I’ve misplaced my motivation somewhere between the soft pillows and biweekly Timmies runs.You gasp and sit up. The alarm on your phone is blaring its obnoxious wake up call, urging you to move your butt out of bed, from beneath the warm, comfortable, soft.....zzzzz.... ARGH, HUH, WHAT???! For a moment, you can’t remember why on earth your eyes are open, or what day it is. Then you remember. It’s Monday. You’re getting up to exercise. You’re supposed to be leaving your haven of blissful dreaming to get changed, go out in the cool air and run/bike/drive to the gym. You think about the cold side of the pillow (colder than your ex’s heart), lay your head down, and promise yourself you’re just going to close your eyes for a moment. Just close them to wake them up. You’re startled awake by your alarm. For work (or school, or a coffee date, or some other appointment). Not exercise, because you fell asleep. Again. Ah well, looking on the bright side, there’s always tomorrow to start. Yeah, tomorrow, it’ll be different. Is this you? Is this a struggle you’ve battled and lost multiple times? (Insert infomercial background music here).No, sadly, life and exercise cannot be solved by an infomercial. Chris wrote an excellent article (read here) on motivation, pain, athletes, and finding what matters to you and using this as your driving force to live stronger, fitter and as an absolute goal crusher. This is a follow up post. On that note, most of us, in regard to exercise, fall into one of these categories: You’ve battled the motivation and rocked it. You have this exercise thing figured out, and have no trouble getting out to run/bike/gym/team practice/gallop your horse into the sunrise. You have yourself convinced you love exercise, but whenever you...

What motivates you to train? You know on the days when it's cold and maybe even rainy outside? Of course it's still dark outside. Your bed could not be more comfortable. Yet for some strange reason you defy what is easy. You pull back the covers to be shocked with the cold of early morning. You throw one leg over the side of the bed and stub your pinkie toe on the edge of the bed frame. Then you shock yourself further with the brightness of the bathroom lights which are one or two degrees brighter than looking directly at the sun. You feel dizzy, Your head may be pounding. The last thing you are thinking about is putting food in your mouth and venturing out into the cold. Yet you do so anyways. Have you been there? I'll bet you have. Anyone who has trained long enough has. Every athlete has. Anyone who is serious about their goals has. What is is that motivates these people? Well for most people it's the avoidance of pain. Sometimes this might be an actual physical pain. Pain from an accident, a disease or some other cause. And these people know how bad the pain can get. And how this pain can affect their lives. And prevent them from doing things they enjoy. And that missing out on these things will bring them sadness. [caption id="attachment_4676" align="aligncenter" width="300"] According to Aristotle, the masses are wise.  But pain doesn't always have to be physical, Some people are alone, depressed and not feeling the best about themselves. They would like to have more confidence, to have a better physique and to be noticed by someone else. And so for them the option of living in pain or getting out of a warm, cozy bed in the...