Dealing With Lack Of Motivation

Lately I’ve been suffering from a lack of motivation to train hard in the gym. I don’t have much of an issue going to Yoga, but weight training has been very tough. I haven’t been making steady progress which is part of the reason why I am lacking motivation.

I can get to the gym without issue, but once there, my workout becomes more of a chore. In a conversation with a friend yesterday, he mentioned that too often we do things as a “transition” “from” something else and “towards” something else. In other words, what we are doing doesn’t have any purpose, it is just a gap-filler for some cooler, more fun and more exciting thing that might be happening in the future. That future never arrives, or at least if it did, I wouldn’t know it.

So what to do? I (this week) have been combating my lack of motivation in the gym, by going back to my roots, running! I’ve been starting my weight training with 10-20 minutes on the treadmill. I used to pride myself on never using a dread-mill, but at this point I’ve thrown all my pre-conceptions out the window.

There is something about running that gets me out of my head and lets me just be. I also work up a sweat (it takes about 10 minutes running at 8 minute mile pace indoors to do that for me).  As a result, my weight workouts are much more intense. They are not very long, but at least they are more intense. This is progress.