If you want to become highly motivated for running and other types of workout, the first favor you need to do to yourself is dropping all the willpower, all the pushing, all the ill treatment of yourself. Let me explain.
Things that are natural do not require willpower, any special motivation or pushing. Natural things come just naturally.
It is unnatural things that will take willpower, self-abuse, disrespect of your natural needs, which are, to my mind, all equally nasty.
When it comes to physical exercise, I hear too often what is beyond myself to understand. They say they can’t find motivation to go out for a run! They complain they are too low on willpower for taking a workout! But that’s in fact a crude misinterpretation, a harmful distortion of reality.
I’ve always been amazed at the willpower that many people possess and use to starve themselves on movement, to stay on a chair, on a sofa all day. It is not moving, it is starving yourself on movement where you need willpower.
Some people who have willpower so incredibly strong that it blows my mind, still go complaining that they do not have enough of it. Well, they sit all day in the office without ever getting up and doing any squats or push-ups. For me, that alone would be impossible to accomplish. But then, after work, they just take a ride home and continue sitting and lying about! How is that possible at all? How can that be done for even one single day?
But, believe me or not, there are thousands and thousands of people who commit this self-torture not for a single day, not for a week, but for long years and decades! And they believe genuinely that they do themselves good, that they spare themselves, that it is fashionable and stylish to be sedentary and just push this button or that to be serviced!
I would have died in a week, or at least gotten seriously ill. I am not that strong. I can’t afford all the experiments. I am not so young anymore, either. I simply can’t afford testing on myself that willpower just for fun, just for seeing how long I would be able to live being starved on movement.
No, thanks! I have only one life to live. I want to live it with pleasure and self respect.
I can’t see why anyone would want the nightmarish life of being sedentary. I don’t understand for what cause, idea or purpose they torture themselves in this horrible, anti-human, unthinkably cruel manner.
It must take a serious warfare with yourself to beat out of yourself the natural desire to move, to deafen it to the degree where you think you don’t have it anymore at all. Only people with strong willpower, motivation and determination can achieve that, not the weaklings like myself.
I haven’t tried it. But I know I would give up in a day or two. No matter how heavy promises I would have given to myself, I would soon find myself again on the nature tracks, running together with my dog or some other companion. I would find myself doing those squats, skips, pushups or whatever that would help me to get rid of the pent-up energy.
I know that that energy, if unused, would start working against me, would cause tiredness, bad night sleep, strain that may lead to depression and other bad things. No matter how many people practice this offense against themselves, I give it a pass. Those things are not for me, sorry!
People who know me often speak of determination and willpower because they often see me moving. At times, I can even practice a song or a poem by heart while doing pushups. I love doing funny or unusual things. I love when the activities are versatile. But what does it have to do with willpower?
My dog runs like a bullet whenever I let him off the lead. He runs without any definite direction, just for the sake of running. He plays with pebbles and pine cones. He loves to fetch a stick. What kind of willpower does he have? He just runs without thinking much.
Or watch the three or four year olds. They move, they play, they somersault. They have no special reason or purpose. Moving is in itself their reason and purpose.
I am now well in my fifties. I still feel the same urge, and, whenever possible, I give way to it. Deep inside, I still feel as a child who wants to run and play.
You can’t kill that child in yourself who wants to be active, who loves moving and playing. You can only knock it into the deep, you can cover it with layers and layers of myths, misinterpretations and falsehoods. But it is still alive there in the deepest deep of yourself as long as you are alive yourself.
So if you want again to be active, feel good and stop your self sabotage, then you don’t have to seek for motivation or willpower somewhere far and near. You just need to find that joyful child in yourself and start enjoying your moving as a child together with it. That’s all there is to that.
Only one more thing I want to mention. My fate and destiny is being on the computer most of the time. But I take breaks often, during which I just move. I can run the stairs, I can use my office chair as a support for different exercises. I don’t have any special programs. I just use some creativity to think of what I want to do and – just move. And I feel good.
But I never do anything with any special purpose, like health, slimming, six-pack or whatever. All I do, I do simply because – I enjoy it so much!
Equip yourself with this attitude, and that’s the beginning of your much happier days with better health, better sleep, better quality of life. But the willpower, only use it as much as you need for keeping all the willpower out of your life!