How To Keep Your Motivation When You Aren’t Seeing Results

I’m starting to get very, very frustrated with my lack of weight loss. I am exercising more than I have in quite a while, I am keeping close track of my calories, I am choosing healthier foods over less wise options… and yet, nothing seems to be happening. My gut is as flabby and awful as ever. I glanced at myself in a mirror as I walked down the hallway and was horrified to see that I had been walking around all day with my horrible bouncing stomach jiggling visibly underneath my t-shirt. Frankly, it pisses me off that I am working so hard and yet it takes me so long to see results, when I see plenty of other people post online about how they have lost “another two pounds this week” or something. ARGH.

I decided I need a thinking intervention. In the past, when I got frustrated, I tended to give up instead of pursuing my goal and working harder. I really don’t want to slip back into those old habits, so I am making a conscious decision to find ways to keep myself motivated until I see more progress.

I had a small victory this morning that made me pause and think about how I might be making progress in other areas, even if my bloated tummy is still hanging on for dear life. For the first time ever, I made it all the way through an Insanity workout without taking a break in the middle of an exercise. I’m not claiming that I kept up with the robots on-screen, and I know for sure that my form was questionable on some of the moves, but I am still proud that I made it all the way through with no additional rest breaks.

So for now I guess I will have to focus on small victories like this one until I can figure out the next step to take to get rid of my spare tire. It helped me get past being bummed about my lack of progress, and it even gave me a little bit of a kick toward the end of the workout when I realized I was going to make it, and I finished the last few moves with much more enthusiasm than my usual sweaty flapping and spasming.

I’m trying to make myself focus on other things that I can be proud of in the meantime like the fact that I now sort of can feel my collarbones if I push a little bit into the fat layer on top. I’m eating way healthier than I was even just two weeks ago – I pulled a leftover cheeseburger that had been calling my name all day out of the fridge, stared at it for a good few minutes, put it back, and grabbed some strawberries instead.

This obviously can apply to other areas outside of weight loss; I just tend to focus on weight loss because that is what occupies most of my brain processes when a task finishes and it starts to idle.

If you have problems with this like I do (that is, being too impatient for progress to stick to any one method for long enough to actually see it work), try forcing yourself to come up with at least three things that you have made some improvements on, even if they are not necessarily what you were aiming for. It might be difficult (I sat for a while when I was planning this post and tried to think of a list, and it took several minutes to come up with the ones I have written about here), but it might give you just enough of a motivational boost to hang on until you see what you really want begin to happen.

Here is an example that has nothing to do with weight loss. If you are trying to start your own business and profit is coming slowly (if at all), keep in mind how much you have learned throughout the process of setting up your business. You might not be making big bucks yet, but you can improve on your current plan constantly. You will never be stuck at any one level if you keep learning new, more effective ways of doing things. Plus, maybe you have established a few loyal customers along the way – focus on them, because that obviously means you were doing something right. Figure out what you did to make them happy, and focus on that because it is obviously one of your strengths so far.

Take those principles and apply them to whatever else it is that you are doing that seems not to be working (or at least not working quickly enough). Find out what you have learned, determine what your strengths are, and focus more energy on compounding your strengths than your weaknesses (but don’t ignore the weaknesses – these are what you are most likely to learn from). Then try new things, keep learning and start the process all over again.

Also, through all of this, remember to keep an eye on your end goal. That way, if things are not going exactly according to plan, you will know whether it is the right time to tighten your grip and double your efforts or bail and try something entirely different.

And, if by chance your goal is weight loss after all, you might be interested in 5 Simple Ways to Keep Motivated to Exercise.

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