Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1470: Ten Motivation Hacks to Boost Productivity Today

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin go over ten motivation hacks that you can start today to help you achieve your goals faster and with less effort. Why when you're motivated, everything seems easy. (3:04) Ten Motivation Hacks to Boost Productivity Today. (5:05) #1 – Set realistic goals/schedule reevaluations. (6:10) #2 – Break your goals into smaller/obtainable goals. (10:15) #3 – Consume information surrounding your current goal. (14:01) #4 – Tell people about your goal. (16:59) #5 – Reassess your network. (19:47) #6 – Do not wait until tomorrow. (24:11) #7 – Keep a journal. (26:11) #8 – Find joy in the process. (28:52) #9 – Aim for positive motivations instead of negative ones. (31:26) #10 – Optimize your time. (33:58) Related Links/Products Mentioned January Promotion: MAPS Fitness Starter Bundle 50% off! Visit ChiliPad for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You're listening to the number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Now in today's episode, we talk about motivation. Although we've talked about in previous podcasts, how you should not fall in love with motivation, always rely on it because at some point,

motivation goes away. It is awesome when you are motivated. So in today's episode, we talk about how to create the right environment and put practices together that increase the amount of time and the times that you are motivated. Now today's episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Chile.

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with a 30 day money back guarantee. Go learn about our starter bundle or go sign up at mapsgenuary.com. That's M-A-P-S-genuary.com. It's time to get motivated. Hey, you know what? We should talk about that. You know why? Because I know we talk about it on the podcast all time

about how you don't want to rely on motivation and you don't want to fall in love with that because it's a feeling that comes and goes, it is a feeling that comes and goes, but man, when you're motivated, it's powerful. Everything's easy. Yeah. Everything's easy.

Everything feels good. And so it makes sense to try to create conditions that increase the amount of times that you feel motivated. Do you guys think that you can do that? Do you think there's a way? There's a healthy way to be able to channel motivation and use it and shuttle it properly. I think we just have to check ourselves

and create ways to better efficiently do that. Well, I like organizing this conversation because we're kind of in the thick of, or at least I feel like I am, right? I'm on, or only on four weeks of being consistent with the training, and there are a bunch of little hacks I feel like that I do to flip that switch. How do I go from not really training that consistently to all of

a sudden dialing everything in to where literally almost every other day my body is starting to change. In fact, I was just having the conversation with Katrina the day and she's like, you know, we've been together for 10 years and it never ceases to amaze me how quick you can change your physique. And I think that's just years and years of doing this, all of us, I think that we figured out all those little hacks to one, keep me consistent and motivated and then knowing the right dose of that. So I love this conversation.

Yeah, no, just gonna even notice. I'll just be like, I gained like 15 pounds. Like you look the same to me. Like you lie. You lie. Oh really? Yeah. But you're the most between, I'd say you and Doug are probably the most consistent with how you keep.

You know, way you look, I think when you say Justin? Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah, I think you and Doug don't seem to fluctuate as much. Like, I don't think I feel like Justin and I probably fluctuate. Yeah, you guys always look at them. We had a ways to go. But, you know, I mean, all joking aside, you know, okay, motivation's a feeling, right? So it's gonna come, it's gonna go,

you can't rely on it because if you do, when it goes, then you're totally screwed, and this is how people mess themselves up. However, you can create practices and conditions that make motivation more common, that make that feeling come about more often. And now this is a good strategy as long again, as long as it's not like all you do,

but it's a good strategy because I've, for example, and I've trained clients, I never had trouble with clients showing up for the workouts when they were motivated. I never had trouble with clients following a good nutrition plan when they were motivated. You know, I remember when I was in school even, if I was motivated, it wasn't like I had to force myself to do my homework or to study. Same thing for business or anything else.

So motivation, although it is something that comes and goes, there are things you can do that will increase the amount of times or the length of time that you feel motivated. And I think that's something we should talk about. Well, I think the first step to that is setting a very realistic goal. I think one of the quickest ways to lose motivation is to set this crazy, lofty goal that is reasonable goal. Yeah, it's very unrealistic. It's just, you know, I have goals right now, right, that I'm trying to achieve, putting

50 pounds of muscle sounds amazing, but it's very unrealistic, that is not going to happen and the likelihood of that and what it would take as far as time to do that is exhausting just the thought of it. So setting yourself with, and I like really small goals, obtainable goals, goals that you can start to knock out the park, I think that's very key to not losing the motivation because one of the ways to keep that motivation going is to start to get wins. Yeah, accumulate the wins. You start to get these wins because you set realistic goals and the motivation tends to grow. You know, in animal studies,

they show that when animals play, because animals, some animals do play and we study how they play. And what they find with these animal studies is that there's always one, you know, let's say you put two mice together. One of the mice might be bigger and stronger and faster and may win if they wanted to every single time they played a particular game, like rough housing. But what they find with animals, especially social animals, is they allow the other animal to win sometimes. Otherwise, they would end up losing a playmate, right? The animal wouldn't want to play with you anymore

if it wasn't fun for them, it didn't feel competitive. So what does this tell you? Well, with yourself, if you set such an unrealistic goal that you start to realize that it's impossible, or at least you feel like it's impossible. But you keep losing. Your motivation's gone, right? And if you keep losing, your motivation's gone.

So this is a terrible strategy. And studies do show that the further out we set a goal, the more outlandish that goal is, right? So if you tell somebody, you know, what's your 15 year plan versus what's your 10 year, five year, one year, and six months? Or even let next week plan. Right.

Did you find that the closer that it gets to that, to now, the more realistic it becomes, the further out it goes. I remember when I was 18 years old, and I became a trainer, very short period of time, I was a successful trainer. So I started managing the fitness department, and then I became a manager of gyms at a very young age.

I think I was almost 19 or almost 20. And I remember at that age, I said to myself, oh, I'm gonna be a millionaire by the time I'm 30 and retire me. Easily. I was for sure. I really believe the same thing. That's why I'm laughing because I not only said that,

I really believe that. Right, because 10 years. Yeah, it seems so, no clue. Wait, when you're 20, 30 seems like a lifetime of life. Yeah, off I'm doing this good time. I got plenty of time to get all that work together. Exactly, and that was something that I, you know, and so this is what we end up doing to ourselves.

So you have to set yourself realistic goals. One of the best ways to do this is to say to yourself, is this a realistic goal that I can move towards and accomplish when I'm not motivated? And you know your state's of mind. So you have to place yourself there and say, okay, when I'm not feeling like this right now, is this still a realistic goal?

And that'll help you kind of mold it and shift it to make it more realistic. Another part that goes to this is the schedule goal re-evaluations. So what you end up doing is each week, you look back on the week and you say to yourself, did I do the things necessary to accomplish this particular goal?

And if the answer's no, then you can have an honest conversation with yourself and you can change your goal. There's nothing wrong with doing that. There's nothing wrong with you saying, you know, my 15 pound weight loss goal at the end of the month seems like it's unrealistic. I'm gonna change that too.

And you're not giving up, you're not giving up, you're still setting yourself up a goal with a goal. You're just preventing yourself from hitting that point where you think it's impossible. Yeah, no, coming in with a plan attached to that is everything. And then being able to be flexible with that plan is the other part of it that not a lot of people talk about

because you want to get super rigid. You want to hit these very specific goals. But if it is a bit unattainable, if it's something that's not very realistic in front of you, you have a really hard time with that. So to be able to come back and assess where you are, where you currently stand is a valuable part of this entire process. Right now, Adam, you had mentioned breaking up the goals into smaller, goals or smaller chunks. Yes.

So here's a story I know you guys, I I wanna know if you guys did this as well, I guarantee you, I'm pretty sure you guys did. But whenever I would give a client a rep number, that was high, let's say I said okay, we're gonna do back step lunges and I want you, body weight and I want you to 50 reps. I would never go one, two, three, all the way up to 50. It was always like, okay, you got 30 more,

that's 15 times two. You got five, and then I'd count down. It's too daunting otherwise. I'd count down, I'd count up. I'd say 10 more before you have five more. I do these things with clients, and it would actually help them. I do this for myself. If I'm doing 20 reps of squats, I don't count to 20.

I count to 10, and then I think five. You get midway through, and then I count backwards. Exactly. So that's kind of the psychological process that goes into making your big goals into smaller chunks. So let's say you want to lose 10 pounds, before you got to lose 10 pounds, you got to lose two pounds. So why not make that the first goal?

I'm going to lose two pounds. I take it a step further and I like to look at it at weeks. So I'm like planning my week, week by week. So right now, as we're going through a similar journey, trying to stay motivated and focused on what we're all doing, I look at it week by week. So right now, as we're going through a similar journey, trying to stay motivated and focused on what we're all doing, I look at it week by week. And it's actually, even if the ultimate goal is for me to drop 10 pounds of body fat, add five or 10 pounds of muscle,

sure I've made that decision starting this whole process, but that's like the last time I really think about it. Now all the focus is around all these little behaviors that I can do within this week. So it's like, okay, what is this week coming up look like? Okay. And part of that is based off of what I just accomplished in the last week. So last week, maybe I had, you know, five, what I would consider, perfect days of hitting I hit my protein intake. I made most of my meals. Maybe I ate out twice, maybe I had a workout that got cut short, so it wasn't perfect. Maybe I had two nights of not good sleep, this is all true.

And so next week, it's to beat that. That's it. That's it. It's not to be perfect, it's just to be better than what I was this previous week. And so that's how I break it up is it's this week by week. And I'm always just trying to improve a little bit on on whatever it was last week. And I feel like doing that, it's so much easier to start to collect these wins than to be constantly thinking about, oh, I've got 20 pounds of fat to still drop and I still need a bid build 10 pounds of muscle.

It's such a it's such a big goal or it it's gonna take me such a long time to get there that I'm not worried about that. Yes, I want that. Yes, that's the ultimate plan when I started, but all the focus is on the week to week. Yeah, and this is a practice that most people who are successful at accomplishing big things tends to have as part of their arsenal.

In fact, even if you talk to endurance athletes, for example, you talk to somebody who runs, who's running a marathon for the first time, ask them if they play this game with themselves where they say, I'm just gonna, you know what, I'm just gonna go to the next water stop and then once they make it to that, all right, I'm gonna go just two more miles

or just five more minutes and they continue to play this game with themselves. It is psychological, but it is quite effective. So take your goal and don't just look at the big goal, break it up into smaller chunks that you can hit along the way. Yeah, you wanna have one like destination goal of like where eventually you wanna end up, of course.

But also you gotta realize like you're gonna have setbacks, you're gonna have all these different pathways in front of you. It's gonna look different, it's not linear, it's not something that like, it's just gonna happen like dominoes where, you know, I have all these things stacked up and it's just gonna like happen perfectly like this. You know, you have to be able to adapt

and to change and to move, so it's still moving you forward, but, you know, now you might be focusing on something a little bit different. Right, now the next one, this one's something that I love and I tend to do whenever I'm trying to hit a goal. And that is to consume information or read books that have to do with that particular goal. So let's say my goal is to, you know, deadlift 600 pounds. Well,

what I'll start doing is reading articles and studies and I'm reading powerlifting journals and things that are kind of correlate to that particular goal. What that does is it keeps my mind in the game. It informs me more and it keeps making that goal seem like something I can accomplish. You can do this with business. If you want to hit a certain number with your business, well, you start reading business books and you start watching videos where people are giving lectures and you start reading more information. When you kind of start to surround yourself with this information and you start reading more information. When you kind of start to surround yourself

with this information and you start to consume it on a regular basis, it keeps that goal front and center and it does make you feel more motivated, especially when you read about other people's ways of accomplishing similar goals. Yeah, it's really just immersing yourself in that mindset. So that could be any kind of content. It could be podcasts, it could be things you're reading, that can. So that could be any kind of content. You know, it could be podcasts. It could be things you're reading that can be, you know, videos that you're watching,

but you're you're you're a bit fixated on this subject that handed at how you can sort of break down what applies to you best. Oh, I think we're an example of that, right? With what we see in downloads for us, right? So every year the January, like we're in the middle of seeing a surge in downloads. And I think that people are more likely to listen to us talking about fitness and motivation and working out when they're working out, when they're immersed in it and when they're out of it, they feel guilty for doing that. I think that's one of the best ways to stay focused on it. It could be anything. It could be TV.

It could be podcasts. It could be reading magazines. It could be hanging around people that are talking about it and doing the same thing. I think it's just keeping it top of mind is a great strategy to stay focused. Right, and there's also, this is a way to break up the goal into smaller chunks. So let's say your goal is to lose 30 pounds

and you wanna break it up into smaller chunks. One way to break it up into smaller chunks is to break up the way you can lose 30 pounds in a smaller chunks. So what I can say to myself is, okay, I want to read books and consume of information around this. So I'm going to set myself a small goal

of 10 minutes every single day. I'm going to dedicate to consuming some kind of information that's around, that has to do with my particular goal. That's one way to break up your goal in a smaller chunks and it has to do with just this, what we're talking way to break up your goal in a smaller chunks, and it has to do with just this, what we're talking about. And I like when it's fitness related, this is a great time to be like looking for things

to learn about whether it be metabolism or nutrition or exercise science. So I just, this is one of those things that everybody, I don't care if you don't even like working out, learning about this subject is something that will benefit everybody. It's not like one of those things that like, oh, if I'm not really into finance, why should I read or doing that? Forget that. When we're talking about health and fitness and getting in shape, the things that you will learn about your body are things that you'll

carry on forever. Right. Now, the next one, Adam, you talk about this all the time. Actually, we've all mentioned this in the past, which is to tell people about your goal. Like, you know, you're much more likely to break a promise to yourself or to let yourself down because you know yourself. So if I say I'm gonna hit a goal and I don't tell anybody and I keep it a secret, and then I don't hit that goal, I'm gonna say to myself, ah, whatever,

or maybe I'll get mad, but whatever. But if I tell someone else, especially somebody I care about or somebody that I value, I'm much more likely to want to accomplish that goal because this is somebody that I feel like I either don't want to let them down or I don't want to change the way that they think about me or I've already put it out there. Now I got to hit this.

In fact, for me, this is when I know I'm serious, is when I'll think about a goal, but until I say it, that's when it really becomes something. Yeah, accountability always makes it real. And then that's something that too, like if they can ask you questions how it's going, and it sort of forces you to go back up to the first points that we made about evaluating everything,

and being able to adjust and maybe have somebody that's related to the goal, like somebody that has done it before or as a professional in that direction. If it's fitness related, somebody that you know that can help kind of give you ideas of how to adjust and do things is always a good idea. Well, especially if you're somebody who has

a lot of integrity and you value your word, this one means a lot. Right, I just feel like this, I don't think I would have made it to the fitness level as far as competing that I did, had I not first made a goal of, I'm going to build this social media platform. So the original goal had nothing to do with that.

It was, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get on this platform, I'm gonna start to grow an audience, I'm gonna do that by giving counter information than what most of these fitness people are doing and then I'm gonna Transform my body and when I announced that and said that your word. Oh, yeah I just I tell you what like that was it was so easy for me to get up and do the work every day because I Didn't just say it to my family and friends who know me and probably would give, you know, let me buy if I just, if I didn't fall through or didn't fall through or something happened. But here's all these strangers who I'm trying to attract and I'm trying to build a business around. And if I come out and their first thing that they experience with me is

I say one thing and do another, I'm destroyed. I'll never build a business from it. So that goal of building a business from Instagram or a social platform was so important to me that when I decided that I'm going to announce that, okay, I'm going to take my body from here to here, I'm going to compete on a stage. I mean, it was do or die for me. It was, if I didn't do it, I am also gonna check off. I'm probably never gonna be able to build a business thing

off this because no one will ever trust my work. Right. Now, the next one, this one's really important because nothing will crush your motivation like being around people who don't share your motivation or your goals. And so this is to reassess your network. For example, if your goal is to be consistent in the gym three days a week to lose a certain amount of weight to improve your diet, but everybody you're around could care less about exercise, eats a terrible diet,

and in fact, tries to sabotage you. Encourages you not to go. And I've been in situations like this where the people around you say things like, oh, it's one workout, who cares? Whatever, have a drink with us, just enjoy yourself. And you're around that all the time. It's gonna require a whole nother level of discipline

from you to maintain yourself. And if you're already somebody that is now you're struggling, it's the tough goal for you. Now you have to throw that other level of discipline. Your chances of failure start to go through the roof. And I don't think this means that you need to go and have this formal breakup from all your friends that eat twinkies and fast food

and drink beer every day. I don't think it's to that point, although maybe you would benefit from that, but I don't think that it needs to be that big of a deal. I think you just need to assess how much time you're actually spending with these people, and if their goals don't align with your goals, and then to the point you're making salad, these people are, you know, trying to encourage you not to work out

an exercise, you need to start surrounding yourself with people with some more goals. This is why like, and it was cool today, like, we now you have Facebook groups and communities that you can attach yourself to and podcasts and things like that, where I just think that there's plenty of avenues that you can reach out and attach yourself to groups that are like-minded. Yeah, I think it's really important to seek that out, to find other like-minded people, which is always a hard part to do, you know, when you're comfortable where you are. But really, it's less about, you know, getting rid of all those friends. It's more just like finding other like-minded people and like kind of going in that direction so you can

you know build up that momentum with other people that you can all keep each other kind of accountable. Oh yeah, it's the opposite of motivating to be around a lot of people who don't share your motivation and your goals, but it's also on the opposite of the scale, extremely motivating to be around people who are motivated and who do share your goals. I mean, the greatest successes I ever had were partially because I was around people who inspired me all the time. You know, when I manage gyms, I had the opportunity to work with some credible people and managers

who were constantly pushing themselves to be better and better. And all it did is it made me motivated to do the same thing. Well, it's interesting. This is, I feel like for the first time, or maybe the first time in a long time for me, I'm feeling this effect because normally we all kind of do our own thing.

So this is the first time where we are agreeing to meet at the gym at a certain time and get these, I mean, mine pumps now six years old, and we've already, this year, worked out with each other more times than we have the previous five. It's not a competition. Like, it's not like we're painting each other. It's just like, we all decided like,

hey, let's just do this at the same time. And let's make an effort. And you know what, it's, and I've already had two days now, two days in this last month, where part of me wanted to sleep in, and I didn't want to get up and I didn't want to go, and I didn't want to go and I didn't want to be that guy. I didn't want to be the first guy of us that did that that decided to wave the white flag for the morning.

It's like I can go there even if I bat and I know back off intensity for that day just because I didn't sleep well. I mean, I can just check out like I want to be consistent with everybody. So it is interesting to me because I'm normally on my own journey on this, but to be sharing that with you guys now, I have already seen the power of that because of those two times where I definitely would have checked out for that and been fine. It's still be on pace to and fine this week, but just knowing that you guys were going to be there at that time, and I didn't want to be the first person to bail out on that

time was tremendous. Oh, this is the reason why group exercise is always popular. This is the reason why, one of the reasons why CrossFit got so popular was they were able to harness this. They were able to harness this. And once you're in that network of people, it generates more energy and more motivation to be around those kind of people. So, reassess your network and you may want to not be around people

that bring you down and maybe be around people who bring you up a little bit more. Now, the next one, this one sounds funny, but it's really, really true. And that is to not wait until tomorrow. This is a big one. I can do this sometimes, right? So, I'm gonna do this thing.

I'm the master procrastinator. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, for me, if I have something like that, I have to either plan immediately to take action or a lot of times it'll slip away. The further, the couple days later, turns into weeks, turns into a month. So it's just very easy to get away from you.

Yeah, I used to use this as like my, how I close people, right? So when someone came into the gym and they were inquiring about personal training, that was kind of like my closing statement to them was like, listen, Mrs. Johnson, like you already did the hardest part which was come in here today,

was to get in here and to get started. Don't let yourself go home and then think about starting the next day or next week, make that, make that final commitment that you're going to take care of yourself and get started today. And it was such a powerful statement because I think it resonates with a lot of people because the truth is up into that point of them being in the gym, they had been thinking about it and saying they're going to do it tomorrow over the next day for the last three

years. And they're finally this far. They've made their, they're having a conversation with me now. So they're already more committed than they've ever been. Like, don't stop there. Let's completely commit. I used to have, it was an old picture behind my desk and it said, nobody ever lost weight by thinking about it. And I mean, it's, it's very true. And you're, what you're saying, Adam, they've done studies on this and they find that the average person that gets started on a fitness program has thought about it for months before even making a decision. And what they don't show in that

is how many people thought about it and never got started. So once you find that impetus, then just do it. Just get started. I had a manager that taught me that in fact, where he would tell me, I was very, I have issues with organization. He's to tell me, once it touches your hand do it now, don't wait until tomorrow. And it really did make a big difference. If I got something, I would issues with organization, he's to tell me, once it touches your hand, do it now, don't wait until tomorrow.

And it really did make a big difference. If I got something, I would take care of it that minute. The next one, this is a great growth practice, but it's also very good at maintaining motivation, which is to keep a journal. You know, writing things out is a different form of thinking. You know, you can think in your head, which is what most of us do. Talking with people is different form of thinking. You can think in your head, which is what most of us do. Talking with people is a form of thinking.

And then writing things is a form of thinking. It's funny when you find yourself angry or frustrated or unmotivated or sad. Once you start to write what's going on, you start to realize that you're processing it. And you start to process it out. And it's, again, it's a very effective way of changing the way that you're processing it. And you start to process it out, and it's, again, it's a very effective way of changing the way that you think. So journaling every day is like, okay,

I know my goal is to do this thing. Let me journal about it tonight. Here's what I did. Here's what I didn't do. I didn't feel this. I felt this. But then you'll start to process it out as you're writing the shurland.

You do this every single day. You almost, you can't help yourself, but to improve into your health. Oh, improve and to make fun of this whole thing about journaling. Like, oh, I'm going to write dear diary. You know, like, go home every day. It was amazing what would come out though when I would actually sit down and write down my thoughts. And again, these are all different ways to make this whole process real.

So to be able to have friends know about it, to verbalize it, to write it down, it's not just living in your head anymore, you're taking action on multiple levels there. So that's just another step. Well, I also think what falls into this category of journaling is just tracking your food. And we've shared studies on this

where you don't have to weigh and measure, but just simply writing down what you eat better. Makes people eat better. It makes people eat better. Because we're so unaware, we're so distracted every day. Anytime you ever ask anybody to recount what they ate the last week, they always grossly underestimate me. And so by just disciplining yourself that,

hey, whatever I eat, I'm gonna write it down. And you know, for the time being, it doesn't need to be like, oh, it was four ounces of this and two cups of that. Just like, I had brown rice for dinner. I had this, I had that, I had this, I had that. And then you look at it. And even people that don't have a nutrition background

have enough sense to look at their day and be able to say that was a good day of eating or it was a bad day of eating. And just that information alone is motivating enough have enough sense to look at their day and be able to say that was a good day of eating or it was a bad day of eating and just That information alone is motivating enough for you to make better decisions the next day and so and again Just don't overthink the process don't get into this. Oh, I don't know how many grams of this and supposed to have or how many calories of this I'm supposed to have or if this is the best program for me getting started and moving in that direction and just simply If this is the best program for me, getting started and moving in that direction

and just simply tracking and riding down what you're doing will do wonders. Yeah, and it helps to keep you present to journal, to journal everything, right? Now the next one, this one I think is one of the most important things that anybody can do because if you can accomplish this, the rest is easy. It's easy to hit the goal.

And that is to learn to love the process and another way to put it would be to find joy in the process. Anything that you do, you can challenge yourself to find something about what you're doing that you love about it or to find some kind of joy. And sometimes all it requires is for you to become present. So let's say you're doing some really, really hard manual labor. You're shoveling and you're digging a ditch or something like something like that and it's sweatin' in its socks and

it's hot or whatever. If you can place yourself and be very present in every single shovel and just be with what you're doing, what you actually may find is that you might actually enjoy the presence, maybe not enjoying the shoveling, but the fact that your present is what you enjoy and then you start to find that shoveling dirt is a great way to make yourself present. On the outside, you're breathing fresh air. Yes. There's a lot of things that people just don't take into account that they could be positive about.

They could be happy about. It's just about reframing the whole thing so that you can look forward to it. You want to be able to look forward to whatever you're doing, so it gets you up in the morning, and you're more likely to keep it going. I have a little spit on this one, and I don't know if this is the, or you sell you a little to me,

liking to be the underdog, right? And maybe this is part of that, but this is worked really well for me, and that's sometimes it's really hard to see the silver lining, or to reframe everything, and like, this is positive, it's positive when you feel like shit shit and it's hard as fuck.

Sometimes I look at it as like I accept that it's really hard. I accept that I want to quit and the way I look at it is like that's why so many people don't make this. And instead of looking at it and trying to say all the time like change something that is dog shit into roses, it's really hard to do that. It's not that easy to just, you know, it's easy for us to say on the time, like, change something that is dog shit into roses. It's really hard to do that. It's not that easy to just, you know, it's easy for us to say on a podcast, refrain all the hard, hard ships that you have in your life. Sometimes, no, sometimes it's okay just to accept this shit's hard, and that's why most

people quit, and that's going to be motivating for me to persevere through it, because I know on the other side of it, that's where the real victory is. So sometimes it's okay to accept that it's hard, that it's difficult, that this is there's a struggle here, but that's also the way you also look at yourself and say like, hey, this is what's cool is that not everybody makes it through this, and most people give up right here. This is why I'm not going to. Yeah, and once you start to enjoy the process, then the goal is just, it's an afterthought.

It's going to happen, no matter what. You know, that brings us to the next one, which is to aim for positive motivations instead of negative ones. So I'll use weight loss as an example, right? I can motivate myself in a negative way and say I'm sick of being fat and unattractive, so that's why I'm gonna lose weight, or I can flip it and make it something positive and say, I care about myself, I deserve to be taken care of, I deserve to be healthy, fit, and mobile. So that's why I'm going to start exercising. Because a lot of us get stuck in this negative motivation loop. Now, here's the problem with negative motivation.

Eventually, you get sick of it and you don't like it because it's negative and then you run from it and then you rebel and that's it, you're done. Positive motivations feel good, they're positive and every goal you want to hit, you can flip, you can make positive motivations get there, you don't have to think about just the negative. You can only punish yourself for so long. I mean, it's just how many times can you get up and just know that like, oh, I'm not doing good enough. I'm never going to get there. But like everything is always like impending doom. You know, that's only a last for so long, especially for writing momentum. So,

yeah, to be able to look forward to something is so much of a better way to have motivation towards it. Also, failure is where growth is found. So even a loss can be a win if you reframe it and think of it that way. So, you know, what's inevitable in any of the, anybody's journey right now as they go through like, you're gonna have a day where you mess up. You're gonna have a day where you head into the day and you're unprepared nutritionally.

You're gonna have a day where you probably didn't get good nights rest and you're not gonna wanna get up and go to the gym and maybe you don't go to the gym. Like that's inevitable, all that shit's gonna happen. But instead of beating yourself up about it, look into it and see why did you fail. And there's the where the opportunity for growth is. And when you figure out, like,

oh, I know why I didn't get great sleep last night because I didn't prioritize sleep. I didn't shut off my computer or my phone by six o'clock or I was watching TV in my bed till 11 o'clock at night. Like, recognize where you failed, be better the next time and there's where the growth is, there's where the win is at and accept that. It's okay, it's okay that everything isn't always positive

and if you're always relying on that, when the inevitable happens, when something negative happens, where you lose or you fail or you don't come through that, when the inevitable happens, when something negative happens, or you lose or you fail or you don't come through on one of the small goals you set for yourself, it's okay, pick yourself back up, recognize that that's where the opportunity for growth is, be better the next time you see that again. Right.

Now, finally, to wrap this all up, it is important to sit down and optimize your time. I think this has a lot to do with just planning, right? So you have a particular goal, but you don't have a plan. It's gonna be very difficult to hit your goal. If you don't have a plan, it's like you gotta keep it top of mind constantly to, oh, I got that goal, gotta keep working on it.

Rather than having a plan and optimizing your time with it. So if your goal is again to lose weight, then you need to put in your schedule the time that you're gonna go work out, the time that you're gonna maybe dedicate to consuming some kind of information around weight loss or health, the time that you're going to reassess your goals. Like, all these things can definitely be put in your schedule.

They don't take much time, but put them in there and then stick to the schedule. Optimizing your time to hit your goal is really just, it's the way to get there. If you don't have a way to get there, it can be very, very challenging and feel almost impossible. Well, I feel like part of optimizing your time too

is kind of also being realistic about the goals and the time that you set for yourself too. So when I think of time, one of the biggest mistakes I see made is similar to the goal setting where, you know, you have this unrealistic, I'm gonna work out every day, twice a day for an hour. Like that's not realistic. Even if you temporarily optimize your day

so you can get that done, it's just not very sustainable. So the way I look at it is like when you're talking about optimizing time, find somewhere where it fits naturally into your routine already, even if that's starting out with only 20 minutes or an hour, or it's only one time or two times a week, start with that, and then you can optimize it by building on it. It has a momentum builds and the consistency builds of you following through on those days and those times, then you can start to build upon that. I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they start off is not only do

they have this massive goal, but they also commit themselves to all this time in the gym, that they weren't spinning there just three months ago, and it's just unrealistic to maintain that. Perfect. Look, mine pump is recorded on videos, as well as audio. Come find us on YouTube, mine pump podcast. You can also find all of us on social media. You can find us on YouTube, Mind Pump Podcast. You can also find all of us on social media. You can find us on Instagram. So Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. I'm at Mind Pump Sal. Adam is at Mind Pump Bottom and Doug,

the producer is at Mind Pump. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically

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