How to Create Sustainable Motivation

When people hear that I haven’t missed a daily workout in over 12 years, they assume I must love to exercise.

Here’s the truth: I don’t always love it. Or, at least I didn’t always love it.

I wasn’t the best athlete growing up. I never really liked to sweat. I have a lazy part of me that often prefers to do nothing.

Before I started exercising daily over 12 years ago, I had seasons where I dropped off my consistency — just like most people.

When I first decided to make “Fitness First” my core daily ritual, I set some goals:

I wanted to be in shape to improve my performance on flying trapeze. I wanted to improve my long-term health and well-being. I also wanted to show my young nieces what was possible — and to be able to keep up with them. Over time, my goals expanded to include specific strength metrics or aesthetic appearance.

External goals are great starting points to help initiate a new practice, but each type of goal comes with its own problems.

Specific and measurable goals are clear and objective, but they also can become a moving target. A goal to get 4 pull-ups turns into a goal for 10. A desire to deadlift 200 pounds becomes a new goal to deadlift 250. You’re always chasing the next finish line.

Aesthetic goals aren’t always in your control. I might have wanted big muscles, but my tall frame and lean build means I’m not going to get “jacked” the way others might.

Long-term health and wellness results take a long time to reveal themselves, and it’s hard to know if you’re on pace.

In addition to the outer benefits, I’ve found several inner benefits of exercise. Exercise is a form of medicine that can help me manage my ADHD symptoms. There’s nothing like the dopamine hit from completing a challenging and intense workout.

Exercise clears my brain fog, boosts my energy, and often gives me a hit of confidence as I enter my day.

But sometimes, I get none of these benefits — either outer or inner.

An off workout that lacks enough intensity to trigger dopamine can leave me flat. A workout that is too intense can wipe me out.

Or, the rewards for the activity are so far into the future that there’s no more connection between the activity and the reward.

Ultimately, I learned that if I wanted to sustain my daily practice, I would have to learn to love exercise for itself. Not because it can spark my day, or because of the results I’ll achieve months or years down the line.

Learning to love the process meant that I had to make exercise fun for myself. I joined a gym that offered community, so I could work out with friends and nurture connections at the gym.

I receive support from a coach to help me push myself in ways I wouldn’t do otherwise.

I also experiment with different modalities and styles of exercise.

This ensures I don’t get bored. And it provides a “back up” motivation for moments when some of my other reasons start to feel too remote.

This same approach applies to any activity you want to do consistently.

All the external reasons in the world won’t help you if you lose touch with them.

To create sustainability, you must learn to love the process.