What to do when you're lacking motivation to workout!

Imagine this scenario.

You’ve finally made the brave, bold, enthusiastic decision to COMMIT to your health and fitness. This is going to be it. This is going to finally be the time you join the gym/start running/lose the last 10 pounds/lose the first 10 pounds/start putting your health first!

For a few days, weeks, maybe even months you are on FIYAHHH and on top of your game!

You’re pushing your body, reveling in the soreness of your worked muscles, you're victoriously learning how to kick the diet coke, artificial sweetener, and junk food habits and are replacing them with water, veggies, delicious whole foods. You’re learning how amazing your body feels when you stop treating it like a garbage disposal. You’ve never felt more alive, more strong, more powerful and confident and beautiful. You’re on a roll! You’re doing it! You’re finally living up to the woman you were born to be! YOU FEEL AMAZING!

And then…

One day…

You hit a wall. Maybe the scale isn't budging, or it's raining, or work gets crazy. Your motivation goes out the window and you can’t remember why you started. The couch and pizza are calling your name, you’re thrown off, you can’t motivate yourself to get up in the morning to workout, you just don’t care anymore. Maybe something happened to throw you off, or maybe it’s unexplainable.

What do you do? Are you just not good enough? Maybe you convince yourself you’ll never reach your goals and give up.

Have you ever experienced this story?

If you're a woman, there's a good chance you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Sometimes we call it the yo-yo cycle, the sabotage, the plateau. It’s easy to give up when your motivation goes away, easy to revert to your old habits, gain back the weight, and fall into the pity party trap of self loathing and low self esteem.

Let me tell you that YOU ARE NORMAL.

And I want you to know that losing motivation on your health and fitness journey (even back-sliding a bit) is SUPER EXTRA NORMAL. Life is full of ups and downs, it’s not a straight line. Sometimes we have energy, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes our priorities shift and we have other things to think about.

It’s all good!

Here’s my truth. Even though I’m now a full time health and fitness coach and it’s my JOB and my joy to work out, treat my body right, and inspire other women to do the same, I've been struggling a lot lately with lack of energy and motivation myself!! And it seems like a lot of women I talk to have been struggling lately too, either with motivation, craziness at home or work, body image, and general lack of mojo.

YOU GUYS! Let’s stop beating ourselves up and just embrace the fact that we all deal with this rollercoaster of energy.

Have you ever seen a heart monitor? What does it look like? A healthy heart looks like a series of peaks and valleys. A straight line means you’re dead. Soooo why do we expect life to look like a straight line? Why do we let the downs throw us off? Let’s talk about this!

What to do when you’re lacking motivation on your health and fitness journey

1. LAY OFF THE PRESSURE!
Sometimes we get too caught up in the “should's,” in believing what the media and fitness professionals are throwing at us.

“I should work out”
“I need to eat cleaner”
“I shouldn’t have eaten those cookies”
“I should lose 5 pounds”
“I need to get back on track”
"I am a failure if I mess up"
"I should just give up, I can't do this"

Can we please help each other cut ourselves some slack? There is SO much information out there, but only YOU have the power to decide what’s ultimately best for you and your goals. Listen to your body and it will tell you exactly what you need. Stop letting the little voice inside your head convince you that you’re not good enough, that you need to change or improve to be better. The truth is, you’re good enough right now! You already have everything you need to live up to your full potential and be happy. Sometimes being happy means giving ourselves a break!

2. GIVE YOUR BODY A FEW REST DAYS.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a few days off your workouts. In fact, giving your muscles a chance to repair themselves and grow is essential to getting stronger and boosting your metabolism safely and without injury. This tip is especially for you if you’re the type of girl who considers a “rest day” to mean a power walk and hot yoga class. (Yup that’s me).

Go be lazy for a few days! You won’t gain weight, you won’t ruin your progress, trust me.

3. FOCUS ON NUTRITION.
It's ok to give your body a rest, but it's never ok to treat your body like a garbage disposal. Make sure you're staying hydrated and nourishing your body with healthy foods that will energize you! I'm talking giant salads for lunch, add some spinach into your Shakeology, and complex carbs like sweet potatoes and whole grains. They say that 80% of your results come from what you eat, not your workouts! You will still see and feel progress as long as you're eating right.

4. DON'T COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS.
I've had to lay off the Instagram lately because my feed is chock full of Tone It Up girls crushing the bikini series and working out for 2 hours a day, fitspo, and unattainable abs. I start feeling like I'm not good enough and comparing myself to other people, even though their goals are NOT my goals! I'm trying to adopt the mentality "good for you, not for me." We are all on different journeys and at different points along the way. That's ok!

You might have heard the quote "don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle."
Well, don't compare your middle to someone else's middle either.

5. MAKE WORKING OUT FUN.
After you've taken a couple days off, it's time to get back on the wagon with a brisk walk or try a fun new workout from Beachbody On Demand! (Hip Hop Abs? Yoga Booty Ballet? Have fun and don't take yourself too seriously!) Or focus on lower intensity workouts like PiYo, pilates, or yoga! Here are my top 5 favorite fitness YouTube channels. Try something new! Remember that working out will give you more energy, so sometimes you just gotta force it!

When you workout because you want to torture your body into losing weight….it takes all the joy out of the process. Just move your body and find a workout that makes you happy! If you hate running, don’t force yourself to run! If the gym intimidates you, work out at home or find a fun beginner class! Do you. Make a date with a friend to go for a walk or try a new class.

p.s. Shaun T is releasing a new hip hop program called CIZE this summer and I got a sneak peek. If you want to watch a video of me making a fool of myself, head over to my Facebook page...

6. FOCUS ON HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL.
Shift your mindset away from the numbers, girl. I know it's easy to get discouraged when the scale isn't budging, but what does "weight" even mean? It's the gravitational force that the center of the earth is exerting on your physical body. Yup. It has NOTHING to do with your self worth as a human being. If it's messing with your emotions and you don't have the willpower to only weigh yourself once a week or every few weeks, trash the damn scale.

Start thinking about how you feel right AFTER you push through a good workout, and use that to motivate you to get started! Remember that it's a privilege to be healthy and have the ability to move and celebrate life.

Workout for the endorphins :)

7. DON'T OVERCOMPLICATE THINGS.
Pick a plan and stick with it. What can you do every day? Think small and simple. Walk 20 minutes during lunch? Something is always better than nothing!

Finally, remember that we only have a certain amount of energy to give every day. Take a peek at your life--is a certain area really busy or draining right now? It might not be physical...maybe you took on more responsibility at work, or you've been dealing with some family stress or a transition. We can't be focused 110% on our fitness allllll the time, because sometimes other areas of life need our energy, and that's ok. Think about your priorities!

Right now, my priority is taking care of myself and keeping myself enthusiastic and happy as I start to level up in my business and create work/life boundaries. At the same time, I know that working out makes me FEEL confident, strong, energized, and happy afterwards, so I've been forcing myself to do it even if I "don't feel like it" or am lazy. Think about your end game!

Success doesn't come for free, it takes patience and consistency.

Just keep moving forward every day, one baby step at a time! 

xo Anna

P.S. Want a weekly dose of love and inspiration straight to your inbox? Sign up for my newsletter here!

P.PS. here's a great list of 31 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Exercise!

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Over the past fourteen months, I've had the privilege of getting to know over 150 women through my online health and fitness accountability groups. I may be a coach, but I feel like they coach me too. We've shared our stories, our struggles, our victories, our dreams, and our deepest insecurities and fears with each other. We've worked through personal breakthroughs and are discovering what we're truly capable of when we push our limits and comfort zones.

The moment you realize that you're not alone is a life changing wake-up call. That there are dozens of other talented, beautiful, smart, successful women out there who struggle with the EXACT same issues that you do.

Most of the time we feed on each others' energy and are on top of our game, but when you have ups you're guaranteed to have downs too. It's a fact of life! I've learned so much about myself along the way and I'm becoming really passionate about exploring the issues that we struggle with, especially figuring out why we're our own worst critics.

Why do we hold ourselves back from what we really want? What keeps us from embracing and growing into our full potential, our dream bodies, from being HAPPY and confident? Why do we sabotage ourselves when we're on the brink of experiencing a physical or emotional breakthrough?

Over the next few weeks I want to write more about the universal struggles I've faced on my own health and fitness journey, and what I'm learning about how to take back control in the moments when your life seems to be spinning away!

Do you have a question or a topic you'd like me to cover? Let me know!

What I do as a full time Beachbody coach

Happy Wednesday!

I’m still thrown off by the long weekend, anyone else? Ben and I traveled down to central Illinois for Memorial Day to visit my family and celebrate my brother’s and sister’s graduations from college and 8th grade. My siblings are growing up, so weird!!

It was a wonderful break from the fast pace of the city. I love getting back to the peace and stillness of the cornfields and my parents’ lush peony-filled backyard in early summer.

We threw a graduation party on Sunday afternoon, which brought up plenty of opportunities for me to explain what I’m doing with my life to old family friends, relatives, and neighbors. Ah, yes. I know that “online health and fitness coach” is really hard to explain and understand so I thought I’d write a little more about what exactly I do as a full time Beachbody coach!

“What is a coach? To me, a coach is a person who is your friend, someone who really cares about you. A coach is committed to helping you be the best that you can be. A coach will challenge you, not let you off the hook. Coaches have knowledge and experience because they’ve been there before. They aren’t any better than the people they are coaching. Sometimes a coach doesn’t even teach you something new, but they remind you of what you need to do at just the right moment, and they push you to do it.”

— Tony Robbins

In a nutshell

There are two broad components of my job: health and fitness mentoring for my clients (aka “challengers”), and business mentoring for the coaches on my team.

Health and fitness mentoring

The main thing I do as a Beachbody coach is help women grow their confidence and develop a positive body image by providing them with tools, resources, and support they need to prioritize their physical and emotional wellbeing. I provide accountability and support via group and individual coaching and help them work towards specific health and fitness goals and/or bigger picture life goals based on how they want to feel about themselves. This is all online, and the location independence is great! I set up private accountability groups on Facebook every month for my group coaching, and provide individual coaching to my clients through weekly emails. Once you enroll in one of my groups, I’m your workout buddy/life coach/cheerleader/mentor/breakthrough facilitator for life...as long as you need me!

How the process works

First I help women get to the bottom of their goals and over-arching “WHY,” or motivation for making a change. Then I recommend a home fitness program and nutrition plan that meets their needs and lifestyle, and finally provide them with emotional support as they get started on their program and for as long as they need me.

Because let’s face it -- whether your goals are to lose 5 pounds, lose 30 pounds, establish a consistent workout routine, break a plateau, eat healthier, curb cravings and cut out junk food, gain positive body image, lose the baby weight, focus on yourself in spite of the demands of being a busy wife/mom/student/career woman, moving out of your comfort zone is HARD and SCARY! Especially if your friends and family don’t support you or understand why you want to change.

In my monthly Facebook groups, I create a space in which women can find support, community, and guidance as they make healthier changes so they can stop the yo-yo/diet cycle, stop beating themselves up, and learn how to nourish their bodies with real food. It’s not about deprivation or crash diets or quick fixes, it’s more about what you can ADD to your life to uncover the best possible version of yourself. I post a motivational quote or mini-challenge everyday, and every night we all check in with our progress and how we're feeling.

You can learn more and apply to my next challenge group HERE.

Business mentoring

I also provide personal business mentoring to women who decide to join my coaching team and become a Beachbody coach too. My coaches usually come straight from my challenge groups, because once you discover how amazing you feel when you start treating yourself and your body with respect, it’s easy to want to pay it forward and help others. Coaching is a great way to share something you’re passionate about, align your life with your unique strengths and talents, earn a side income, work towards financial freedom, join a family of closely knit like-minded people, and design a life that is custom tailored around things that bring you joy.

Through coaching, you gain permission to be successful at life by simply being yourself and sharing your story with others.

You don’t have to "try" or hustle products, you don’t have to change or improve or be at your goal weight, you most certainly don’t have to be perfect! It’s our scars and mistakes and rock bottom moments that connect us to others, and showing that you’re simply working towards a bigger and better vision for yourself and your life is the most inspiring thing you can share with others.  

It sounds too good to be true, but it’s not! I’m living proof. Even if I still have a hard time believing that I’m literally living my dream of working for myself and making a bigger impact by sharing my gifts and creativity!

My team is growing into a powerhouse tribe little by little, and watching my coaches spread their wings and fly is my absolute favorite thing about my job. The sense of self worth that you gain when you start immersing yourself in a positive culture of empowerment, personal development, and a community of big-hearted women who have your back is INSANE! In the past 12 months alone, my coaches have already been able to leave soul-draining jobs and land their dream jobs, move to their dream cities, achieve their “happy weight,” tackle huge life bucket list dreams, make a side income to pay off loans and vacations, and are growing their own businesses and creating financial freedom for themselves and their families too. It’s like a ripple effect. We focus on helping one person at a time believe that they’re worth more, and the positivity spreads like wildfire.

You can read more about our team Inspire Joy HERE.

A day in the life

A "typical day" in my life as a full time Beachbody coach varies a lot and I love having flexibility and freedom, but I am consistent with a few important things. Every day I'll make sure to workout, eat healthy, drink my superfood smoothie, journal and work on personal development, write content for my blog or groups, post on Instagram and Facebook, catch up on messages and emails, check in with my coaches and challengers in our Facebook groups, and work on building relationships with potential coaches and clients. Every week I schedule one-on-one coaching calls with my team, tune into our team webinars, listen to our national training call, and will absorb as many random business or coaching podcasts, webinars, or YouTube videos as I can handle. 

Building your own business is a giant roller coaster, but I do my best to keep it real!

I've been working hard to establish work/life boundaries, and have been doing my best to stop work by 3 or 4 pm and take weekends off! Once Ben is home for summer I definitely want to open up my schedule more so we can enjoy the city, travel, and random adventures.

Something big I've been learning is that with coaching, more hours worked does NOT equal more success. The most crucial component to success is to keep myself inspired, enthusiastic, and motivated every day. Sometimes that means unplugging and taking a day off to paint, draw, read, drink coffee on the deck, watch mindless TV, or hang out with friends or family!

The ironic thing is that I worked more hours on my business while I was still working my full time job, than I do now! I'm learning how to work smarter, not harder, so I can maintain sanity and joy and leave lots of room for my Etsy business, hobbies, and life.

I'm learning that I don't have to be productive 100% of the time to build a thriving business. As a recovering perfectionist, over-achiever, workaholic, it's been a tough but oh so amazing pill to swallow, and despite the challenges of being an entrepreneur, I wouldn't have it any other way. My heart is full, I'm learning more and more about myself every day, and I've definitely discovered my bigger purpose in life! 

My personal coaching mission

One of the best things about Beachbody is that you have complete freedom to create a business that revolves around you and your unique strengths and interests. My personal mission as a coach is to enable women to reach their health and fitness goals, gain confidence, and learn how to love their bodies while working towards uncovering their “best selves.” Because the better you feel about yourself, the happier and more productive you can be, and the more you’ll be able to fully SHOW UP and be present in your life and for the people you love.

What is your “best self”? It’s different for everyone, but I believe that feeling your best starts with taking care of your body through nutrition and exercise.

Overall wellness, confidence, and joy are rooted in health and fitness. When you move your body, push your physical and mental limits, and nourish yourself with fresh nutrient dense foods you feel ALIVE. It doesn’t matter where you’re starting from, what you weigh, or how far you are from your “goals.” All that matters is that you’re making an active intentional choice to invest in yourself, to feel better and do things in the present moment that bring you energy and joy. It’s about taking CONTROL of your life, releasing the victim mentality of “I’ll never be good enough,” and making small changes.

I help women learn how to enjoy the journey and the process of life by sharing my own story, complete with the ups and downs. I’m not motivated or perfect every day and that’s ok. That’s what life is all about! If you can’t learn how to love your body, yourself, and your life right now (no matter how much of a crazy hot mess you think it is…) you’re never going to find happiness or joy in the future, no matter how much weight you lose or how “perfect” your diet is.

So stop waiting, stop postponing your happiness, stop thinking “once I can finally lose 10 pounds I’ll be able to have fun at the weddings/concerts/beach this summer” and start LIVING!

Surround yourself with women who are on the same path.

And for goodness sake do NOT ever believe anyone who tells you that you have to give up wine, carbs, chocolate, ice cream, pizza, burgers, your social life to be happy. Do more of what brings you joy, but listen to your body and respect it along the way.

"Progress, not perfection" is my motto. Closely followed by "treats, not cheats."

You were created to be vibrant, happy, energetic, joyful, and strong, to wake up every morning with a sense of excited possibility, inspired to take on each new day, and you deserve it.

Everything you are desperate to be, do, and feel already exists inside of you.

As a Beachbody coach, I will believe in you until you learn how to believe in yourself!

xo Anna

p.s. Curious to see if coaching might be for you? Click here to learn more about my team!

Beachbody does not guarantee any level of success or income from the Team Beachbody Coach Opportunity. Each Coach's income depends on his or her own efforts, diligence, and skill. See our Statement of Independent Coach Earnings located at https://images.beachbody.com/coach-office/downloads/statement_of_independent_coach_earnings.pdf for the most recent information on our Coaches' actual incomes.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (book review)

I’ve never thought of myself as a naturally organized or tidy person. I leave my clothes on the floor, I’ll start doing dishes but won’t finish them, I ignore piles of old papers and random junk, and folding laundry is the woooOOOoooOOrst! I’m more of a big picture thinker, and don’t like to focus on details, which is why when I was applying to graduate programs I quit biology for geography, trading microscopes for landscapes.

However, I’m type-A enough that I know I feel best in a clean, uncluttered, and organized space, and my Pinterest boards reflect that inner desire ;) But I haven’t been able to bridge the gap between who I am and who I want to be, so “purge closet,” “de-clutter,” “organize office” have been items on my to-do list for literally months and years and I end up feeling stuck and trapped. Mostly because the sheer thought of decluttering is so overwhelming! I don’t want to face the emotional investment that comes with deciding what to keep and what to discard. I’m a very sentimental person and I also have a resourceful side (which I credit to reading all the Boxcar Children books when I was little), a talent for creating something out of nothing, for looking at an object and imagining a dozen different possibilities or uses for it. Plus I have a physical aversion to waste! So if something might be useful down the road or is attached to memories or sentimental value, I can’t bring myself to throw it away! 

Do you get it?

Ben and I always complain about the lack of storage space in our apartment, but our apartment is not even that small. I just have so much random CRAP from past phases of life wasting all the storage space, stuff that we haven’t even touched since we moved here three summers ago. So the things I actually use on a regular basis are just crammed into shelves and corners. It’s stifling!

Now that I work from home, I’m learning just how important my physical environment is to my confidence, mood, and general ability to get shit done. I can’t think or work in a cluttered, messy space, but decluttering the apartment has been on the backburner as I’ve been focusing on building my business and figuring out my life. You know, the big picture things. Decluttering and organizing doesn’t feel important or urgent, so I just avoid it.

Over the past couple months I'm finally reaching a good place with my confidence, business, health and fitness, and social life, but I still felt “off,” and was still struggling with anxiety and dissatisfaction. Everything was good, I knew it was good, but it still didn’t FEEL good and I couldn’t pinpoint why. In April I took a coaching business training course with my Beachbody team. One of our assignments was to complete Chalene Johnson’s balance assessment, in which you rank your overall satisfaction in 10 core areas of life. My lowest score was "environment and surroundings" because I’ve never really loved our apartment, even though I spend almost 24/7 in it. 

Wait. Could my cluttered, messy apartment really be the last thing holding me back from accepting myself and finally overcoming the self-doubt and anxiety? BOOM! It was like a giant lightbulb went off in my head.

Enter: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

Have you heard of this book? It's apparently wildly popular right now, and was recommended to me by my friend/old supervisor, my life coach, and a couple bloggers I respect, so a few weeks ago I picked it up at my local bookstore on a whim.

OH MY GAHHHHHHH it’s legit, you guys. Magical, life changing, the whole shebang. I read the entire book in one weekend, then took three full days to tackle some major tidying. I went through my clothes, personal possessions, books, papers, fabric and art supplies, and office. I still have to deal with the kitchen and bathroom, but I already feel like a whole new person.

I won’t give too much of the book away, but it’s written by Marie Kondo, a Japanese personal organization consultant. She describes her method of decluttering and tidying a home for the long haul--no more just rearranging your stuff, hiding clutter in drawers, or falling back into old habits. Her system WORKS. It’s not emotionally overwhelming, and the sense of zen she infuses into the process makes donating or throwing things away feel respectful and oh so good.

Basically, you tidy by category, not by room. You start with clothes and accessories, then move onto books, and on down the list, going from items with least sentimental value to more value so you can be objective and don’t overwhelm yourself from the beginning.

When you begin a new category, you find everything that fits that category in the house and dump it onto the floor. Then you go through each item one by one, touching and handling every single object, and make a split second intuitive decision by asking yourself “Does this spark joy?”

If it doesn’t spark joy (or hold intrinsic value or necessary purpose), it goes bye bye! It’s as simple as that.

In the end, you’ll only keep your absolute favorite things. You don’t have to worry or be afraid of being forced to give up what you really care about, because it’s totally up to you, the decision is literally in your hands. The point is to live simply, surrounded only by objects that bring you joy and happiness. It is SO liberating!

I ended up donating three garbage bags full of clothes, dozens of books, downsized my shoe collection to around 23 pairs, organized my fabric stash, and have a space for everything! My once-small closet feels organized and spacious.

What I learned about the tidying process

-How to get rid of gifts or sentimental items without guilt.

-How to overcome the “it might be useful” or “I might wear it someday” trap.

-How to be systematic and productive instead of getting distracted, spending 2 hours down the rabbit hole of looking at old books and pictures, and giving up.

-How to finally say goodbye to old books, notebooks, and course materials!

-How to fold and store my clothes to take up less space and make everything visible.

(Here's a visual of the "vertical folding" technique, featuring my pj's/tank tops and bottoms.)

-How to say “thanks but no thanks!” without feeling guilty when a family member tries to pass down stuff to you.

-How to turn decluttering and tidying into an ART, not a chore.

What I’m learning about myself in the process

+ I am an "all or nothing" person, and that is OK!

I'm an enthusiast, passionate, all-in. When I do something I do it right, no holds barred. I love Marie's philosophy that you can't use the Pinterest approach of tidying for 20 minutes a day because you end up driving yourself crazy with a never-ending to-do list. You have to go all-in and take on your entire home in one fell swoop.

This helped me release a lot of guilt about how I think I "should" be running my business and life. Breaking things down into small daily actions sometimes is MORE overwhelming to me than getting it all done at once. (even follow ups, business stuff.) Having a huge daily to-do list with lots of little things gives me tons of anxiety, while having one or two main focuses everyday helps me stay calm and fulfilled! So I've re-structured my work schedule to create weekly and monthly systems instead of trying to do everything every day.

+ I have a personal style!

It emerged after I purged my closet of all the clothes I don't care about. I love black and dark colors, ivory, lace, florals, stretchy pants and leggings, flowy tops, comfy-classy-boho-sporty. I do not like to wear jeans, buttoned downs, brown, or pastels.

+ Deep down I AM a neat and organized person, and I do have the power to take control of my life and happiness instead of playing victim!

It’s SO liberating to say good-bye to past phases of life, old memories, and trappings of previous stages that no longer serve me. I got rid of all my grad school and college papers and articles...it was hard because so many years of blood sweat and tears went into those things, but they also were infused with so much stress.

I shared my 3 day tidying binge on Facebook and inspired several of my friends to read the book too. It’s an emotional process and I think it would be really fun to have an accountability group for support, so I’ve decided to add an optional Book Club component to my June Bootcamp for anyone who's interested in tackling a total life overhaul next month! We'll be making room in our lives for POSITIVE changes and habits by removing negativity and clutter.

We’ll set healthy habits, learn how to fuel our bodies with delicious nutrient dense food, build self esteem and work on developing a positive body image, learn how to love ourselves for who we already are, motivate each other, and most of all have fun! 

Make room for the good stuff in your mind, body, and life. You owe it to yourself and the people you love!

+ You can learn more about my Bootcamp here.

+ If you’re interested in joining us, please contact me here so I can get to know you and chat about your goals!

+ Enrollment is open until June 2nd.

Have you read this book? Let me know what you think in the comments below!

xo Anna