For a long time now, I've struggled with my body and self-image. To put it blunt, I'm not satisfied. One of the ways I've sought to improve this was by improving my body through exercise.

However, I've also struggled for a long time with giving myself the motivation or enacting the discipline to commit myself to any kind of fitness plan long-term.

Looking back at times in the past when I DID regularly exercise, it was mainly societal/external motivation that kept me going day-by-day. The specific examples were being in a team sport and feeling ashamed after being made fun of by a girl I liked (very effective!). I'm sure there is more to it, but external pressure seems to be the common denominator. Another reason I assume external motivation, is that whenever I try (and fail) to get back into exercising regularly, it comes from some sort of external motivation. To be clear, this does include internal motivation telling me to do so, and I have genuinely wanted to do so forever, but that which is most effective is external.

The conundrum I'm facing now is that I'm in a place far from any reliable friends or connections to motivate me, but even if I was close to friends I would prefer not to rely on external motivation.

So in the absence of external motivation, how can I find in myself the internal motivation to exercise?

I know this is a difficult question for internet strangers to answer, but I figure bouncing ideas off of other people never hurts :)

  • Sbebg [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    My man. U can’t workout to look hot. You’ll never get anywhere if you do it to look good. You gotta do it to feel good. U can’t do it for motivation. Only discipline. It’s like basically force feeding urself with excersize until it’s not so hard to force urself. Lift but also do cardio. Use a beginner ppl split do the 3 big compound movements and eventually you’ll look good. For cardio I do boxing but like anyhting works. My discipline for lifting comes from wanting to improve my boxing it’s a better reason than skin deep beauty and it’s why I haven’t given up. Everytime I tried to do it for vanity I failed. I am fairly jacked so I know what I’m talking about when it comes to getting gains

    Source: this is my arm lmao

    https://imgur.com/gallery/Ns9UNLh

    • ChairmanAtreides [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Yeah I didn't state it at all but one of the main reasons I actually get myself to occasionally work out (without a routine) is because it helps me mentally. I've been looking into doing either the 5x5 Stronglifts routine or the phraks greyskull LP Variant I've seen posted around here. I was talking to a pal of mine earlier today and he was telling me he's at the point of having been lifting for so long he just does it out of habit. I really enjoyed boxing when I did it for a couple months with a pal but work and school got in the way. Ideally I'd get back into it but for now I'll likely be doing running for cardio and basketball for fun :)

      Thank you swole armed comrade