How to Stay Consistent When Motivation Runs Out

Nikkiey: Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.

Motivation: you can't rely on it to get things done. It always runs out. It always does. It's an emotion, right? And emotions ebb and flow.

Yo, what is going on, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode 113, where we're going to have a real talk about motivation.

This is stemming from a couple of fronts, and this is more so going to be a rant, because I feel like rants are really good when we're on this topic. This is stemming from the New Year coming around the corner, and maybe you guys are lacking motivation because of the holidays, or this is busy season and you've put going to the gym or your nutrition on the back burner, and you're just searching for the motivation to get started again. This will help you.

This is also stemming from a conversation within our coaching team. I support our coaches on a regular basis, and there have been a couple of comments about clients needing motivation or looking for motivation, and they're seeking that from our coaches, which I totally understand. Part of a coach's job is to give motivation to our clients. However, it's a two-way street, okay? It can't be 100% coming from the coach. It has to be 50% coming from the coach and 50% coming from you if you are inside of our programs.

This is also for you if, not just looking out to 2024 for motivation, but in the last couple of months or the last couple of weeks, you've been like, oh my god, I'm just not motivated to do all the things that I know I need to do, and I'm waiting for motivation to come back again. This podcast is for you.

So this is what we're going to talk about. I'm just going to go on a rant. I'm just speaking from my heart, and I want you guys to take away that you can't rely on motivation to get things done. You cannot rely on waiting and hoping that motivation is going to come about, right? Motivation runs out. You can feel motivated to start a program. You can feel motivated to go and get a workout in the first time, the first week or the first two weeks that you agree to start something. However, it always runs out. It always does. It is an emotion, right? And emotions ebb and flow.

So you can't wait for more motivation to come again, because this is where a lot of people give up, and they forget why they started the program. They're like, oh, I'm just not motivated to wake up in the morning to get this workout done. I'm just not motivated to eat the right foods. I'm just not motivated to plan ahead. Or you let planning ahead slip through the cracks because other things seem more important.

By the way, there's nothing more important than your own health and getting these things in place for yourself: a consistent workout routine, consistently following through on nutrition, consistently doing all the things that are not only going to get you to a more aesthetic goal, but are also the underlying foundation of making your overall health better for the longevity of your life.

So here's a way to get around that, so you're not looking at it as, I need more motivation, or I'm waiting for motivation to come back, or, 95% of the time, looking at motivation as the thing that is in the way. The way to get around that is you need to develop your self-discipline muscle. You need to rely on discipline. I'm going to get into this in a second, because there are some things that come with developing your self-discipline muscle. But you need to begin to rely on discipline and not on motivation, because you aren't always going to be motivated all of the time.

Think of me, for instance. I am not always motivated to go into the gym and work out and put myself through a grueling routine. On a regular basis, I am not always motivated to do that. I am not always motivated to sit down and pull out yogurt and peanut butter and a banana and put it into a bowl. Sometimes I just want ice cream and Oreos and I want to stuff my face. So I'm not always motivated to eat healthy things.

However, I am one hell of a disciplined person. I know that going to work out is going to make me feel better, and it's going to fuel the muscle-centric process that I believe in and help me lead a healthy life. I know that the banana, yogurt and peanut butter is a much better option for me physically and mentally than stuffing myself with ice cream and Oreos.

I am disciplined enough to control how I feel and overcome a sense of weakness, if I'm going to be direct and blunt. A sense of weakness is not doing what you know you need to do because your feelings are controlling the situation. When you don't go work out because you don't feel like it, you're letting your emotions control that. To be direct, I look at that as a sense of weakness. Instead, I can go do this thing that's going to make me feel way better. It's going to make me stronger. It's going to make me more confident, because I just followed through on something I didn't want to do and I did it anyway. And it's the better of the two, right?

Same thing goes with ice cream and Oreos. I will have those, in moderation. I allow myself to have that. But a lot of people may make the choice of going to fast food or skipping their meals or eating something that's a little more fast, claiming that they're eating healthy. However, when you actually dial back and get down to the numbers and data, you're not eating enough. So it's like, I will control my feelings even though I want to have this or I want to do this. This is a better option because it serves me and the future self that I am working on or that I want to become.

It's the ability to pursue what you think is right despite the temptations to abandon it. Is that making sense? Yeah, you don't feel like working out. However, you have to work out in order to facilitate the results that you want. You can't not work out and build muscle, okay? You can't not eat healthy and lose weight. So it's the ability to control: even though I don't want to do this, I'm going to do this. You do what you know is right for your future self despite the feelings to abandon it.

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Let's dive in a little deeper, because I want to get down to it for those of you who are looking for motivation or hoping to seek motivation from somebody else. You are the person that has to do the work. So I want to help you approach motivation a little differently. Instead of looking for motivation, you want to build self-discipline, and the way to build self-discipline is to do the things I'm going to walk through right now.

Number one, you have to set realistic expectations for yourself. Let's talk about what you can realistically commit to in terms of your fitness and nutrition goals. It's important to set an achievable target that you know you can hit, to avoid feeling overwhelmed.

For me personally, with my clients, I've told them 2024 is around the corner, so what I need you to do by December 29th of this year is give me your 2024 goals and what you and I are going to work on together, because it is a two-way street. It's a partnership when it comes to coaching. From there, I'll work backwards from their goals given where they're at right now.

For example, the majority of my clients are in maintenance. Let's just entertain that they want to go into a little bit of a mini cut. Cool. Then I'm going to work backwards from that. I've allowed my clients to have a little more flexibility when it comes to maintaining, so they're tracking intuitively or eating intuitively, and they're about 90% on their workouts. So I'll work backwards: okay, we're going to go into a mini cut. Well, we've got to start tracking. This is the start date. This is what I would expect in this timeframe. This is how I'm going to help you achieve these set targets in this amount of time. And then I'm going to continue to work backwards throughout the year. So you've got to set realistic expectations for yourself.

Number two, consistency. Consistency is the key to seeing results. Even small, regular efforts on a daily basis are more effective than sporadic ones: planning your meals, following through on your macros, doing your workouts. Say you're supposed to work out three times a week, and you hit one time this week, then two the following week, and then you finally hit the three or four you're supposed to be doing in the fourth week. Dude, you've got to consistently follow through. If you want to see results, consistency is the way to achieve them.

You can't expect to eat healthy within your targets five out of seven days of the week and then go haywire on the weekends and go completely off kilter, do that for three to four weeks, and then ask, why am I not seeing results? Why do you think you're not seeing results? Come on, you've got to be real with yourself here. You've got to apply consistency, and you've got to do it. Look at it like small wins every single day, because they will add up. So I would ask you: how can you make your routine more consistent?

The third one is personal responsibility and effort. While I and the coaches can provide you support and guidance, listen up: the real change happens through your own efforts. If you're struggling with motivation, struggling with putting these things into place, and you're thinking, I want to rely on this person to give me the motivation, first of all, you're just setting yourself up for doomsday. That's not the way it works. You've got to take personal responsibility. You've got to take extreme ownership, and you have to apply the things that will make the real change happen for you. So my question would be: what do you think is holding you back from putting in the necessary work?

Then the next thing: now that we've ruminated on that question, let's identify the barriers. Let's identify the obstacles that are preventing you from sticking to the program. Are there specific challenges you're faced with that maybe you haven't addressed? Is there something in a life situation, or a friend or somebody who isn't supporting you along the way, so this narrative is in your brain, and it's stopping you from taking action and stopping you from feeling motivated? Let's address this and let's talk about it. I'm here to support you on it.

Remember that people's opinions aren't necessarily reflective of what you want. You're the only one who knows what you want. So you have to hold that vision in your brain of what you want, eliminate the negative naysayers, the negative Nancies, and still follow through on what you want.

Or is it that you're looking at your workout program and there are exercises in there that you don't have the equipment for, and you don't know what to swap in, so you're like, well, screw it, I can't do this workout, and you haven't communicated that with your coach? Hey, what's a swap? Can you help me out with an alternative exercise to X, Y and Z? Communication. I talked about this in episode 51 on the benefits of having a coach: communication is so freaking important, you guys. I always joke around with my team and my clients, I am not a mind reader. I will try to be a couple of steps ahead of you, but I'm human and I mess up. So please communicate anything you need to communicate with me to make this 100% effective for you.

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All right, let's get back to the show. So that's identifying obstacles. Make sure you're communicating those things, because that's what coaches are really good for. And if you're somebody who's like, hey, 2024 is around the corner, and you're struggling with any of the things I talked about at the beginning of the podcast in terms of motivation, and you don't have a coach, a coach is such a good thing to invest in for yourself so that you aren't doing this alone, okay? And then make sure you're following through on all the things I'm saying when you are working with a coach.

The next one, and most importantly, you guys, I need to yell this one from the rooftops. Like I said earlier, for those of you who rely on motivation, it ebbs and flows, and you can't consistently rely on it because it will go in and out. Second to developing self-discipline, this is the way you make it stick: motivation comes from action. Motivation comes from action. Motivation comes from action.

Often motivation follows action rather than the other way around. Sometimes starting something can be the hardest part, but once you begin, you'll likely find more motivation to keep going. Or you feel motivated at the beginning and it feels super easy to start something. However, that's just motivation. You can't rely on it, because three to four weeks in, it's going to dip.

So you need to be reminded of why you started this journey. I will always ask clients, well, why are you doing this? People call me and say, Nikkiey, I need to lose weight. Nikkiey, I want to be fit. Nikkiey, I want X, Y and Z. They'll come to the coaches and do the same thing. And I'm like, cool, I love that. That's the superficial top-of-the-iceberg layer. But why do you want to start this fitness journey? I've talked about your why in many episodes of this podcast. That's a great goal, and I'm all here for it, but why? Is it because you want to be a role model for your kids? Is it because you want to be a higher performer in your profession? Is it because maybe the sex with your partner has dipped and you want to bring that back up? You want to feel more confident in your skin? What is the deeper reason why?

I love to connect with humans on the deeper reason they want to do their journey, because I'm always going to be able to circle back to that and say, hey Karen, when we first started out together you told me that yes, you wanted to lose weight and feel better and be more toned. But you also told me you have two little kids looking at you on a daily basis and you want to be a role model for them, because when you were growing up, your mom was a heavy dieter and you watched her be worried about food all the time, and you don't want your kiddos to be there. Dude, if there's nothing more than that to kick you in the ass to get started on something, I don't know what is. Then maybe we need to fly to your front door and literally push you out of the door to go do the thing you need to do.

This is where I get really big on taking extreme ownership for you, your life and the things you want to accomplish. We'll be there to push you to do the things. We'll put the plan in action. We'll tell you what you have to do. But like I've already mentioned, motivation comes with action, and change only happens through your own work, through your own efforts. So once you start following through, you start taking action, you start feeling really good, you start putting in the work, and you're doing it consistently, motivation comes with doing that. Motivation comes with that action.

The last thing I want to say is that along your journey, you need to be celebrating the small wins. I know this from the thousands of women I've worked with and who have come through our program: they're so attached to the end goal. They want to lose maybe the 50 pounds they've put on over the last seven years, and they want to lose it in three to four weeks. And when they get to the four-week mark and they're not seeing significant change, they almost give up. They're forgetting, oh wow, over those four weeks I've done so many things differently than what I've been doing for the last seven years.

You've got to get realistic with yourself in that situation. One: okay, I put on 50 pounds over the course of seven years, so I'm not going to lose it in four weeks. And two: cool, I've got to celebrate these small wins. You've got to remember, acknowledge and celebrate your small victories along the way, or else you're going to give up. You're going to allow yourself to be so attached to that end goal that if you don't get there in a precise amount of time, or it's not exactly how you thought it would be, you're going to think you're a failure. You're going to want to give up, and you're going to approach every single time you want to get fit again in that same manner.

So in those four weeks, what is it? You've obviously been doing something different than what you've been doing for the last seven years. Maybe you've lost four or five pounds. That's great. That's a pound a week. And in order to get that kind of result, you're putting different things into place. You're eating better. You threw things out of your house. You're getting your workouts in. You're sleeping better. You have more energy. Those are small wins you need to pay attention to.

So, to encompass all of the things I just shared with you guys: you obviously can't look for motivation or seek it out as something you're going to experience throughout your entire journey, because it isn't always going to be there. In order to successfully follow through with a plan, whether you're working with somebody or heading into the new year of 2024, you have to take action.

You have to set realistic expectations for yourself, or if you're working with somebody, with yourself and your coach. You have to follow through on that plan in a consistent way. Not, two out of seven days of the week I'm going to eat right and the other five days I'm going to eat off kilter, and then in four weeks I'm going to complain because I'm not seeing results. You've got to follow through consistently to get the results you want.

You have to take personal responsibility for your efforts and for doing the work. And if something is holding you back, okay, what's holding you back? Let's identify it. Let's talk out loud about it, and let's be solution oriented to create a plan that's going to help you follow through.

Know that motivation comes with action. And along the way, you have to celebrate your wins, because if you don't, this is where motivation will definitely ebb. It will be lost. If you're not where you want to be and you're relying on the result to be motivating, you have to celebrate: hey, wow, I feel way better. I have more energy. I'm sleeping better. My mood is better. I'm nicer to people. I'm eating more and I'm feeling amazing. You can't allow your goals to fully immerse you, because it may not be the timeline you're expecting to achieve the results. Point blank.

All right. I hope that helped you if you're struggling in the world of motivation, and I hope you can take some tangible things from this podcast and put them into action. I promise you, if you take what I'm sharing with you today, first of all get honest with yourself, then write down, okay, this is my plan, this is my goal, work backwards from it, take responsibility, put the effort in and start doing the actions, you're going to gain motivation.

But the most important thing is to really develop that self-discipline muscle I talked about at the beginning of the podcast, because in order to achieve long-term results, and I keep saying this, you won't always be motivated. But if you can develop the mentality of, okay, even though I don't feel like doing this today, I'm going to do it regardless, that's literally going to be your key to success. So develop that self-discipline muscle, my friends, and I'll see you in the next episode. Peace out.

Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.