It was crucial to balance the performance in the weight room using different exercises while maintaining proper eating habits with taking the right kinds and amounts of nutritional supplements. It is important to incorporate this with the positive feedback which can help keep you on track and maintain a high level of enthusiasm and motivation when you design your complete training program. Don't just have it isolated to your workouts alone. Apply this principle to all aspects of your life. It will enable you to make life changing choices which will provide additional motivation in your personal life as well. This will help you in your overall zest and motivation for life to become the "you" you want to be.
What motivates each of us is unique to our particular needs and values I found that by keeping a journal and recording my progress, seeing what worked and what didn't, also helped keep me motivated in the correct direction so I knew which things I was doing that were giving me the results I wanted. This method is a good way to help you best reap the benefits of your efforts and the investment of your time and energy.
Granted, everything in this world worth having takes discipline, practice, and a great amount of hard work to achieve it. I'm sure the signs of growth you begin to see will prompt increased motivation along the journey which will make it all the more enjoyable and worthwhile. It doesn't matter so much about your genetics, abilities, or disabilities as it does your positive attitude, personal determination, and desire to reach your goals. Your body tends to do what it is told if you know how to tell it in a way that spurs you into action. This spurring into action, similar to the cowboy riding a bull, can also be called motivation. I guess in this case, the motivation is for the bull to get rid of the cowboy. It is only when we are striving to reach higher than ever before, that we find untapped capabilities that we never even knew we had. That's why I believe that at the heart of success is motivation.
Bob Richards, a good friend of mine and former two-time Olympic Gold medalist in the pole vault ('52 and '56), told me a short motivational story I'll never forget. I'd like to share it with you. There was this big Texas rancher; we'll just call him "Big Tex", who had thousands of acres of land and thousands of cattle. He wanted to buy a highly pedigreed bull to improve the quality of his herd. He found the bull he wanted in North Dakota and paid half a million dollars for this pedigreed bull. Big Tex had him shipped via railroad to his ranch in Texas. The bull arrived and got off the train. Do you know what happened next? The only thing that pedigree bull did was stand around and eat grass. Big Tex about had a heart attack. He had just spent one half a million dollars for a bull and all he did was eat grass! Big Tex called the veterinarian to tell him what was happening. The vet told him not to worry. He'd be right over and could take care of the situation. When the vet arrived, he had brought his little black bag with him. He looked at the bull and he looked down in his bag, and then pulled out a pill the size of a golf ball. He massaged the bull's throat and got him to swallow the huge pill. Shortly after he swallowed it, the bull's eyes flew wide open and he took off, kicking dust everywhere. He took care of all the cows on Big Tex's ranch and seven other ranches nearby. Big Tex was so excited! He ran right over to the vet's place and said "Doc! You just have to give me the formula to that pill!" The doctor replied, "I can't give you the formula, but what I can do is tell you it does taste a little bit like peppermint."
I may not be able to give you the formula for motivation, but maybe I can leave you with a little hint of the taste. You want to envision success in everything you think, feel, and do, using all your senses to get the complete sense of success in your imagination. You must be able to persist in action or performance, facing all of the obstacles, difficulties, and adversities. Like I said before, everything worth having in this world takes discipline, hard work, practice, and effort. Find out the things that get you excited and bring you pleasure. Put them to use in your present goals. Then, the hard work won't seem so hard after all. It may even be fun and you will find yourself looking forward to it! This should give you some fuel to get you motivated! Because you are excited and fired up, I know you will surpass those limitations you are encountering. Why wait!? Put your motivation into action and make those trips to a gym a success! Good luck!
Kevin Saunders
