Motivating yourself

[durron597]

Starting this off with a personal story:

I have always kinda vaguely wanted to get myself in shape and lose my gut for the last 5+ years. I would go on "health kicks" where I would diet for a month but not exercise or alternately I would lift weights maybe 6 times in 2 weeks and then stop. Reasons for stopping would be various "oh I'm tired today", or "I feel sick". One time I started going swimming and got swimmers ear the 2nd time out, bought swimming earplugs, they kept falling out because I suck at life, then I just felt like crap for awhile and got busy at my job and just stopped again.

However, I have now lifted weights 3 times a day and spent 45 minutes on the treadmill 6 times a week for a month straight. I have also completely restructured my diet, I eat breakfast every morning now and do the whole "lots of small meals" thing. I see no signs of me stopping any time soon. What's keeping me going? I paid $540 for 10 sessions with a personal trainer and I'll be damned if I waste all that money.

I wasn't going to post this thread because I have pretty high standards for threads I start in this forum but then I read this post in STTF. A pretty standard post really (not really important to click on); basically somebody asking "how do you get the discipline to spend enough hours grinding SnGs to make real money at them". Pineapple888 makes a great reply:

[ QUOTE ]


This has been asked 234124513456 times.

Typical answers:

1.) Just do it, you lazy bum.

2.) Work set hours. Although to some that feels too much like a job.

3.) External enforcement, either with someone you know in person, or prop bets/challenges.

If none of those things work, poker may not be the right career.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which got me thinking: I know a lot of the SnG regulars make prop bets about leaderboards and such with each other to keep themselves going in what boils down to, really, a very boring game (SnG poker, not all poker ldo).

I don't know where I'm going with this really. In college it was hard for me to motivate myself to do my schoolwork; except in group projects where other people were depending on me, and I had a much easier time. I guess the question I ask is - what do you all do to motivate yourself? I suppose many people (especially in this forum) have enough strength of character that they are just go-getters; doing what they need to do because that's the type of person they are. But if you're not that type of person - what do you do to achieve the same results?