How to find the motivation to work out regularly

From my own experience, and watching other people struggle with it

So you would like to work out regularly. No matter the reason, or if you’re a woman or a man, or your age or shape, it’s always a good idea. It’s good for mental health (it helped with my insomnia and depression for instance), physical health, and to look good. All those things reinforce each others by the way.

But you never managed to make it a habit. After years of starting and stoping working out, I finally managed to start seriously 6 months ago, 3 times a week, with great regularity, even without a great motivation. And I finally enjoy it. My friends compliment me on my muscles now, even if I didn’t make that much progress yet, people notice. I went from 74 kg (163 lbs) to 77,5kg (170,8lbs). So I’m very far from a pro, but that’s actually why I think I can give you some advices, that could help you get started and continue, if you struggle with motivation like I did.

Here are my advices:

1-Do it at home. That’s the most important one for me. I believe it’s the best advice for people who lack motivation. Go to a sport shop, and buy just a few equipments. Or none if you don’t want to spend money. You can do even without, even if I would recommend having some. The one I bought are a drawbar, two dumbbells, with different weights, and a head harness to train my neck with weights. That’s already more than enough to train.
You don’t need to go to the gym. I would even say it’s best not to go to the gym, at least not the first few years. Why? Because it takes so much time and energy, and motivation, to pack your stuff, walk or drive to the gym, find the right equipments that is not being used, work out, shower, go home etc…
If you already lack motivation, or you know your motivation disappears easily, it’s the worst thing you can do. In the best case, you’ll go two or three months, then give up. Most people don’t even attend one month.
Whereas, if you have everything you need at home, it’s so easy to just do it in the morning or evening, then just go shower.

2-Don’t follow a complicated program on youtube or an app. Because even if that’s a good program in theory, they usually are difficult to follow. It also requires you to loose time launching the videos or the app. They require a lot of energy, easy to give up, instead…

3-Create your own, very simple, program. Something that is really easy to do for you. I’m going to give you an example later. Once you have it, don’t think about it anymore, just do the same boring program all the time. Then you don’t have to think about it. Less time to think is better. Also, if you always do the same thing, you can see your progress more obviously than if you change all the time.

An example of a simple program is 3 compound exercices, and one or two isolation exercise. That should take one hour. Do it every 2 or 3 days, if possible. Every exercise, you do 3 sets for each. Each set, you do it until “failure”, but without trying too hard if you are close to failure. If you have difficulty doing 5 push ups, then stop at 4 for instance, it doesn’t matter to go all the way to the end of exhaustion. If its’ easier, you’ll stay motivated. That applies the most for compound exercises, like push ups, pull ups and dips. If you are lifting dumbbells, put a weight where you “fail” at 12 repetitions approximately.

My program, very easy to follow, is 3 sets of pull ups, 3 sets of push ups, 3 sets of dips (for dips just use the corner of the kitchen worktop, check online how to do those things), until failure for each. When I started I did 4 pull ups in a row, 10 push ups, and 3 dips. Now, 6 months later, I do 10 pull ups, 25 push ups and 8 dips in a row. Then, for isolation, I do biceps curls, 3 sets of 12 reps with the appropriate weight (you’ll have to adjust the weights as you improve), 1min plank for abs, and 3 sets of 15 neck exercises. And 3 sets of neck exercise (12 reps also with the good weight).

4-Always try to make the work out easy. Never try to go as hard as you can. Have low objectives for the number of repetitions you can do, as low as possible. Your only objective is to do 1 pull up, 1 push ups, 1 dips every time you work out. As soon as you do that, you win. If you’re really tired, don’t work out. If you are tired for one week, don’t work out for one week. Include that in your program that sometimes you’ll skip one week. Even two weeks. The important thing is to not feel as you stop completely. You consider it as a rest “break”. If you can, just do one pull up, one push up and one dip once in a while during that time, that’s all. It’s not a race. No matter how hard you work out, you won’t see results before 5 to 6 months. So no need to work out too hard. Go slowly, take your time. Don’t be in a hurry, it’s a lifelong project. If you skip one or two weeks of studies in college, you can still have your degree after 4 years. It’s the same thing with working out. Don’t listen to the people who say they never skip one day. Good for them. You do you. You’re different. Skip as many days as you want. Just try to do a little bit. Just try to not stop more than 2 weeks if you can. If you work out for 4 years, it won’t matter if you skipped working out a few weeks once in a while. You will improve anyway. The real secret is to do it regularly for a long time, and the secret to continue is to make it so easy that you will come back at it. The results will come more if you work out just a little bit over months or years, than if you work out very hard for two months, then give up cause you lost motivation, because you were too hard on yourself.

5-Have the LOWEST expectations and goals possible. Start by saying to yourself “I’ll try to do that program for only one week”, and that’s all. Really never think about doing something for longer than that. Then congratulate yourself if you manage to do it one week. It’s only 3 hours of work out, I’m sure you can do it. If you succeed, try one month. If you succeed, now set the objective to 6 months (including the one month you already did).

Now the most important part:

6-If you fail to continue your program, never think to yourself “I’m a failure”, or “I can’t do it”. Always consider that the problem comes from the program, not you. Just adjust the program to make it easier, and easier, and easier, until you finally do it with ease and regularity. I can assure you there will be a program so easy that you’ll manage to do it. Before I started really working out 6 months ago, that’s what I did, and that helped me to finally start. For a few months before that, I just did two pull ups every morning. And one hour of more serious work out every once in a while (like once every two weeks). That’s really nothing, I would never have seen real results with a program like this if I continued that for ever. But that’s all I was willing to do regularly at that time. So that was the good program for me. It was so easy, that I didn’t need any motivation to do it. After a few months of doing two pull ups every day, I could do 4 pull ups. So I saw progress, even if really small ones. So I realized that working out actually “works”. You know it does of course, but that’s one thing to know, and another to experience it really. That gave me enough motivation to start with a more “serious” program.

And that’s exactly the purpose of all of my advices. My purpose is NOT to have you do the easiest program forever. The reason I advise to do the easiest program, is because I know that is a very good way to start, and to slowly make it a habit, and to slowly and naturally want more.

The big secret of working out, is to work out in a way that it’s so “easy” that you don’t need motivation to do it. As soon as you stop your program because you lack motivation, consider changing the program, and making it easier. If you can only do one push up every day and not more, then do it, that’s all. That’s your program. Keep it for one week. Then for one month. Then you’ll see you can do 2 push ups with ease, without any motivation. So you’ll naturally increase your program. I guarantee that after a few months, you’ll want more. Don’t try to get “results”, they are two slow to come. Just try to get an easy enough program that you almost can’t give up.

7-Don’t worry about complicated things like your diet or food supplements. Forget about it. Just do the bare minimum I said in this article. Limit your thinking as much as you can. You’ll worry about the appropriate diet after one year of training. I didn’t change my diet at all, and people already notice the changes in my body. Worrying about complicated things like your diet when you start working out, is like worrying about the quality of the strings on your tennis racket when you start learning to play tennis. It doesn’t matter when you are starting. You can learn with any tennis racket, as long as it’s not terrible. As long as you are not a good tennis player (after one year of training 3 times a week for instance), it won’t change anything to have the best strings, with the best adjustments, or the best racket. After one or two years of tennis, you can start adjusting the strings to your strenght and your weight, it will make a difference, not at the beginning. It’s the same for diet. As long as you don’t eat junk food every day, it won’t make a big difference what you eat, how much proteins etc… Just eat normally.

8-Bonus: follow accounts on instagrams about fitness, but don’t follow their advices. Just look at people working out, to make your brain believe it’s something that’s normal to do. If you have a lot of videos or pictures of people working out in your feed, you’ll think it’s normal and natural to work out. A lot of people who do fitness do it because their parents do it, because their friends do it, so they think it’s normal to do. It’s part of their “culture”. Make it part of your culture too. Start to think it’s “weird” to not do sport.

So that was my advices to start working out. Now put that computer away for just a second, and do one push up on the floor. Don’t change your clothes, you won’t sweat after one push up. If you can’t do one push, do it with your knees on the ground, it’s easier. Don’t worry about doing it correctly for now, just do one that’s all. Now, if you want, just try to do as much as you can, without being exhausted. If you did 2, or 3, or 4, that’s your baseline (like my baseline was 2 pull ups when I started, but you need to buy the drawbar to try that). Now just try to do that every day, or every two days for one week, and you’re already started.

Have a good day, and put a reminder on your phone to come back here in 6 months, to tell me in the comments if you saw any improvements ;)