"I wish I had your motivation!"

Here's a great post by Lynn, over at the Hungry Little Catapillar, on motivation - (via Rebecca at Skinny Dreaming.)

I love her insight on motivation in dieting!

The reason I posted this here instead of over on my Thrifty Dieters Blog, is that this whole concept applies to every part of our lives - not just our diet.

Lynn writes:

"Motivation isn't like an energy shot. You don't drink a tiny bottle of expensive, foul-flavored liquid and suddenly feel inspired. Hells bells, I don't feel inspired most of the time either."

"Where do I get the motivation to walk nine miles?


I don't. I just go. If I sat around waiting to feel enthusiastic about exercise or waited until I really wanted that dry-chicken salad... I'd still be sitting around."

Amen!  You can't overthink it or it will never get done. Best quote:

"How many of you leap out of bed in the morning and say, "God, I really am looking forward to taking out the trash!" "I just can't wait for my 10am meeting!" "Oh, I totally adore my hour and a half commute time, sitting in traffic! And I just bet someone will cut me off at the light, won't that be great!""

And that's the (humorously put) point. As I said in her comments, dieting is HARD. Sometimes it just blows.  But so does parenting, or farming, or home ownership.  So does being self employed.  Or unemployed in a tough economy.

Life is hard. But we do what we have to do and don;t spend too much time mulling it over, waiting for inpiration or motivation to strike.

I have to get up from the computer at 5 a.m. (where I've been working since 4 a.m.) every morning and cook my family breakfast. It's a huge chore, but one that I feel is SO important that I do it without (too much) thought or grumbling every single morning.

I have to feed a whole farmfull of animals every day. I can't blow them off. It's dirty, time-consuming, and hard. But I took on the obligation of careing for them and so I must do it. Even if I'm tired. Even if I'm busy. Even if I've had a bad day.

I breastfed 5 children to at least 6 months of age and I had them all in 6 years. Often I would be breastfeeding a newborn, fending off a baby, and watching a toddler all at the same time whilst trying to keep up with my house, my business, my husband, and my farm.

If I had waited for motivation, I would have thrown in the towel, as many do. But I wanted it badly enough to endure the pain, the discomfort, the inconvenience, and the clingy next-oldest baby, because I felt it was best for my child.

The point is, do you want to lose weight and get healthy or don't you?  Either you do or you don't. Since there's no magic pill, if you do, then you're gonna have to hunker down and get to it.


As Lynn says:

"What's going to get you where you want to be isn't motivation. It's not inspiration. It's not willpower. It's not even determination.

It's simple drudgery. You do it because it has to be done, and if you don't do it, no one's going to do it for you."

I did and 140lbs+ later am still losing weight.  Lynn did (over 70 lbs so far), Rebecca did (over 80lbs so far).

And you can too.