't have
to finish every workout and a puddle of sweat and you don't have to be feeling totally exhausted you
can feel invigorated from doing a training session you can gain energy rather than spending energy if
you do the right kind of workout for you so much of this is about finding what you enjoy finding
what works for you and that takes some exploration it takes some effort and it takes some guidance
you don't have to punish yourself you can be grateful for what you have which is hopefully
a functioning human body in some way a second piece of advice when it comes down to motivation
is one i've spoken about before and it's choosing a goal i've got a whole video that you can watch
about choosing goals but i think the main points are that you should pick something that's just a
little bit out of your reach something that gives you a deadline and a reason to go and do it could
be anything from a two-mile hike on a saturday afternoon to booking a month-long climbing trip in
the himalayas and everywhere in between it will be different for everyone but obviously it needs to
be something just a little outside of your comfort zone it needs to be concrete meaning it's specific
like a specific trail a specific event or a trip or an agreement something with a date attached
to it it also needs to be realistic i hear from a lot of people who have the goal of climbing
everest but to be brutally honest in 90 of most cases you're picking something that's just way too
[ __ ] hard i know that sounds brutally honest but it costs 120 000 dollars in most cases to go
and do that mountain so that's a whole other ball game in itself giving them money to do it so just
pick something a little easier just a little bit easier and the reason why i say this is because
if you choose something that's way too hard for you and you fail then that could affect you for
the rest of your life so if you have set goals in the past and failed and you've become demotivated
as a result of that then i encourage you to set smaller wins before you go after something so
audacious a lot of what i watch and read online would fit into the personal growth category or
the lifestyle change stuff and the one thing that crops up a lot in these kind of courses is that
they say you'll never actually change until you reach this breaking point where you become so
fed up with yourself that eventually you have no choice but to change i certainly encourage you to
pay attention to your self-talk to look yourself in the mirror legitimately and call yourself out
on your [ __ ] but it doesn't mean that you have to flip your life completely upside down a journey
of improving yourself doesn't have to come at the expense of your old life not everyone is ready for
that kind of change and not everyone needs it frankly to be happy it's probably more useful
to say that everyone has their own path that's going to be slightly different and not everyone
has to have this intense overhaul in order to make changes if you choose a goal that's just outside
of your reach something that requires some small changes that you know for sure you can achieve
without having some grandiose lifestyle change that has to flip your whole world upside down and
third and final point to bring this all together is to find something that you enjoy that improves
you that might be yoga it might be rock climbing it might be pilates or tai chi or qigong or any
kind of martial art something that gets your body moving something it gets the blood flowing
something that's fun but importantly something that has a linear progression or a staircase
to get you towards martial arts has the grading system with the belts rock climbing has all kinds
of grading systems all over the world their steps to indicate to us that we're getting stronger
and more powerful in our human body you just have to find enjoyment and something that improves you
and then set up a system to prompt you to do that regularly and improve on it if you don't currently
have a system and you want to borrow mine and implement it then i would recommend checking out
my website i would start with elements then maybe move on to hike strong if you've got
knee issues there's mountain proof knees which is a brand new one that's just come
out and as always if you have questions about which one is going to be right for you then
you can fill out the contact form on my website that will come straight to my inbox and i'll give
you my professional opinion on which one is best suited to you and it's not going to be necessarily
the one that's the most expensive i'm not that much of a douche i'll see you in the summer