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Utterly, Utterly Demotivated

As I sit here in this gym, I have no shits left to give.

Every miniscule amount of progress I make is either immediately lost or falls by the wayside, as I struggle to improve elsewhere.

Inside or outside my training, I’m starting to feel totally numb to everything.

For every month I spend hitting punchbags and skipping, I get weaker. For every month I lift weights, I lose fitness and forget everything skill I have learned. If I combine my training, I exhaust myself and get slowly worse at everything.

Every time I beat a personal best in one lift, I can hardly shift the others. Every time I iron out a flaw in one technique, another one develops. Every time I think I’ve finally nailed something, I try it again a week or so later to find I’m right back where I started.

I always try to be upbeat on this blog, but frankly this is starting to suck. Everything I know about my training  have taught myself over months and years of relentless practise and experimentation.

I’ve spent thousands of hours in gyms, studios and on mats, drilling myself half to death to get that little bit better. I’ve injured myself more times than I can remember and suffered more than my fair share of aches and pains for days after training.

Christ, I even stumped up two grand and drove up and down the country, sleeping in cars and on floors throughout the middle of winter, to earn my Diploma in Personal Training faster than anybody else in the history of Lifetime Health and Fitness.

After all that, to turn back up at the gym and still find myself feeling  weak and uninspired is…galling.

More than that, though. To do work at anything this hard, knowing that you will make little or no progress in the long run is, frankly, stupid! Unless, of course, you are happy to potter along not getting any better, which I’m not.

I hope it’s just a passing phase but, right now, I don’t care. The worst bit of all is that, for the life of me, I don’t know what I’d rather be doing…

5 Comments
    • martha84
      Mar 6, 2012 at 7:43 PM / Reply

      I think a lot of fitness minded people go through bouts of what you’re experiencing – I know I do. Sometimes fitness is like an abusive lover that you just can’t stay away from – you give and give and do everything you can to even get a little bit of approval from them – and you have it momentarily… And it’s everything you hoped and dreamed it would be, but the very next week, month, day, it’s back to busting your ass putting all your time and dedication into striving for another moment of approval. I guess when I feel that way, I take a step back, think about what I really truly want to yield from my lifestyle of fitness, and then start doing things I enjoy. Breathe a little, clear the fitness drunk mindset, and make your relationship with it more than one sided – make it work for you. Best wishes.

      • murorga
        Mar 6, 2012 at 8:54 PM / Reply

        Hey – thanks for commenting! You know, I think you’re the third person EVER to comment on my blog; I really appreciate it, especially to say something so supportive.

        I know what you mean and this isn’t the first time I’ve felt like this. I think it’s a combination of things this time around, both inside and outside of training – a growing feeling that I’m going nowhere and achieving very little of any meaning. That and I just got the WordPress app for my phone, so I can blog as I think and feel things, rather than in a calmer state of mind when I get home and sit down for a bit, haha!

        I’m trying to make a change you suggested; working out what I want to get from my lifestyle, not just doing it for the sake of it. I’ve found some local clubs and gyms, where I can hopefully learn to use what I already know and put it into practise doing something fun. Nothing is more tedious than pumping iron, day after day, on your own.

        I checked out your blog – it’s great! Well done on keeping your training log up to date too – I haven’t touched mine for months! I guess after I missed a few weeks, it didn’t seem worth starting it back up again…maybe I should, or maybe that would be really depressing…

        Thanks again for commenting and for your advice. I’ll take it to heart and keep checking your blog 🙂

        Cheers,

        Ed

    • martha84
      Mar 6, 2012 at 9:27 PM / Reply

      I think your post totally stuck a chord with me so it warranted a comment – sometimes the choices we make in our lifestyle lead to confusion, isolation, and lack of an understanding support system – out goals are outside the norm. Blogging has become a great tool for me on the part of accountability and hearing what like minded people have to say! Keep it up, and don’t heat yourself up over the training log – the only reason why I do mine online everyday is because I’m really good at losing notebooks 🙂

    • Allen
      May 4, 2012 at 7:59 PM / Reply

      Totally feeling the same thing (found this googling because I am so demotivated. What you describe sounds a bit like depression/over training. When is the last time you had a full week off to recover? I think I’m actually getting a lot better but I just can’t see it because everyone else is getting better too; and seemingly faster. It’s a crap feeling.

      • murorga
        May 7, 2012 at 4:38 PM / Reply

        Hey Allen,

        You’re right – I rarely take enough time off to fully recover and the whole thing just turns into over-training. After this post, I took some time off, found some MMA gyms and took up combat sports to give me some direction. Worked perfectly – was just what I needed!

        How are you feeling now, any better? It is a terrible feeling, though I bet everybody is looking and you (and others) and thinking “Man, those guys are getting better some much faster than me!”. I suppose we all just notice our own weaknesses so much more than others do that it’s easy to think we’re getting nowhere fast.

        Hope you’re feeling better 🙂

        Ed

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