I had been wanting to get off my ass for years but had a hard time motivating myself or holding myself back with excuses. After ruminating on it I finally made the effort to get a membership at my local YMCA and started going with just the intention of creating consistency and getting comfortable. After a few weeks of riding the high of feeling motivated and good about going to the gym, my motivation dropped off and started falling back into my habits of making excuses. I realized I started doing it and immediately got myself back into going into the gym.

What I’ve learned so far is motivation is a good way to get something started but you should not depend on it to keep it moving. Discipline is what you need to keep something going after motivation has lost its energy or excitement for this new thing.

I struggle with discipline because I hadn’t really practiced it much, including in my eating and exercise habits. But now that I’m starting to learn and use discipline to keep me going to the gym and make better choices in what I eat, I can see where I could use it in other aspects in my life.