Motivation means desire.
The science of motivation is the science of success. That’s why I’ve been looking at motivation more recently over finding new ways to run exercise classes. After more than 30 years as an instructor/coach, I now know the selection of exercises is secondary to your desire to perform them.
Here’s what we know about motivation:
- Success has to happen before you’ll become motivated
- Success has to KEEP happening.
- We don’t always recognise success when it happens. We’re pretty hard on ourselves.
Good fitness providers give access to exercise. Great providers help clients to succeed and progress. That means we have to prioritise your successes and small wins, whatever they are, just to take five minutes every week to reflect on the GOOD you’ve achieved.
The practice of thankfulness doesn’t come naturally to anyone. That’s why we call it a practice: it’s hard, we don’t feel like doing it–and then we feel better once we have.
“Bright Spots Friday” is our practice of thankfulness. Every week in the ODFC Fitness Online Facebook Group, we’ll post our “Bright Spots”: things that went right, things we are celebrating, all the little ‘wins’ from that week. Bright spots aren’t always directly workout-related, use all aspect of life to look for the small wins, but practicing gratitude and thankfulness IS an exercise.
Some people will be reluctant to post their Bright Spots. “I don’t really want to show off…they don’t want to hear about my life.” Or “I don’t want to share all my personal stuff…” So I’ll go first each week and I encourage you guys to follow with one TINY little Bright Spot. Make it workout-related to start, if that’s easier. What did you do RIGHT, or do BEST, or do for the FIRST time this week? Share in the ODFC Private Members FB Group.
We’re all family there. It’s a safe place. Look within, and start your weekend happy.