Everyone has lost motivation to work out at some point of their journey. Whether they’re just starting out, or have been lifting weights for years, there comes a point where “I want to go to the gym” turns into “I have to.” It’s at this point where most beginners say fitness just isn’t for them. That their goal to lose weight or get stronger is far from their reach. Every person in this situation benefits from the same thing: workout discipline.
Creating workout discipline requires creating a specific goal, recording multiple measures of progress over time, and creating accountability amongst your peers. There’s a big difference between being motivated to workout and being disciplined; motivation is effective yet temporary, but discipline provides long-lasting results. Although motivation has it’s own purpose, your priority should be on discipline.
How To Build Discipline With Exercise
Many beginners go to the gym and do whatever they feel like doing that day. Others will go in and do the exact same routine every time. Both have equal negatives since they don’t have the 3 factors needed for long-term results: a specific goal, a focused workout, and progression over time.
Creating a Specific Goal
The best way to create a workout goal is to use the SMART method. There are many different versions of SMART, but for fitness the best version stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. Here’s a break down of what each goal specifically mean:
Specific goals can’t be confused other fitness pursuits. For example, “I want to lose weight” is not specific enough because you can lose weight in a variety of ways that don’t involve bodyfat; losing water, muscle, or even an arm all count as “losing weight.” To make this specific, you have to say “lose bodyfat.” Again, the purpose is to choose a goal that can’t be confused with anything else.
Measurable goals involve some objective way you can tell whether you’ve hit your goal or not. The objective component is important because subjective goals (such as “looking better”) does not have a clear pass or fail, making the entire goal unfocused. Below is a list of common goals and the easiest ways to measure them
| Goal | Measurement |
| Losing bodyfat | Measuring tape or bodyfat measuring devices |
| Get stronger at bench pressing | The weight of each bench press |
| Run a mile faster | Timer |
| Reduce the pain in my shoulders | Increase in shoulder range of motion or 1-10 pain scales |
The measuring device for most of these, such as the bench press goal, or fairly obvious. However, some goals require some creativity to get an objective measurement. Shoulder pain, for example, will require some degree of subjectivity. Using a 1-10 pain scale in this case will help stay as numerical and objective as possible
Achievable goals can realistically be obtained given every other responsibility in your life. For example, the goal of “I want to be 3% bodyfat in 3 months” is completely unrealistic for the average man who’s currently at about 20-30%. It might be possible for an athlete or bodybuilder, who’s sole career is based on bodyfat percentage, but the average person has too many other responsibilities that are more important. Even goals such as “going to the gym 6 days a week” can have an achievability problem because it may interfere with work, family, other hobbies, etc. Because a “realistic” goal greatly depends on your own individual life, this will completely depend on the person. It’s best to start a super easy goal, such as going to the gym twice a week when you can probably do four. It’s much better to start low and build upwards rather than start high and fall down. The latter is much more likely to result in quitting your fitness journey entirely.
Relevant goals are similar to achievable goals; they have to make sense within your life as a whole. The 3% bodyfat example not only is unrealistic for the average person, but it’s also completely unnecessary. In fact, professional bodybuilders are the only population where 3% bodyfat is a relevant goal. A less obvious example is the goal doing 30 crunches every day to get a smaller stomach. For the average person, especially with higher bodyfat percentages, doing crunches every day will NOT make your stomach smaller. If this person wants a smaller waistline, they need to goals that focus on fat loss rather than core development. Although doing crunches everyday is better than nothing, it’s not nearly as effective as a diet protocol, making the 30 crunches goal irrelevant.
Create Accountability
The easiest way to create accountability is to tell your friends and family about your goals. Some people get intimidated by this, but when the right people know that you’re going through this journey, they’ll give you the support and reassurance needed to push through the challenges. However, it’s important to choose people who you know will not hurt your progress more than help it. Here are some attributes of supportive peers versus destructive peers
| Moments in your Fitness Journey | Supportive | Destructive |
| Not seeing any progress | Helps you back on track with positive affirmation and action | Places the blame on you (ex. “you’re not trying hard enough.”) |
| First voicing your goals to your peers | Are happy for you and are willing to support you along the way | Make jokes about your goals and/or shoot them down as unrealistic |
| Achieving your goal | Offer congratulations and accept the new changes you’ve made to your lifestyle (see below) | Question if you’ve actually reached your goal, or refuse to make any changes to support your lifestyle (see below) |
| Changing your goal | Understand why you decide to change goals, and encourage your decision | Uses this as proof that you’ll never reach your goal |
One of the best characteristics of a supportive friend/family is that they can realistically make adjustments to your relationship to better support your new lifestyle. For example, let’s say you have a husband that loves to eat out with you on weekends. If he were truly supportive, he would be willing to replace those weekends eating out with cooking healthy meals at home. A destructive partner would refuse to give this up with zero compromise. Of course, “compromise,” is the key word – it has to be a realistic give and take for both sides. However, any willingness from the other party to change for the better of your goals is a great sign that they truly support your goals.
Record Your Progress
Using Multiple Measuring Devices
As mentioned before, the M in SMART stands for measurable, so every goal should have a clear means of measuring progress. The tools you use depends on your goals, but using multiple measurements is always recommended for accuracy. For example, most people trying to lose bodyfat only use a bodyweight scale. This works because the scale will show you’re lighter if you have less bodyfat, but it could also show less weight when you’ve lost muscle instead. To combat this, it’s best to use a scale, a bodyfat device, and measuring tape. All three of these devices can be manipulated by different things like water or muscle loss, but if all three devices show a decrease, it’s much more likely that you’re actually losing fat and not muscle or water.
Recording Frequently and Consistently
It’s also important to record these measurements frequently and somewhere easy to access, like on your phone. Frequency is very important because it reduces the variability from factors you can’t control. For example, measuring your weight once a week – even if using many devices – still cannot factor out water weight, food weight from the night before, etc. If you measure 3-7 times a week and take an average for that week, those confounding variables will be factored out much easier.
Consistency is important for the same reason. Measuring yourself under the exact same conditions each time ensures no confounding variables interfere. This is why the best time to take your bodyweight is first thing in the morning, with no clothes, before drinking/eating, and after using the bathroom if needed.
Discipline vs Motivation
Discipline and motivation are often used interchangeably, and wrongfully so. Looking at the dictionary definitions of the two, there are a couple of slightly different meanings for each. Here are the two definitions that apply mostly to fitness:
Discipline: the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience
Motivation: the general desire or willingness of someone to do something
Although “punishment” can be used in good and bad ways, discipline essentially means training yourself to live by your determined fitness standard. This standard, of course, depends on the goal you’ve set above. Motivation, however, simply means you want to do something. Although actually wanting to work out makes the process much easier, there will inevitably be days where you have to force yourself to exercise and eat right. In other words, if you loved fitness purely off motivation, you’d be on and off the wagon constantly. Even if your time spent on the wagon is 100% perfectly executed, the fact that you can’t sustain that practice consistently means you’ll never see long term results; you’ll only see short term highs.
The Time and Place for Motivation
As long as you understand that motivation will eventually run out, and that you’ll then have to use pure discipline to continue your progress, motivation can actually be a helpful tool if not relied too heavily on.
Chasing Short-Term Goals
The major downfall of motivation is that it’s short lived, but when used for a well-planned short-term goal, it can actually help with long-term progress. If your goal is to bench press 225lbs, and you’re starting at a 95lb max, it can be very motivating to set up monthly milestones of 135, 175, 205, and finally 225. These short-term goals just have to be realistically planned. Since adding 10lbs to a bench each week is very realistic for beginners, a monthly goal of 40lbs makes sense.
It’s not recommended to create these goals while in a “motivation high.” In other words, people come up with very crazy and unrealistic short-term goals when they feel the rush of motivation pushing them forward. Instead, review each short-term goal using the SMART method to ensure it’s something that can realistically be obtained.
Pushing for Extra Workouts, Better Nutrition, etc.
When you’re feeling extra motivated a certain week, you can strive to add extra workouts to your routine and dial nutrition down much harder. If your original workout plan calls for three days a week, you can push it to 4-5 as long as it’s not interfering with your other responsibilities. And if your diet allows for a small indulgence every now and then, you can try to push to eat as clean as possible.
Just remember that once your motivation runs out, the best action is to return back to your original workout and meal plan. Don’t feel defeated if the extra workouts and optimized nutrition don’t last very long. However, some people might find that even after their motivation runs out, they have the discipline to maintain this next level of fitness. This is great as it will make achieving their long term goal much easier.
Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone
When you’re already forcing yourself to workout, it’s hard to get out of your comfort zone. Let’s say someone’s routine is to circuit train with machines then spend some time on the treadmill. When they’re using discipline, it’s easiest to stick to the routine since it’s what they’re already use to. However, when you’re feeling extra motivated, you can use that energy to try things you would never otherwise do; activities like spin classes, heavy weight training, bodyweight HIIT exercises, etc.
Although it’s sticking to a set routine is best for long-term results, there comes a point where the body is so accustomed to the routine that you stop seeing progress. This is called a plateau. Getting out of your comfort zone by exploring new exercises can actually help to break the plateau and continue progress. It can also introduce you to new exercise routines that may give you more results than your original. If this new routine gets you better results, and you can realistically maintain it without motivation, then this is a great opportunity to redo your program to incorporate the new routine.