How I stay motivated to workout everyday

I’ve been consistently working out for about 8 years now. Weights, running, Crossfit, powerlifting, swimming…just about any workout that could be done, I have done.

I’m not saying this to brag, but simply stating that I have not spent my entire 8 years of working out trying to master one thing. I could be much bigger, could be much stronger, could run much longer, you get the point.

But what for me started out as a habit to stay physically in shape (basically, wanting a 6 pack – superficial, I know…but bear with me!), has transformed over time into something that is more mental and self-discovery.

I see working out as a path to empathy.

Empathy is the ability to understand and feel another person emotionally. It’s the ability to look at another’s situation and feel what they feel towards the circumstance and to the world.

“I feel you” is thrown around all the time, but true empathy is hard to come by.

Empathy towards people who you agree with is “walk in the park” easy. You agree with their stance because you have similar circumstances, so feeling what they do is no huge cognitive lift since you’re already wired that way.

Now, empathy towards people that you despise and believe are wrong is walking on coals difficult. Since you’re not wired the same, trying to understand their position is incredible difficult. You may not have been through what they have, so how can you possibly understand and empathize with their position?

There are two ways to handle those that disagree with you.

In today’s environment, the most popular path is to simply cancel or dismiss your enemies/oppositions viewpoint and claim the high ground, then continue on with your life. That’s easy. It takes virtually no effort other than the energy required to scoff or press a RT button.

But for people who want to make real changes and create impact in the world, whether it be within yourself, within your family, within your local community, or nation, most of the time you have to work with people who do not agree with you. You have to be able to move the people who are not seeing it your way into the direction where whatever change you’d like to see can happen.

In the political realm, Dems and Republicans can’t even have a discussion anymore without one of the parties making a big deal out of it and trying to become newsworthy. Empathy seems to be non-existent within our supposed leadership.

Citizens are just as guilty, claiming that everyone is f*cked, everyone else is wrong, and everyone needs to change. The easy thought is that “anyone that disagrees with me is going to get put on blast and I won’t stop until they are drowned out in silence.” Yikes.

I don’t like this route. It is easy and may win here and there.

Personally, I think empathy is the secret weapon to getting what you want. To be able to look at someone’s position, detach from your emotions, ask yourself, “how did they come to this conclusion” and treat them like a human in your conversation just seems more humane and more likely to get somewhere.

So, how does working out play its part in this, Eddie?

Yes, great question. I started by stating that working out is not as much a physical battle as it is a mental/developmental journey. I then discussed why empathy is important to making a change.

Now, my claim is that by working out, you can better empathize with yourself on how difficult it is to make simple changes; therefore, increasing your ability to empathize with other’s on how difficult it is to make changes in their life.

Even beyond just working out, think about when you’ve set out to change your lifestyle to become healthier. Working out, eating right, etc. How did that go?

For most (I’d probably say all), it was extremely difficult. You create a plan, get excited about the plan, but then once you try to implement it, all hell breaks loose. You’re two days in wanting a Hershey’s bar so damn bad that you’re shaking in your living room thinking about it (ok, that might just be me….yes, I’m still on my own journey)

To summarize, making change is HARD.

Follow me here: Becoming healthier is one of the most simplest (not easy mind you) forms of change one can go through.

The formula is as follows:

Healthier = more activity – bad calories + good calories

Not only is the formula simple, it only involves one party – you.

You don’t usually have to get permission or come to an agreement on anything regarding your health. You just have to wake up and do it.

Despite the formula being simple, everyone still fails. I fail almost weekly. But becoming healthier is not impossible. It takes time, resilience, reflection, understanding, and so much more. But it can be done and has been done.

So think about this: if becoming healthier, which is a 3 step formula and only involves one party, is a difficult change to make, how difficult do you think more complex changes are?

Changes to society, changes to community, changes to viewpoints that people have had for decades, etc. We demand these things to change overnight, yet don’t have the empathy to take a step back, see things from the other person’s viewpoint, and realize that change is really tough. Especially when it involves multiple parties that all have different opinions and ideas of what is right and wrong.

But trying to cancel someone or discounting their views is not the path to change. It only makes you feel temporarily better.

If you actually care enough about the change you want to make, you’ll spend the time not just understanding why your idea makes sense, but you’ll also take the time to try to understand why it won’t work – and that requires you having empathy towards people of differing opinions so that you can learn from them the potential downsides of your thoughts and ideas to either a) fortify your positioning of them or b) change how strongly you believe in them.

When you’ve gone through trying to live a healthier life and failed over and over again, you’re getting firsthand experience of how chaotic and frustrating change can be. You’re trying to overwrite years of habits, opinions, thinking, and relationships.

You better understand what is required to change so you can take that experience and empathize more with others.

It’s not easy and I don’t believe empathy is equivalent to tolerating. If someone is wrong (racist, misogynistic, rude, corrupt, etc.) I’m not saying to let that be, chalking it up to you being empathetic.

But I’m simply saying that by being more empathetic to how much of a struggle it is to make a change yourself, you’ll understand why certain people or groups may not take what you seem to believe to be right as right. You’ll see the world more clearly and gain inner peace. You’ll be able to move people and pick your battles more wisely.

Empathy leads to change and change leads to empathy. By working out and becoming healthier myself, I have learned the struggles of adapting lifestyles. In that journey, I’ve become more patient with others and more understanding of differing viewpoints. I’ve looking at the other side of my own believes to fortify and strengthen what I agreed with and altered my thinking with what I didn’t.

Working out and staying healthy is no longer just a way to get a 6 pack (shallow). It’s a way to live a better life within myself and the people around me. That’s why I am excited to set my alarm for 4 or 5 am every day to wake up and get after it.

How are you becoming more empathetic to yourself and others?