Mental Toughness/Motivation/Discipline/Goals

I had a rough/lazy day today, and it was hard for me to psych myself up for the gym. Nonetheless, I KILLED my workout and it was LEG DAY!!! Here's a little tip on what I do to refocus my attention on what is important to me and on what helps me accomplish what I need to do in the gym. Nonetheless, you can apply this to practically anything you want to accomplish in life. For instance: You want better grades: study harder, study more, and plan ahead and don't procrastinate. You want a promotion at work: don't miss work, work hard, don't be lazy, and try to be the best you can be. Remember what you want to do, why you're doing it, and how you're going to make yourself accomplish what it is that you're trying to do.

Mental Toughness:

• By far I think this is the key to success. Your brain is the computer to your body. Sure your heart keeps you alive by pumping blood throughout your body, but for the purpose of staying motivated and staying focused, your heart does nothing to help you in those aspects. Your brain is what you can alter, its what you can manipulate to shift your mood, refocus your attention, gain insight to push you over the hump. 
• Lifting weights in my opinion is 80-90% Mental. If you go in with the mindset that you can't lift heavy today, or you can't accomplish a new Personal Record, you've already FAILED before you even attempt to workout/lift.
• Have an agenda or routine before you tackle your workout.
• Mine is to listen to music, get on some kind of cardio machine for a warm-up, and meditate while doing my warm-up. I picture myself lifting the weights, mentally hyping myself up, telling myself "Yes I CAN, and Yes I WILL"
• Mobility work and foam rolling (still mentally refocusing my attention away from everything thats going on around me. When I workout, I'm in my own world)

Motivation:

• Find something that motivates you. When you are feeling crappy and drained of energy and you just want to half-ass your workout, think about why you're doing this in the first place. What purpose do you have? Is it to be more healthy? Is it for yourself? To impress someone? To look good on the beach? Whatever you end goal is, keep that in the back of your head and use that to push you to your limits. Use it to help alter your mood and change your state of mind to be more optimal for what you're about to do
• If you half-ass something, is it going to get you closer to you end goal any faster? More then likely it'll slow you down. Everybody hates procrastination, I'm sure that is probably one of everyone's New Year's resolution, is to not procrastinate. Half-assing leads to procrastinating yourself to reaching a long term goal, try not to do that  

Discipline:

• Be strict on yourself, at least until you feel that your lifestyle has changed. Before you know it, you'll be doing everything with great discipline without even trying because it simply becomes a routine. It's like driving a manual car or riding a bike, once you learn, you'll never forget.
• Resist the urge to do something that will set you back. But be flexible, tell yourself that if you give into temptation and mess up today, that you'll make it up tomorrow. But go through with the promise you make yourself. The last person you want to fail on is yourself.
• Pull your own weight: Rely on yourself, make yourself better. Don't wait for someone to push you, push yourself. In the end of the day "It's YOU vs. YOU!"    

Goals:

• Use short term goals to accomplish a long term goal
• If your goal is to lose 20 pounds in 3 months (12 weeks), awesome! Do it! But everyone knows it is easier said then done. Progression and results come slowly. Set up a plan to lose 1.8lbs a week, by the end of the 12 weeks, without even knowing you'll reach your long term goal.
• It is much easier to attain short term goals to help you reach a long term goal, than it is to straight out and jump the gun to shoot for a long term goal
• But as mentioned, progression and results come slowly. Just because you don't see results every week doesn't mean that your diet or workout has stopped working. Just because you stop losing 1.5lbs per week doesn't mean you failed or you didn't reach your short term goals. Stay consistent, cause as your body adapts and changes, wonderful things can happen. Your body can plateau while its adjusting itself, and although nothing has changed in your diet or workout routine, your body can adapt and out of nowhere, instead of losing 1.8 pounds, you end up losing 2.5 pounds the following week.
• Don't be in a rush to see results and just because you don't see results doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. Be patient, stay consistent!     

As you can see, all these relate to one another! Use it to your advantage. This is better then any kind of preworkout supplement, better then any kind of caffeine pill, any kind of adrenaline junk that is suppose to help pump you up and focus you on a certain task. Everything you do lies within yourself. Make a promise to yourself and keep it. Use it for determination, use it for discipline, and for the goals you set.

All in all, thanks for listening or reading my spill! Thought I share this for you guys so you can apply it to whatever you want if you feel that it'll help.