I Went To The Gym With Zero Motivation For 2 Years!

8 min readSep 10, 2020

There were two times in my life where I had zero motivation to work out: the beginning of my fitness journey (pretty much everyone here)… and five years into my fitness journey.

In the beginning, I used to be a very overweight kid throughout middle school and most of my high school years. Hitting puberty as a boy motivated me to start working out, as I OBVIOUSLY needed to look good to impress the girls.

Little did I know you attract people asking you ‘how much you bench?’ more than anything.

Anyway, I did not see any progress for months but was pushed to keep going by my mother. Eventually, I saw results and then I was hooked consistently for five years… because I felt better, healthier, and happier.

For over five years, I loved every minute of exercise… until I didn’t.

Today, I wanted to talk about the habits that got me into exercise… and the habits that kept me going even when I hated exercise years.

Let’s get after it!

The Zero Motivation Streak

As I mentioned in the beginning, for over five years, I loved lifting weights… and then things changed.

I finished college, and bright-eyed, I got a demanding job at a Rental Car company (working 50–60 hours weekly). This job exhausted me mentally and physically.

As time progressed there, exercising just seemed monotonous and completely boring to me. The last thing on my mind was working out.

Yet, I always thought about how I felt and looked in the past, how depressed I was… and how I could NOT go back to that.

While working at this chaotic job, I wasn’t completely unhappy. While overtime, I started to dislike the job… the one thing that kept me going was the thing I dreaded going to — the gym.

Fun fact: physical exercise and good nutrition have been proven to help with depression, mood, and more.

The Rocky Relationship With Fitness

While time went on, I reminded myself of the things that got me to build the discipline around fitness. Some of the habits weren’t all backed by science, but they really helped me through the course of two years of not loving fitness.

There are a lot of factors that allowed me to stay disciplined through this bout, and I wanted to talk about quite a few of them, and actually explain the behavioral psychology behind them.

One thing I learned from the beginning of my fitness journey (from my trainer) was that most of the success in exercise comes from the healthy habits you implement in your lifestyle. This is not just from the actions you do, but also the environment you surround yourself in.

We are creatures of habit… and according to behavioral psychology, our habits are influenced by a few things:

Small Incremental Steps. Discipline is like a muscle. When you don’t absolutely destroy yourself when implementing a new habit like exercise, you build better habits around them. 1% a day — 100 days of this makes you 100% better than you are today.
Your Environment. The environment is a huge subconscious factor in play. If you work from home and in the kitchen, chances are you are eating more. If you have junk food in your eyesight, you’re more prone to eat it.
An Epiphany. Sometimes health scares immediately change our habits and lifestyle (we are going to focus on the other two in this post).

In understanding this, you are able to start implementing strategies to start or even influence your journey towards exercise.

I like to call these things “Habit Hacks”, and I want to share with you some of mine!

How I Rekindled The Flame With Habit Hacks

Most of the Habit Hacks I will describe in this section revolve around exercise specifically… but you can implement some of these with nutrition.

Let’s get after them!

I. Planner

One habit hack that helped me stay motivated consistently when I absolutely despised working out was a planner.

I treated my gym session as a part of my work schedule.
I would block out a section of my day (1–2 hours) for “gym”, and I made exercise my duty.

While there are various benefits when it comes to journaling, setting time blocks for things I need to do allowed me to commit to them.

Today, I utilized my planner constantly… and wherever I set my time block for “gym”, I NEED to do it.

II. Gym Clothes In My Car

Remember that habits are influenced by your environment. As I would work these long 10 hour days, I would keep my gym clothes and shoes sitting on the passenger seat of my car.

I would scream at myself after being so exhausted from work… but the clothes would remind me to head to the gym.
I usually always got a second wind after listening to some good music or podcast.

To take this a step further, you could use a strategy like enclothed cognition to influence your motivation to go to the gym. Enclothed cognition is when you associate your clothing with something. For example, if you associate your gym clothes and shoes as “workout time” — this could have an impact on your urge to go exercise.

I know when I put on my gym clothes before my workout, I get that urge to go out there and crush my workouts.
I typically only wear my gym clothes BEFORE the gym for this reason.

III. Drive STRAIGHT There!

When I would get into my car, I would make it my mission to drive straight to the gym — and stop nowhere.

I know for a fact when I got home, I would prime myself to laze away watching Netflix or other streaming services.

If I got into the gym’s active environment instead, I would be more “primed” to work out — because everyone else is doing it.

According to a systematic review, environmental factors can contribute to exercise adherence — watching people workout motivates others to do the same.

IV. The Annoying Timer

I forced an annoying timer on my phone to remind me I had to go to the gym before going home. This was another “trigger” for my habit.

According to

When I would start contemplating my life’s decisions, the annoying timer would go off that says “GO TO THE GYM!”.

Today, many exercise apps have alarms that notify you when it’s time to work out. Plan to set these 15 minutes before your workout.

V. The Reward

According to ScienceDaily, sometimes an alarm clock is not enough… sometimes, you will need a reward after your workout.

Create that reward in a healthy protein shake or smoothie after your workout.

I always “rewarded” myself with 2 scoops of a great tasting protein powder, with a carbohydrate supplement or a protein fruit smoothie. It felt very nourishing to have a nutritious and great tasting reward post-workout — something I could look forward to.

Vanilla Protein with Orange Juice? Creamsicle. Amazing.

Once a week, I would head on over to Yogurtland to grab myself some frozen yogurt with blueberries, strawberries, and bananas. What I would do with this is add 1–2 scoops of Protein powder after I bought it, and mixed it.

Protein Powder + Frozen Yogurt is an experience you probably never knew you wanted until you heard about it from me.

VI. The Morning and Evening Routines

The two parts of our day that we have the most control over are our mornings and evenings. We have the most control over what we do upon waking, and what we do before bed.

This is why the most opportunistic moments to get things done for yourself are the mornings and evenings.

Knowing this, I would sometimes wake up earlier to go to the gym if I knew I couldn’t work out in the evening. As much as I hated it at the time, it was “ME time” — the only parts of my day where I could focus on myself instead of being in service to others (work).

I would set my schedule the following way:

4:30–6:00 am: Wake up, prepare for the gym — or have “Me time”
6:00 am: Drive to Work
7:00 am-4:00 pm: Work
4:00–5:00 pm: Drive Home from Work (or straight to the gym)
5:00–7:00 pm: Gym Time, Me Time, or Family Time
7:00 pm-8:30 pm: Evening Routine
9 pm: Go to Sleep

If you have a family and kids, waking up earlier and having a morning workout will allow you to accomplish the hardest part of your day — first thing in the morning.

Most gyms open around 4–5 am, so getting in there extra early (and sleeping earlier than usual on weekdays) might be your best bet.

My Last Lesson Learned

All in all, one of my greatest strengths in handling this bout was the five years I consistently trained before. This consistency allowed me to build a discipline around it, where I NEEDED to work out.

An urge to work out was always there. Despite how much I disliked it… my body needed it. If I didn’t do it, I felt like I was missing something in my life.

This discipline was built over the course of 5 years of consistent training… which made this significantly easier for me.

I wanted to remind you that I used most of these Habit Hacks the first time I started my fitness journey.

But this last and final Habit Hack was one of the ones I never considered… as ridiculously simple it was. The final Habit Hack that REKINDLED the flame for exercise once again.

Are you ready?

Add very small incremental changes to your workout.

Remember when I said that habits can be influenced by small incremental changes — that 1% change?

My workouts were very strength-based at the time (powerlifting and the Big 3 — Squat, Bench, and Deadlift). I decided to add more exercises like weighted pull-ups, Front Squats, cardiovascular exercise, and more… and I started to love fitness once again.

I needed some variety in my life.

If you ever find yourself in the same boat, utilize some of the habits I have implemented to get yourself to a gym or a park. While it may suck at first, you will eventually build consistency around it.

I wanted to take the time to thank you all for reading this story. As I am new to Medium, I felt like this might help some others in similar situations — or even people who are just starting their journey.

If you liked this post, please let me know — I have quite a few stories I’d like to share.

Until next time everyone!