Stop Waiting for Motivation

Everyone wants motivation. We tell ourselves that if we just had enough of it, we’d finally be able to do all the things—work out, meal prep, eat healthy, practice self-care. So we start a new diet, buy a supplement that promises to fix everything, or jump into an exercise plan. But then life happens. Someone gets sick, work gets crazy, the schedule fills up, and by the time we get home, all we have energy for is pajamas and scrolling on the couch.

A friend once told me, “You must love getting up early to work out.” The truth? I don’t love getting up at 4:45 a.m. I love to stay i my nice warm bed. I love is how I feel when the workout is done. I love the strength I’ve built—like carrying 50-pound bags of horse feed by myself (though I won’t complain when someone else helps). But it’s not motivation that gets me out of bed. It’s practice. It’s laying out my clothes, setting my water bottle by the door, and sometimes heading out without my beloved coffee.

Motivation might give you a little spark at the start, but it’s the habits that keep you moving.

I see this all the time. Someone gets excited about getting healthy—they’ve got a brand-new plan. Maybe it’s eating chicken and cucumbers for three months. Maybe it’s training for a marathon when they haven’t been running at all. At first, they’re fired up. But when I check in a month later? They’re burned out, miserable, and convinced being healthy is “too hard.”

Here’s the thing: people think being healthy is awful. That it means never eating cake, running 50 miles a week, living at the gym, counting 12,000 steps, eating 1,200 calories, and being sad all the time. And yes—if your goal is visible abs, you’ll need to go to extremes. But if your goal is health? It’s about small, consistent steps at a level that makes sense for your life.

If you’re walking 2,000 steps a day, aim for 4,000. If you eat fast food every day, cut it back to once a week. Small changes add up. They’re sustainable. And they’ll take you so much further than trying to overhaul everything overnight.

The problem is, our world has sold us a false “normal”—Starbucks every day, a phone always in our hand, groceries delivered, evenings spent on the couch staring at a screen. We’ve lost the balance God intended for us. He gave us everything we need to care for our bodies, but instead of enjoying food and rest in moderation, we’ve made sitting and overindulgence our way of life.

So stop waiting for motivation—it’s not coming. And if it does, it won’t last. What works is planning, discipline, and showing up even when you don’t feel like it. Most days it’s just going through the motions until it becomes a habit. And if it’s messy at first? That’s okay. Failure is practice. Use it, learn from it, and keep moving forward.

If you’ve tried to get healthy over and over again and it hasn’t stuck, maybe it’s time to get help. That’s what I’m here for. Reach out—I’d love to walk this journey with you.