So, I am now keeping semi-regular notes regarding my baguazhang training. Although, over time, these have evolved a little. Now they are less about codifying my knowledge and more about keeping a log of when I've been able to practice, what exercises were harder/easier/effective and other such things. This helps me a little as I struggle with motivation at times.
However, having researched a little on the subject of motivation - especially as it pertains to fitness - I think I have come up with a few tips and/or exercise related motivational hacks.
First of all, I need to do all I can to prevent my subconscious from being able to justify giving up. What I mean by this is, whenever I set myself goals, I always seem to unwittingly include clauses that allow my lazier side to throw in the towel fairly early on.
For example, a common goal I've set myself for more new year's resolutions than I care to mention is:
"Practice bagua at least five times a week"
The problem with this is, it already contains the seeds of its own demise. What happens when, for whatever reason, I'm only able to practice three times in a particular week? Well, that is an opportunity for my lazy subconscious to say, "Well, you've screwed up your goal now, might as well jack it all in!". Putting a time factor in like that is a bad idea. When we see stuff on TV or in health-based media about "Training every day" or "Hitting the gym at least five times a week", it's usually just intended to set you up to fail. When you fail, you start feeling bad about yourself. When you feel bad, you want to buy things to make you feel better about yourself - whether this is a new set of weights, £200 running shoes, a gym membership, or whatever. A happy person doesn't consume as much, so they don't feel as compelled to buy the product that is being offered.
These time-based goals are usually promoted by either fitness coaches or celebrities. What they're not telling you is that those kinds of goals are perfect - for them. They don't have a 9-5 job which takes precedence over their lives every single day. Once they've done a few errands, they pretty much have the rest of the day to themselves. So they have at least a couple of hours in which to comfortably fit some exercise. Most of the rest of us don't have that luxury.
Rather than setting time-based goals, how about removing any time factor from the goals all together?
1). Run a total of 100km
2). Practice martial arts over ten different days
3). Complete a total of 1,000 reps of any one exercise
This way, if my goal is to train over 10 different days, failing to train one or more days doesn't impact my goal - it only means it will take a little longer to achieve. Maybe I am enthusiastic to start and manage three days running? Great! But then, real life does what it often does and throws a spanner in the works. Maybe I get flu? Or family issues take my attention away? I can't train for two days because of this. No problem. When I come back to training, I'm still 30% of the way toward my goal, just as I was before.
Once I achieve the goal, then I set myself another one. Maybe bigger this time. Train over 25 different days or Run a total of 200km. Or, maybe, I just want to keep it simple and keep resetting that goal to the same thin. Train over ten days. Then another ten. Then another.
We're all gonna fail at some time. Real life gets in the way sometimes. That's just the way of things. But there's no need to make it a deal-breaker.
