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How to Stay Motivated: Make it Awesome

By Adam Sinicki on October 13, 2018

One of the questions I get from people in the comments most often is: how I can I be more motivated and disciplined to train? Or to work toward my goals?

And this makes sense, because really, this is the key to unlocking everything else you want to achieve. How do you force yourself to grind on a business or side project day in and day out when you aren’t seeing any progress? How do you wake up early in the morning to go the gym when you just want to roll over and go back to sleep? If we’re going to be nerdy about it, Batman’s only real ‘superpower’ is his discipline.

The answer is that you don’t force yourself. You make it awesome. You make it fun.

You be completely honest with yourself about your goals and about what makes you feel alive and you work towards that.

Motivation and discipline are driven by emotions, not logic. So, if you’re excited by what you’re doing, it won’t be a chore.

You need to be completely honest with yourself about what you want to do. And what that looks like. You need to be able to picture it and feel the emotional tug – you need to be excited when you do this. That’s your vision, or to quote Simon Sinek, your ‘why’.

This will become your super power.

And if you can’t motivate yourself to get up every morning for that thing – then it isn’t truly what you want. Be more honest with yourself.

But then you’re going to forget that vision. Because while the vision is the inspiring end destination, more important is the single simple step you take every day.

You don’t write a book, you write a page every day.

You don’t get into amazing shape, you work out, every day.

The end result is the vision, but those small steps are the goals. The concrete rules you live by.

Because focussing on the distant future is too disconnected from your reality. It’s too easy to put off taking those steps because you can always ‘do it later’. It’s hard to stay the course because you don’t see immediate meaningful progress. Many people don’t even take that first step because as soon as they do, they introduce the possibility of failure.

You can’t fail if you focus on those immediate steps. Every day is a new challenge.

And the macro-goal will take care of itself.

People who talk about their grand visions and hopes but won’t take the small, boring steps are the ones that never accomplish their aims.

My channel has 50,000+ subscribers right now, but do you know how many videos I made that got just a few views?

I did hundreds of thousands of press ups before I benched 150kg.

(I can’t do that at the moment but shut up… this is motivational!)

So how do you stay focussed on that dull grind when you really just want the glory? You make sure that you enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

You remind yourself how that simple step is helping to make that vision a reality. You connect the forest to the trees. Watch something awesome that inspires you before you train or work, that speaks to those same emotions.

You set milestones and mini goals – create feedback loops so that you can see yourself progressing. That might mean working toward planche, or increasing the weight on the bar little by little.

But most of all. You. Make. It. Awesome.

Train like batman. Work by candlelight. Throw a kettlebell around an abandoned tanker with synthwave lighting and dubstep playing in the background.

It doesn’t matter what other people think. It doesn’t matter if it’s childish or goofy. As long as it’s awesome.

If others try to force you into dull choices: resist.

Don’t force yourself to do boring work. Make it awesome.

As soon as you pick up a dumbbell or a gi, you become a warrior. As soon as you start typing, an entrepreneur. You’re living it right now, so where you end up doesn’t matter.

All that’s left to determine, is how awesome you’re going to be.

It starts now!

About Adam Sinicki

Adam Sinicki, AKA The Bioneer, is a writer, personal trainer, author, entrepreneur, and web developer. I've been writing about health, psychology, and fitness for the past 10+ years and have a fascination with the limits of human performance. When I'm not running my online businesses or training, I love sandwiches, computer games, comics, and hanging out with my family.