I go through spurts. Luckily I’m pretty good about just doing things like exercise, but when it comes to laundry and grading papers I can make a million excuses (all of which come back to bite me in the butt later).

I think what bothers me the most is that I get so proud of myself for doing mundane tasks. Really? I get so lazy about chores I pat myself on the back after taking out the trash? True, but ridiculous.

I find to-do lists that are posted somewhere really motivating. I like checking things off.

Thankfully, I’m one of those ‘suck up and do it people” when it comes to getting my butt to the gym in the morning. I just sort of wake up when my alarm goes, and get myself there on auto-pilot. Workouts after work, however, are a different story! If I need to postpone it for whatever reason to the evening, it takes A LOT more willpower to get me there!

Yummy smoothie!

Good job getting to the gym and making it work. Especially because you know that you feel better when you do!

Having someone to exercise with me really helps. My husband and I go to the gym late at night when everyone else is at home. Works for us! I also walk a couple times a week with my co-worker at lunch. We motivate each other. It’s nice to share exercise feats with my co-workers. Two of us are training for our local 10K and it’s nice to be able to share (even though she’s running it and I’m walking it.):-)

I seem to be able to motivate myself as long as I gain some momentum. If something interrupts my regularly scheduled exercise, it’s hard to get going again when it’s time to restart. I really need to get better at sucking it up!

I find that I’m more self motivated now that my husband is deployed. I have too much free-time, so it’s easy to fill it up with working out. When my husband is around, however, I find that it’s much easier for me to just sit around doing nothing.*

Great post. I agree, sometimes I have zero motivation to exercise! It’s kind of annoying, I often use “motivational mantras” to help me get to the gym! Have a great Friday!

I’m totally self-motivated when it comes to diet and exercise. I can exert enormous motivation and will-power when I want to affect what the scale is going to say the next morning. However, I don’t think this is because I’m naturally self-motivated. I think it’s actually because I’ve developed a bit of an unhealthy relationship with food and the scale.

Great discussion! I am very self-motivated when it comes to career stuff or work goals, however I can’t say the same for exercise. I tend to slack on exercise until I start seeing & feeling effects of that slack, then I’ll haul my butt to the gym or pick up general exericise. As I get older, I am beginning to realize I need to make exercise a bigger priority because ultimately, I’ll work more efficiently and have more energy in other areas of my life if I do.

I generally get my ish done, but I’m the first to admit that I’m a lazy overachiever. I’ll do what I deem the bare minimum to stand apart from the crowd, but I rarely go all in on anything and give it my full effort.

I’m a real slacker on showing up to work on time or getting my butt out of bed to exercise in the morning. I had a friend tell me that when you set the intention to get up early or exercise and then don’t do it, you’re basically breaking a promise to yourself. You’re telling yourself that you’re not worth the effort.

That made me sad, but it hasn’t resulted in any behavior change! HA!

I am a very self-driven, self-motivated person. The way I see it, you get out what you put into it! If it is important you’ll want to do it and stick with it.

In regards to exercise… if you are injured or your body NEEDS the rest, that is one thing to skip a workout. If you are just being plain lazy, then it’s only your fault. I thrive on the energy from the group fitness classes I attend and the high I get after class. 🙂

I’m generally really hard on myself so I’m pretty good at self motivation. If I don’t do something that I planned on doing or know I need to (like a workout or school work) then I feel really guilty about it.

I’m pretty motivated to do chores and clean, and even to exercise to an extent (I love my weekend morning workouts, and sometimes a run is exactly what I need after a long day at work). But it takes a LOT to motivate me to grade papers or get my grad school work done. I bribe myself all the time: read 20 pages or grade ten papers and then take a walk/blog reading/Facebook/email break. I get the stuff done eventually!

I’m definitely more of a “suck it up, Buttercup” type person, but today that backfired on me. I dragged myself to the gym this morning after fighting the stomach flu for the previous 24 hours because I had the day off from work and my favorite spin instructor was teaching. When the class started, she said, “Does anyone mind if teach for 60 minutes instead of 45?” Normally I would have been all “bring it on!” But today I wanted to cry! I managed to make it through the class, but it definitely wasn’t my best spin class ever and I didn’t leave with my normal exercise high. Instead I was all-I need to lie down! Moral of the story-don’t suck it up and go to spinning when you haven’t had anything other than ginger ale for the previous 24 hours! Ouch!

I’m self motivated in some ways, but not others. I find it SO hard to get out the door to go for a run – once I’m out there though its usually awesome!! Tomorrow I’m moving house, so today I’m finding it hard to find the motivation to box all my stuff up and clean my apartment. I hate cleaning!!

I’m 9 weeks and feeling extremely determined, lately, to keep my established habit of exercise in place! Excited about the new little one and very glad to have enough energy this early on to keep going…Stay determined girl!

I am lucky in that I am very busy and have a very structured life. If I want to workout, I have to wake up at 4 am or I wont get the chance. Everyday is the same for me. Wake up at 4 am to workout, shower, take my son to daycare by 6:30am, go to work, pick up my son by 6:30pm and make dinner by 7:30. In bed by 9pm so I can do it all over again the next day. It may seem boring, but I actually love my job and I really love structure, too. If I worked from home, I would never get anything done. I need to be on a tight schedule. The weekends are not my friend because I dont have the pressure of a timeline running my life for me.

I am definitely a ‘Just do it’ person. For everything from cleaning to cooking to working out. Actually, it’s harder for me not to workout then to do it. I now have a stress fracture in my foot so I can’t run, bike or swim anymore and it’s devastating for me. I realised that much of my self-confidence is related to training. I feel good in my body for what it does and not what it looks like (I learned it from Operation beautiful!) but, when I can’t do any of the things I like, I have a hard time finding other ways to value myself. You are such a inspiration for me. Do you have any tips as I’ll be unable to train anything else except abs and upper body for the next 2 months and will need other ways to feel fulfill?

Thank you for everything!

It’s amazing how I can be so motivated and get so much accomplished in one area of my life while totally letting others slide. It’s absolutely crazy. I get up and workout at 5am every morning except Sunday. I’m super disciplined with money and stick to a pretty strict budget. However, when it comes to eating, it’s another story altogether! I got over my calorie budget semi regularly, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gone over my money budget. Why is that?

Have you ever read “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” by Robin Sharma? It may seem a little “secret-‘ish” but it’s not really; a simple read. It’s about finding and achieving happiness in life (and I don’t mean just materially, but that too). It’s nothing dramatic, but just simple thoughtful things to consider; I figured he would be completely flighty and say “go do what you want to do and quit this right now!” (a.k.a = not always realistic or logical!!). But he does say that you sometimes you do have to do the things you don’t want to do – it builds discipline and the more you do them, the more accustomed they will be. Change the attitude I guess. That’s not to say you should force yourself to do stuff you don’t want/like, but doing the little “crappy” things can get you to a place that isn’t so crappy in the long-run. Or I hope! 🙂