“I love the valiant, but it is not enough to wield the broadsword, one must also know against whom” – Friedrich Nietzsche
In an era of Instagram posts warning us of lions and tigers stalking gyms and rising and grinding at stupid o’clock and various podcast hosts/personalities telling us to harden up not too mention shoes that tell us to “just do it”. It can be hard to find a lasting motivation and its a simple reason why, those reasons are not yours.
Lets think of motivation as a bucket. when we start training or thinking about a healthier lifestyle that bucket is full to the brim, regardless of if we want to look better, squat more or drastically loose weight. And over time this bucket will drain, slow for some and faster for others, how many people do you know have bought a gym membership and some flash new sporting gear and given up after a few weeks or less?. Hypothetically, lets say you have two people, one says “Summer is near I need to shed some weight for beach season” the other says, “my kids are now running around and I cant keep up, I need to get fitter if I want to be able to play with them”. The later reason is supreme in that it is very personal and also it is never complete, beach season comes and goes and so does the motivation, the bucket is drained. The kids continue to grow and develop and the parent must also grow and stay active to keep up lest the fall by the wayside, the bucket is consistently filled by the original and evolving reason.
when we sub-contract our reasons to train or get healthier to someone else and try to adopt their methodology we are shrinking the probability that we will actually stay focused on our goal and therefore our motivation. We must internalise our goal so that our motivation will always stay with us and never become stagnant. Delve into yourself and question what lifting that weight means to you, what losing that extra chub will bring you, and more importantly what will you do after you get there?
This brings me to the quote up the top and how we can dissect it in terms of motivation. We know we have to look after our bodies and minds, we know we have to go to the gym or do something physical. But are we asking ourselves why? the motivation or goal is the broadsword and once you wield it you must find the whom to wield it against, that is the Key. speaking personally for myself, my whom was an umbrella that covered my other whom(so many enemies) they consisted of small goals like sports or work or other personal challenges, but my overarching nemesis has never change, the whom is time, in 50 years I do not want my body to be frail or weak or have someone push me in my wheelchair to use the toilet. This big whom has kept me training for two decades and rarely missing a training day.
to finish, find your true motivation, don’t rely on words by the people you have never met or a season or even dress sizes, internalise that motivation and make it stick inside you forever.
Lift and smile.
the fit philosopher 