Why Are You Peeing In Your Pants? The Myth Of Motivation

A lot of people tell me that they’ll start exercising or eating better when they get motivated.  I don’t know if you know anyone like this personally?  (Like, I don’t know, yourself maybe!)

The attitude is, “oh, I’m just waiting for my motivation to kick in.  When my motivation arrives its on, I’m gonna eat right and work hard and get sexy!”

People start saying this when they hit a size 10 and they’re still saying it when they hit a size 16.

Motivation is a myth.  Motivation does not exist.

The only things that exists are:

#1.  You

#2.  Your standards

Everything else is a figment of your imagination.  Just some BS you made up so that you don’t have to take responsibility for your own behavior.  “Its not my fault, my motivation hasn’t shown up yet!”

What Really Matters

What really matters are your standards – what you are and are not willing to accept from yourself.

Back when I was like 20 years old I saw this homeless guy living outside of the WSC that I worked in and really wanted to help him get off the streets.  I thought to myself, “all this man needs is an opportunity to get on his feet again and I’m gonna give it to him.”

So I went to REI and a few other stores and got him a huge box of toiletries, books on job hunting, new clothes, etc.  I wrapped that box up in bright red wrapping paper and tied it up with a giant white bow – it was Christmas time.

I asked him if he’d like some help getting off the streets and he said “yes!”  So I gave him the box and then took him to a boarding house in Foggy Bottom.

I told him that his job was to apply for jobs every week and to get one.  I would pay for all his food and housing, and he had a month to make some serious headway in getting a job.

The funny thing is that he actually did nothing.  He didn’t drink at all.  He just acted like a lazy high school kid over the summer.  He stayed inside, watched M*A*S*H and ate pizza.  He cleaned himself up, but he literally did nothing.

To make that even worse one day when I was driving him around trying to help motivate him to seek job opportunities around he peed in my car!  He gave no warning, he just let it rip and soaked my passenger seat in urine.  NO, he did NOT have a bladder control problem or anything like that.

Living on the streets he had gotten into the habit of just letting “it” go in his pants if he felt like it.

The point of this is that I seriously doubt that any of you has peed in someone else’s car as an adult.  Why?  Because that kind of behavior is completely unacceptable.  Its so far below the standards that you have for yourself that you would never even dream of doing something like that.

The food that you put in your mouth and the exercise that you do or do not do is EXACTLY the same thing.  It is a standard.

A standard of behavior and YOU are where the buck stops.  Raise your standards and you will change your life.  Keep waiting for your motivation to show up and your pants will keep getting tighter.

It’s YOUR choice an NOBODY else’s.

Get off your ass and get to work and the motivation will follow.  Stay on your ass and the motivation will never show up.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.