The Gym Motivator. Notice he's brandishing a magic wand...

I’m trying to do a lot of things this month, like go to the gym with regularity, and be on twitter more often. I subscribe to this guy on twitter who describes himself as “Gym Motivator” (@inspirationboss). Usually he just posts motivational quotes, but he posts over ten times a day, so every time I check in his tweets are usually near the top. Some quotes are the ol’ standbys:

“You must be the change you want to see in the world” -Ghandi

Others seem completely unrelated to gym motivation:

“You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” -Zig Ziglar

However, recently I noticed that @inspirationboss just rapidly cycles through about 15 of the same quotes, and constantly re-uploads them every few hours. Gym Motivator is one lazy SOB.

In the grand scheme of themes, that doesn’t really matter. I doubt anyone on the planet was relying on their hourly, if very familiar, motivational quote from @inspirationboss to get their butt to the gym. But as someone who is trying to get themselves back into the swing of all things gym I have to ask: How do you do it? What’s more, is how do you keep doing it?

Thus far in my adult life I’ve had a lot of “Monday Resolutions.” Y’know, things I was going to really get crackin’ on come Monday. Or post-holidays. Or next New Years.

A few weeks ago I was going to start going to the gym as soon as I got my new New Balances from Zappos. But, in a crushing blow to my well-laid plans, when they arrived they were too big. And that’s really thrown off my projections of operation gym. I’m going to have to push back the deadline. My new shoes were really the foundation of the whole gym platform, and I can’t see moving forward without them.

Welcome to my brain. I’m ridiculous.

I know all of that is silly. If I was really motivated to exercise I could do it barefoot, without the perfect playlist, for free. It’s becoming clear that I’m stretching these rationalizations because I’m shooting for the wrong goal. I don’t want to go to the gym. I want to want to go to the gym. How do I motivate myself to get motivated?

Gym Motivator said  today (and every day for over 3 months):

“I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.” -Oprah Winfrey

I don’t want to dwell in a place of unspoken excuses and wake up (if I’m lucky) in the ER for a cardiac arrest because I was waiting to use my refund from Zappos to fund a crucial pair of gym shoes. That, at least, I know.

I guess that’s a place to start.