How To Stay Motivated

Getting motivated is easy but most eventually lose that motivation & slip back into old rhythms. Find out what you can do to stay motivated and reach your goals.

Transcript

Welcome to Life, Lessons, And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose. Hello there, Welcome to Life, Lessons, And Laughter with Glenn Ambrose. That was like quick out of the gate. It was the best you've ever done it and you ruined it. Booyah. You ruined it by talking about it. Nah, Tough. What would I possibly do? Could I just do it? Could I do an entrance and not stop and discuss it afterwards? That would be nice. That would be awkward to me. I wouldn't even, I'd be like, Just like go into a topic or something, That'd be so weird. I'm sure that if this was a more popular podcast, Which someday hopefully will be, People would knowingly like fast forward to like three minutes in. You think so? Oh yeah, I would. Wow. If I listen to this podcast. This is some of the joyful, Spontaneous fun that they'd be missing now. I'd be like, Skip this. What are they talking about? Well, I do always do it. So maybe it's time to move on. Maybe. Maybe it's time to find something new to joke about. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well anyway, Let's get onto topic, Shall we? What are we talking about today? We are talking about motivation and how to stay motivated and how to chug a chug emotion out of the motivation station. How's that for screwing around on something different? I was hoping. Yeah. All right. That's like. This is a topic that I feel like I need a lot of help on and I don't think that I want to talk about it actually. Yeah, You do. Motivation. Well, Let's see. I mean, Motivation comes from like everything else, It comes from within and it comes from empowerment. It doesn't come from beating ourselves up and I think that that's the biggest hurdle to get over in the beginning is that. To get moving, We have to understand. We're just in such a, We've been conditioned to believe that if we get frustrated enough and hate things enough, Then we'll finally change them. There's some truth to that, But it's just not the way to go. And we have to just think how, When you're not moving forward, You're falling back. So if you're in a situation and you need to move forward from it and you don't and you allow yourself to fall back and get more and more frustrated and more and more miserable, Then the hole you need to climb out of is twice as deep as it was before. So you're just creating more work for yourself. One of the things that I teach, I guess you'd probably say this comes up more in my long term clients. People I've been working with for a while that have made some changes in their life and they found some happiness is when you notice that you're not happy, Do whatever it takes to get back on track as soon as you notice it. That's really a big key because every person is going to get off track. Everybody is. It's just a matter of what are you going to do when you notice you're off track? Are you going to bust your butt and get back on track as soon as possible or are you going to just let it wander off and get worse and worse and worse and worse? Because as you let it go, It's just going to get that's every day it goes on. You create more work for yourself to get back. And sometimes it's actually time work where you could get back on track in a day and if you wait another day then it's going to take you two or three days to get back on track. Sometimes it comes out in time but most often it comes out in effort. The more we fall into a depression or a feeling of hopelessness, The harder it is to come out. If we're a little bit off track, You've got to really dig deep and make a push to get back on track then even when you don't feel like it. Because if you don't, It's going to take two, Three, Four times the amount of effort to get back on later on. So you might as well just put in the effort then even if you don't feel like it. The entire time you just gave that analogy, I was picturing driving a car and going off of the road a little bit. And then if you're not on the road anymore, It was harder to… Yeah, It takes a while to get back on. Okay, So is there any way that we can implement those little wake up strips, The rumble strips in our life so that we know immediately what we've gotten off of the track? Yeah, Your thinking and your mood is your guidance system. That's what keeps you on track. So once you get on track and you're moving forward and you're feeling good, As soon as you don't feel good, As soon as your mood is messed up, As soon as you start thinking negatively, As soon as you catch that, That's a sign. That's a red flag. Because like we talked about in the previous episode, You've got the rest of your life to look forward to. No matter where you are, You're writing a new story. So you have your whole life ahead of you, All possibilities are there before you. There is no reason why we should be walking around miserable. We should be walking around with hope for our future. And if we're not, This is how… Once my perspectives changed 11, 12 years ago, Once they changed, That's one of the things I started doing correctly right in the beginning, Is I appreciated the life shift that I had. And I got the new lease on life and I understood that I could write my own story from here on out. So whenever I started feeling crappy for a day or two, I would be like, Okay, Wait a minute, What is this? Why am I feeling off? And I would look into it and oftentimes I could find out, I could look and see and then just make an adjustment and get back on track. Sometimes it would go a little while and it would get worse because I couldn't figure out what it was. You know, And then a little bit further down the road, I'd figure out what it was and when the pain got a little bit more. But I always understood that because it was just… See my journey isn't different than anybody else's. It's just sometimes it's a little more dramatic. It was a little more dramatic. You know, When my shift happened, It happened quickly, So it was dramatic. And I think that is why I'm able to see this stuff so clearly because it was so dramatic in my case. In other people's lives, It might not be that dramatic, But it doesn't mean it's any different. It's the exact same thing. So you just got to look for it. For me, It was like, Oh my God, I came from misery into happiness. If I'm not happy, There's something wrong with me because I've got a new lease on life and there's really no reason for me to be walking on miserable. So when I was unhappy, It felt awkward. And that was my red flag to get my thinking and my moods back on track, To do whatever it took. You know, That's our guidance system. How do you feel about motivational reminders? And I'll give you two examples, One negative, One positive in my estimation. A negative, Something that people use as like a negative motivation, At least in like 90s TV shows that I saw of like the girl that puts up the pictures of the swimsuit models on the fridge so that she keeps the motivation of knowing there's the negative reinforcement there of like, I need to look like that. I'm not going to get a snack. That kind of thing is a reminder that they set up on purpose to help them stay motivated in what they're trying to do. That's the negative version and then the positive version would be like bracelets, The people that wear bracelets. I guess it started with the WWJD bracelets. What's WWJD? What would Jesus do? You know? I should probably know that being all spiritual and stuff. Whatever. So like, I don't know. And this kind of is a good segue I guess. It's not really so much the tool you use, It's how you use it. There's all kinds of things you can do for reminders and that's a great way to keep yourself on track. You know, I've worn those bracelets for that specific reason. Every time I felt it or looked down, It was like, Oh okay, Get back into the present moment. And I actually ordered some. I don't know if I… did I tell you that? Yeah I helped you bring them out. Oh yeah, Okay. Thanks. Yeah, You were there when I was about to order them. Yeah. Yeah, That's right. That was good. I was able to get another opinion on it. I don't always have that so I appreciate that. No problem. But so yeah, When I ordered those bracelets because of that, For little reminders, Another thing I used to do was at this job I had before I got back into training, I had an office job and I posted all these wash your hands instructions in the bathrooms. And I forgot like, You know, Technically you're supposed to be washing your hands for a certain amount of time. I don't know if it's one minute or three minutes or whatever to kill all the bacteria. So they had these signs. So what I did is I… Okay, So it wasn't just like a reminder sign like wash your hands, It was like this is how you wash your hands. Right. It was like you use soap, You rub for this long, Then you rinse with warm water, All that stuff to teach you how to properly wash your hands. So the time limit, Which I thought it was kind of silly but I was like, Okay, Well this is a good reminder. I'll use this as a reminder. Every time I go to the bathroom and I wash my hands, I'll say a couple prayers that are about as long as this. And I thought over a few and I was like, Okay, This one's about that timeframe, Whatever it was. So when I washed my hands, I would say that prayer. So it got me into the habit of, You know, A few times a day if I went to the bathroom a few times throughout the day, That every time I would be saying a prayer and reconnecting, You know. So it can be anything. If we're obsessing about something negative, That's another time that I use triggers. If I'm obsessing about something negative, Well then I either get a healthy version of that if I want to change my thought about that particular subject or if it's something that I just need to put behind me and I've done the work to deal with it and it just keeps popping up, Well then I can just think of connecting with what I consider my higher power every time that thought pops into my head. So if that thought pops into my head, You know, 20 times in a half hour, Well 20 times I'm thinking about God. And it's a good way just to connect for a moment and get yourself out of something negative. Using something negative that's popping into your head to remind you to do something positive, You know. There's all those little tricks. What if none of those tricks have ever worked? What if you had a bracelet that was supposed to be a reminder and it wasn't even like a generic thing, Like you picked something out that was personal to you and meant something and like you just didn't do it? Well there's one of two things. Either you need to put effort in. You know, We can put notes all over our forehead and our mirrors and everywhere else. I mean if you just look at the note or look at the bracelet and go, Nah, I don't feel like it. Okay, Well then you're not putting the necessary effort in and you're not going to get any change. We do need to put effort into change. The other thing is, Is it could be, You know, We have belief systems deep within us, Usually formed in childhood that set us up and going in a certain direction. And if there's underlying reasons for this stuff that you need to work through, Take a look at, Work through and get over so you can be free to implant a new healthier belief system. If that needs to happen, Then you know, There's no amount of work that's just going to flush it out. Sometimes we need to look at the past and just deal with it. We don't need to wallow in it, You know. That's one thing I do with the life coaching. I don't wallow in the past, But I definitely look at it. You know, I pull it up, Look at it so we can get an honest, Clear look at it. And then spend a little time discussing it, Getting a different, More positive belief system. So then when it comes up, You can replace it with the healthier belief system, Something that makes sense to you. You know, Then you can start building and doing. But if you've got this core belief system underneath that all your actions and behaviors, If it's manipulating all your actions and your behaviors because you have this negative belief system down underneath, Then no amount of little tricks is going to overcome that. So sometimes there's some inner work that we have to do. And you know, Before I forget too, I want to touch on that picture of the, What did you say, The supermodel or something on the fridge? Oh yeah. Yeah. That, Like, Because you use that as an example of a negative reinforcement. Yeah, Is that a negative reinforcement? Well, That's why I said it's. . . Seemed pretty negative in the episode of Full House that I saw it in. Well, That's because it was used wrong. You know, I mean, Actually, If having a vision of yourself as you want to be, Whether it be successful, Whether it be thin, Whether it, No matter what you want it to be, If you have a vision of yourself as that and you start walking towards it. And I mean, I know people who have gotten pictures of the body that they wanted to have and taken their head and put it on that body and used it, But they used it in a healthy way. You know, If you use it as self-deprecating and you, You know, I'm not that and I'm not good enough and that's the only way I'll be happy. If you think you're going to find happiness in that model body, It's not going to happen. You know? There it is. Now, If you can use that and you go, Okay, This is the person that I want to be, This is the body that I want to have and making healthy decisions brings me one step closer to being the person that I want to be, Well then there's nothing wrong with it. But it's, Happiness doesn't lie in that body. It's, You know, That's why it's very, You have to take into consideration and this goes back to the life coaching aspect. You have to take, People are individuals. You have to find what works for you. What works for one person isn't going to work for another person. You know, It's, I saw this as an example of some kids wrestling, A wrestling team. You know, And one kid needs to lose weight for wrestling. Well, If somebody else has a body image issue and they join a wrestling team and they have to lose weight and that manifests inside of them like they're not good enough as they are, Well, You could, That could really expand the body issue and it could be harmful to that person's inside. You know, Now other people that don't have a body issue could join a wrestling team, Lose a few pounds for a particular match to meet a weight class and it can be empowering to them because they can be like, Oh, I have complete control of my weight. I will never have an issue for the rest of my life. I have complete control over this and it can benefit them. You know, So you can take the same situation with different people and it can be harmful for one and beneficial for another. It just kind of depends. Um, Okay. Now how do you, If there's a block, Okay, Like say the, Say you have a, You're at a slump, Right? You have a motivational block. Like I don't know the what's coming to mind is like writer's block. Like everybody knows what writer's block is. They've seen it enough. Like somebody is trying to write something and nothing will come to the page. You want to be motivated. You're in a, You want to turn it around. You want to, You know, Whatever, Whatever it is that you want to get motivated about, If it's losing weight, If it's, You know, Uh, Go in working harder at something, Whatever, But you can't like, There's a block there. How do you get motivated? Well, One of the best things there is, Is structure, Setting structure in place and it works for a lot of different reasons. And sometimes the, Sometimes the structure can be motivating in a way that it gets you to do what you need to do. Sometimes structure can be beneficial in a way where it, It, Um, It cuts you a break when you're not doing it. Like if, So like I think, Um, Writer's block was a good example. Now writer's block, Usually writer's block benefits from relaxation. The harder you try, The worse the block usually gets. Structure can help that because you can set aside a time where you're going to write every day and you say, Okay, Well, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to, I'm going to sit down for an hour every day and I'm going to open up and try to write. And if I don't write, That's okay. If I do write, That's great, But I'm going to give it at least an hour and, And we'll see what happens. But what that does is it gives you a break for the other 12 hours. So you know, Okay, I'm doing something. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to sit. This is my plan. It's structured. It's written down. This is, This is what I'm going to do. Now then every time you go, Oh, I haven't written anything. I haven't written everything. You have to let that pass. And you say, No, I have a structured system to what I'm doing. So you're not obsessing and making the block worse when you're not even supposed to be writing. You know, Cause that's, That's what we'll do. We'll be like, Oh, I didn't write. I didn't write. And then for the next 12 hours, We're obsessing about why we didn't write. Then we go to sit down and write the next day. Well that 12 hours of obsessing about how bad we are just made us less capable of writing. You know, So you need to cut yourself a break. You're farther off the road. Yeah. You need to relax and give yourself a break so that structure can give you peace of mind and it can prevent your mind from obsessing about the negative so much, Which can in turn relax it. And then the writing can come, You know, So that's an example of, Of how structure can help by actually allowing your mind to relax. You know, When you know that you're doing, You have a plan in place, Then all the other hours of the day where the negativity is popping in, You have to take that negativity and say, No, That's, I'm not letting you in. I'm not obsessing about it. I have a plan in place. I'm taking the action I need to take and this is what I'm doing about it and I'll get through this and it can, It can calm you, You know, Instead of feeding the negative. So and then the other thing that structure can do is it can force, Well, It can help force you into action. So you know, It's the, The, You know, Being a personal trainer, I always would, With the action, I always go to the personal training because that's, You know, That's the obvious one where you actually need to take some action and get results and there's really not much more to it. If you're moving, You're benefiting your body, You know, If you're not, You're not. So now there's a bunch of internal work that needs to happen to keep that journey going and stuff, But the actual motivation to go work out or something, Just take action, Simple action and keep simplifying the action until you find action that you will take. Cause sometimes going to the gym three times a week, It's too much. It's too much for us to handle. It's too much for us to, To do. It's too big of a mountain. So we don't do it. And then we beat ourselves up for don't, For not doing it. So if, If your goal is to go to the gym three days a week and you're not doing it, Break it down into a smaller goal, You know, A smaller piece of action. You know, I've, I've heard of people putting their sneakers by the door. Yeah. That's, That's what I'm doing today. I'm putting the sneakers by the door. I'm packing my gym clothes and taking them to work with me so I don't go home after work, You know, And, And then sometimes just packing the clothes is enough for that day and leaving them in the car and they don't make it to the gym that day, But maybe they'll make it to the gym the day after, You know, But it just keeps simplifying the steps until you have something success breeds success. So if you can give yourself a small success, You're better. You have a better chance to, And you know, Obviously there's effort involved too. We can sabotage anything we want if we just decide we're not going to do it, But it's just a matter of what are your odds. So if, If you're going to, If you can't make it to the gym, But you can put your sneakers by the door, Well then putting your sneakers by the door is a step closer to bringing them to work with you with your workout clothes. Then once you bring you bring your workout clothes and your sneakers in your car, Well maybe you're still not able to make it to the gym, But the day that you are able to make it to the gym, You have your sneakers and your clothes with you. So it's not holding you back, You know, And then maybe you make it to the gym once that week. Well, That's success. You know that we have to give ourselves a pat on the back for every little tiny step we do. And if we give our ourselves that pat on the back, It's empowering and it gives us the ability to take the next step. You know, We're not, We're not always capable of running 10 miles, But we're capable of taking one step and then after that taking another step and then another step. And you know, Often we judge ourselves because we're not able to do the whole thing all at once when we're not even supposed to be capable of that. We're just supposed to be capable of taking the next step and that builds on the next one. All right, So it's time for our quote and I actually have two. Yeah, The first one is based on the subject that we're talking about today, Which is motivation. It is, People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, Neither does bathing. That's why we recommend it daily. Zig Ziglar. He's good. What do you think about that? I think he's got a lot of good quotes. You know, One of my favorite quotes of all time is one of his and it says, Lack of direction, Not lack of time is the problem. We all have 24 hour days. That's it. That's structure. We need direction, Which can be structure. We need to know where we're going and start walking there. We all have 24 hour days and that's another good one with him. There's a lot of overlap in self-help, Namely like the financial industry and like spirituality because like anything that works has a spiritual undertone anyway. So they kind of work off the same laws. It's interesting. And then my second quote is from the subreddit get motivated, Which is full of motivational quotes, Not necessarily quotes on motivation, But full of motivational quotes and where I get a lot of these quotes. This ties into a lot of what we've talked about and especially what we talked about today. Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs. The future can be better than the present and I have the power to make it so. Yeah. Yeah, That's, Yes it does. And that kind of, That's a good one for the last two episodes, You know? Yeah. And wow, This is our 30th episode. Holy crap. That's like, Uh, You could listen to, That's like one more than 29. You could listen to one episode every day for a month. Unless it's August. Yeah. And when you would not have enough days if it was February, Why are you being, I don't, I guess that's how I am. I got to find a twist on it. You're a jerk. Oh, I was called a name. Unfair. Um, So anyway, What was that quote again? Uh, I don't know. Be happy. Don't worry. Be happy. Be successful. Be a lady. Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs. The future can be better than the present and I have the power to make it so. Yeah. All right. So yeah, I want to touch on that a little bit and it's just because it's 100% true, But somebody that's down in the dumps, It sounds pretty out there too. You know, So it's the empowerment usually comes over time, You know? So again, We don't have to, With that quote, If you don't simplify it, It's very easy to go, Well, I, I don't have the power to change my entire world. I'm down in a dump, So therefore I'm not going to try, You know, It's very, It's very easy to it's so grandiose. It's very easy to talk your way out of it. It's true, But I think it's important to know that it's just all it takes is a little glimmer of hope. All it takes is that little step in the right direction. You know what the difference I think between a motivational block and like writers block is? Actually, You know, Maybe there is no difference because I just realized what I was going to say is look for inspiration, Look for motivation, Look for it in everything. If you, If you need it, If you're craving it, If you're like, If you want to be motivated, Look for things that will motivate you, Which is what like, Whatever you look for, You'll find exactly. I mean, Big things that motivate me podcasts in general, Not like, I'm not saying hours like, But like that's why we do them now is because they were a big influence, You know, On TV shows that, That I like things that I'm interested in that are good, That are great quality will then motivate me. Absolutely. And it's, It's the, You know, Whoever created whatever you're getting motivated from is just a person. They're just a person, You know, That that's, There's, There's absolutely nothing that somebody else possesses within their soul that makes them be able to do something that we don't, That we don't possess. You know, We are all special in our own way. And when we open up to that and just start taking that next step and that next step, It opens up. I mean, Why do you think one of the biggest things that people love in the world is an underdog story? You know, Why? Because we all have it within us. We all can identify with it. We all, It gives us hope, You know, When we see somebody else do it, It's like it's a beautiful story. It's inspiring, You know, Because it touches something that's deep within us. And that's that ability to do it for ourselves and our own lives. I mean, I thought it was okay. I was never really a huge fan of underdog. Well, That's because you were too. You were born too late. It was awesome when it was like the top notch stuff. When I was a kid, It was incredible. You know, I reached for something. Yeah. And it just wasn't there. No, It wasn't. Wasn't funny. I just figured I'd smash it. I guess you went for it with me and we committed and it was horrible. It fell flat. It's another thing. Yeah. And they don't even have like telephone booths anymore to change into. You know, Underdog changed in a telephone booth. Seriously, All I know about that is that they made a live action movie of it here in Rhode Island a couple of years ago. And that and I know the theme song. That's it. Other than that, I've never seen anything from underdog. That's all you need to know, Really. You know what? I think we're talking about underdog when the podcast is over. Like literally this podcast is over and we're talking about underdog. Well, If you want to check out Glenn, Look on other episodes for his contact. See you later. This podcast is presented by New Shore Productions, Executive producers, Glenn Ambrose, Benjamin Barber and David DeAngelis.

Reviews

From one podcaster to another, this was really helpful and empowering. I’m reminding myself to climb out of the hole sooner rather than later or the work required will be doubled. Ps I love the banter at the beginning! Keep up the good work guys.

That made me smile and gave me some good, achievable insight. Thank you🙏

Excellent as always, thanks Glenn 💜 x

Excellent practical advice as always. I especially liked the point that what is motivation for some may be damaging for others. Thank you!!

Easy & motivating