Do you find it hard to stay on track with your fitness goals or find yourself feeling overwhelmed by everything on your to-do list? Join me today to talk about the 5 key reasons we get burned out, and how you can “all or something” your way forward!
In this episode, I’m exploring….
⭐️ If you’re stuck in a rut, here’s what to do!
⭐️ Identifying burnout and shifting things to serve you better
⭐️ What to do when results start to decrease in perimenopause and post menopause
⭐️ The way our brain seeks excitement
⭐️ How you can connect more deeply to the reasons behind your goals
⭐️ The choices we make today are setting us up for the woman we’ll be tomorrow
Links to follow up from this episode:
- Access to a Rock Your Life membership (custom programs for women in all life stages)
- Guide to Training with your Cycle
- Perimenopause Training and Nutrition Guide
- Post-Menopause Training and Nutrition Guide
Episode Transcript
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(00:15):
What’s up, Rockstars Coach Betty Rocker here. Hey, great to talk to you. Thanks for tuning in Today, I wanted to talk about this topic of motivation because I find that it’s, it’s hard to maintain all the time. It’s hard to find a way to continue forward with things that we have maybe committed to or planned to do. We all have a lot of really great intentions sometimes, and then we fall off track. So if this has been you recently or you find that you struggle with this periodically, I wanna give you some ideas and reasons why that could be, and some ways to, you know, keep going and also not to beat yourself up for falling off track all the time, because it’s very normal to ebb and flow with your routine. And so, I just wanna say that right up front that one of the reasons I’ve really embraced this philosophy of all or something, has been to give myself and all of you grace and space to like get through life.
(01:13)
You know, like there’s a lot more to life than just our health and fitness goals. They are super important foundational pieces of living a long life and a healthy body that you love. But there are other things that happen. And it’s important to just know that the foundation that you build will always be there to support and serve you. If you need to take a break from it, you can come back to it and beating yourself up when you’ve had to step back because you got ill or someone else that you take care of got ill, this is not good for you. You don’t, you don’t need to be down on yourself for that, you know, just, you just pick back up and keep going. But when it comes back to just the daily motivation to move forward with goals that we’ve set for ourselves and commitments and intentions that we have, I feel like there are some really specific reasons why we can kind of fall off track.
(02:07)
And I think if we talk about them, it can be really helpful for identifying when they come up, what you can do about them. So one of the reasons is we get bored. So if you, if you’re someone who likes a routine, that is a great thing because it helps you, you know, follow through on your goals. You’ve got a time that you like to maybe work out every day, or you’ve got a, a day of the week that you pick to, to go grocery shopping and make your meals for the week. Maybe there’s, you know, a bedtime that you’ve set, you’ve got a routine, but sometimes we get bored or we wanna just like deviate from that. And it’s, it’s easy to, to start to just like lose your, your motivation to keep going. So maybe you just need a little bit of variety.
(02:52)
Your body really does crave variety and, and you do need some options. You need some outs, you need some, some ways to vary it is that you’re doing, so like when it comes to food, for instance, if you’ve been kind of stuck in a food rut, which happens to me, happens sometimes when I’m just like really busy and I’ve been cooking the same two meals for like the entire month. , right? Because I just don’t have time or energy to think about more than that, I get really bored. And so instead of continuing to cook meals or look for new recipes, I’ll start getting takeout or I’ll start deviating from my really whole food meals that I know really give me the best energy. And that’s not great because I’ll start to just not feel good. I’ll, my stomach will get upset. And so if I can identify that, that I’m just bored, I’m like, oh, I just need some new recipes.
(03:44)
So that would inspire me to go look up some new recipes and kind of give myself something new. Even if I am just sticking to a couple of simple recipes, it might be that I just need something new and something exciting. Same thing goes for your workout routines. If you are doing the same thing over and over and you are just getting bored with it, you probably just need to spice things up. So it might be time to look into a new routine. It might be time to check out some different workouts or, you know, try something new. And if you’re in, for instance, if you’re in Rock Your Life, of course you could go to our class library and find tons of different workout ideas and and workouts to do. You could also grab a different challenge. We have over 50 challenges to choose from of all different types.
(04:26)
So those are some fun options if you’re a member. We also have just, you can just get workout programs for me that are fantastic and I, I really do encourage you to follow a workout plan with an experienced trainer, whether it’s me or someone else, because I feel like we all really need more than just random YouTube videos, or workout videos because it’s easy to overtrain. And one of the things that I really find helps the people who work with me is the form cues and the constant focus on posture and alignment and really thinking a lot about, you know, how our body functions from the ground up and the things that we do in our daily lives. Like what is your job? How are you using your body in your day-to-day life? And how is that affecting your posture and alignment? And then if you go to your workout, how can you ensure that you are training the muscles that help strengthen you and not overtraining muscles that you’re already using in your day-to-day life.
(05:22)
So a great example of that would be if you’re sitting in a desk all day and you’re working with your hands in front of you, you probably need to work on strengthening your back muscles more. Because with your arms in front of you, you’re constantly working your chest muscles, you’re also sitting all day. So you need to get up and work the posterior chain work, the glutes, work the legs more, help build that strength and balance into your body. So that’s why I say, you know, it’s a good idea to work with an experienced trainer. If you’re got somebody in person that’s fantastic, they can really tailor things to you. But if you are, um, saving money and you find somebody who you like and trust, get a program, follow it, and then change your program back to talking about not being motivated because you’re bored.
(06:06)
Maybe you’ve been cycling through like the same two programs back and forth for the entire year or for a while, you know, just because you liked them when you got them and they were effective, it may be that they just aren’t gonna be as effective for you anymore because your body has reached a certain level of adaptation to the challenge presented by that program. And you actually need something different to challenge your body in a new way. Challenge your muscles to respond in a different way. Maybe you need different rep ranges or different moves. You know, your body’s made up of all of these different muscles and you have all of these different ways that your body can move. So, uh, I think that if you wanna address boredom, that’s a really great way to think about how, if that’s true for you, that could be something that could be really, really helpful is to just look into spicing things up a little bit.
(06:56)
And then another thing that kind of dovetails in with boredom, this is like, the second thing I I think happens a lot to us is burnout. And burnout is kind of like a combination of boredom and overload combined, right? So we get burned out because we are potentially over training or maybe you’re not doing too many workouts, but you’re tired. And so the workouts that you’re doing are actually making you feel overtrained because they’re more than your body can recover from. And this is easy to do by accident. Like, so if you’re still in your regular cycling years and you are going through a really stressful period of your life, or you’re just not getting a lot of sleep, or you haven’t been eating enough, you can run your body down and and not realize it. And then your training, you don’t have the building blocks that you need to support the level of training that you’re doing.
(07:50)
And so you start to really get depleted and, and burned out. And this can make you feel like you’re not excited to go into your workout, you’re not excited to do a lot of things ’cause your energy levels are actually dropped, so you’re really burned out. And if you’re in perimenopause or post menopause, um, you know, as we start to lose that cycling estrogen and progesterone that we had in our regular cycling years, this is where we, our resilience to exercise starts to go down a bit. Because estrogen really is a big key player in supporting muscle building. And, and as we lose it, um, we actually need to train smarter and harder, but in a new way with more strategy. That’s why say if you’re in rock your life, you’ve probably seen how all of the challenges have different tracks so you can follow them.
(08:43)
If you’re in peri post menopause, they have, you know, specific customized rest days so that you can strategically train harder on the days you train, and then take the right amount of recovery days around your workout so that you can really optimize your body’s ability to adapt and develop muscle tissue. You do have a little bit more resilience for this when you’re a little bit younger, when you’re in your cycling years because of that perturbation of estrogen and progesterone and you, your body absorbs its amino acids from your protein really well, so it’s able to repair and recover. But once we get over 40, we’re not absorbing those protein, the aminos from protein as easily. And it’s, it’s harder for your body to recover. That’s why you need more strategic recovery. You need to be hitting your workouts hard when you do them. So you need to be rested and recovered going into them.
(09:26)
But this, it’s easy to burn yourself out, especially I feel like in perimenopause where we’re just making that transition and some of us don’t realize that we’re in the transition. So we’re starting to get frustrated because we’re feeling like the things we used to do, they’re not working the same anymore because there aren’t a lot of options or education for us available. We think, well, I have to do more of what I’ve been doing before, so I need to eat, probably eat less, go on a diet. I probably need to exercise more than I am right now. And we end up getting depleted and burned out because of that. So that can be a reason that, you know, we, we think we’re not motivated and we think we’re failing and we think we’re not doing enough, but it’s actually we are burned out in depleting our energy.
(10:08)
And we could be doing that in any different life stage that we’re in. And that’s just something to really check in with yourself about and, and think about, you know, am I balanced in my training? Am I, you know, am I depleting myself or am I, am I, you know, nourishing myself and am I listening to my body? Am I taking enough rest days to support myself? And if you’re, if you need guidance, of course I have that available for you. And I just really want you to know about that and think about that. Now, another reason that you might stop feeling motivated is that you’re just overwhelmed. And this is also really related to the last two, I think, because, and then I also feel like, I feel like in the last few years, really since 2020, I feel like this overwhelm, this sense of like, that life is so heavy.
(10:55)
I feel like that a lot of us have been really carrying that around with us on top of the daily stress of just life and all the responsibilities that we take on ourselves every day just to get through life with our, you know, earning a living and staying on top of our health and, and, and taking care of your family or whatever all of the responsibilities are that you have to deal with. There’s all these competing messages, fear of unknown, like, what’s gonna happen next? What’s gonna happen for future generations? What’s happening right now? Like, it, it’s so stressful and I feel like it, there’s just this kind of massive strain on our bodies that we can just kind of get numb to and, and we kind of shut down. And it can just be really challenging to find within yourself, like desire and drive to keep exercising or keep, you know, pushing yourself forward with health habits when you have this compounded stress of daily life and all of these new challenges.
(11:53)
And some of the things that have really helped me get through the last couple of years. And, and you may have noticed that I’m not on social media as much the last year, or I’m not doing as many podcasts the last year. And part of that is because I’ve been taking care of my mental health. I’ve been trying to really listen to my body and listen to my energy. And when I’m in a constant constant output mode, I can get really burned out myself. And I, I feel like overwhelmed by responsibility. And so what I come back to and what I’ve found is the most helpful to get around some of those negative mental loops that can kind of grind us down in the overwhelm that we feel is first and foremost trying to shift the framework of the conversation I’m having internally to one of gratitude.
(12:43)
Because then every moment of every day I could find something. And once I start, I find many things to be grateful for. I could be grateful. I mean, just the simple fact that I am sitting here right now talking to you is really special. Like the fact that I can harness the power of technology to do this and you can harness the power of technology to do this and that you have chosen to be part of this conversation with you right now. Like, I’m super grateful for that. Like, that’s amazing. And I think about all the opportunities that I have and all the things I’ve been able to create for myself and my life and my dog, , my amazing family. Like, I just start going through this list and it suddenly starts to change the framework of my mindset and starts to put things in a better perspective for myself.
(13:28)
I’ve also found my way back to my meditation practice, which at times when I’m overwhelmed, I just completely fall off of because I’m just overwhelmed. I just get so busy. And like what I said at the beginning of this podcast about how you just, you gotta give yourself space and grace to not do everything all the time perfectly. Like nobody can. We’ve gotta have that all or something mentality to just, just take it easy on yourself as you navigate through life, like life happens. So I fall off my meditation practice, but then I come back to it and I can’t believe how much better I sleep at night just doing one meditation a day. And I just sit there and I practice this thing I learned from my friend Emily Fletcher, where I have this mantra, this word, and I just focus on the word and I lose track of the word all the time when I’m doing the meditation practice, but I come back to it, it’s like an anchor point and that’s a really helpful meditation for me.
(14:21)
I also love meditations that are guided. I love using like the calm app and others. And it just depends, just like whatever gives you like that sense of peace and grounding to help you deal with feelings of overwhelm, I think that’s really, really essential. Another thing that kind of goes back along with the all or something theme is, is practicing forgiveness. And this is something that I’ve had to really learn to practice on the regular basis because it’s so easy to just, especially with all the, and the pressure of daily life to, to just want to like blame other people snap back when things aren’t going our way. It’s really hard to constantly find the grace, constantly find the good, but it’s possible. We just have to practice it. And that’s why I start with forgiveness. I start with gratitude, forgiveness first, maybe for myself, for being impatient, forgiveness, trying to walk in somebody else’s shoes in the moment that they’re in and try to understand it from their perspective.
(15:18)
What were their intentions? I feel like people are generally, they have good intentions. They’re not trying to harm us or hurt us. Of course there are exceptions as we all know. And, and yet if we can walk in someone’s shoes and maybe see where they’re coming from, we can practice that forgiveness. Um, that doesn’t mean we don’t set boundaries with people who have wronged us, but it does mean that we can let go of those bad feelings that sap our energy, sap our ability to let go of things that hurt us. But that’s a deeper conversation. But in general, meditation, gratitude, forgiveness, and simple things like making lists and organizing what I have in my head. ’cause it’ll start to spin out and spin around in my head. And I’ve talked to and coached a lot of people with this practice of lists because it’s really helpful to just see it all written down sometimes get it outta your head.
(16:09)
One of my friends gave me this great tool where, you know, and I’m sure a lot of you guys journal, but it was the framework of the tool that was really helpful for me. If you’ve ever, um, made a stew, you know how at some point some of the stews you have to skim the foam off the top. I feel like journaling sometimes is like skimming the foam off the top of my brain where I’m just pulling out the stuff that is just extra that I can just get away, get, get out of my head and like let go of it. And I’ll often do a journaling exercise where I just free write for 10 minutes, just skimming that foam off of my brain and then I just never look at it again. It’s just, I just get it out of my head and it feels I feel lighter after I do it.
(16:49)
So you could try something like that. Or maybe you have a journaling practice or a journaling framework that you’d like to share. I’d love to hear about it. I’d love to hear what any of your practices are for dealing with things like overwhelm. When I’m feeling overwhelmed, sometimes it’s really hard for me to reach out to other people because I feel weak or I feel like I don’t wanna burden someone with all of my problems. But it’s really helpful to have you know, that, that sense that you’re not alone and to know that there are people who care about you and, and you just reach out. And I think in that reaching out there also comes, you know, the, the thought of other people who really need you. Like I know that you’re the probably the type of person that people reach out to and know they can count on.
(17:34)
And I, in case nobody’s told you how much they appreciate you lately, I just, I want you to know that you’re, you’re appreciated. And I, I just know that you’re the kind of person who, who does a lot for other people. And I, I think that deserves to be acknowledged. So acknowledge yourself for all the things that you do appreciate yourself. Don’t be afraid to reach out. And, and I’m gonna move on to the fourth reason I feel like we lose track of our motivation and that is that we don’t have things to look forward to now. I think when we get overwhelmed with life or we get burned out or exhausted, it’s hard to make things happen for ourselves that we are looking forward to. I’ve, I’ve read the stats that it’s harder for adults to make new friends and I think, you know, if you get into a routine with your immediate family or your isolated in any way from broader social life, it’s really easy to get stuck in a rut of constantly just going to work, going home, going to bed, you know, like you’re just in this sort of track that doesn’t have any variety, that doesn’t have any, you know, anything for you to look forward to.
(18:39)
So make the time to make things to look forward to for yourself. And I feel like even like small micro events, something for the weekend that will help you feel more excited about just doing other things in general. Like your workout, when you have things to look forward to, it gives you that sense of something that’s coming up. So you wanna prepare for it. And sometimes I find that just having, you know, knowing someone’s coming over to my house or knowing I’m going to someone’s house, I wanna, I wanna make sure I get my workout done, or I wanna make sure I’ve eaten well or I wanna cook for them. And that can be really, really helpful for just getting yourself to feel, you know, more motivated, more excited and general about all the things that you have to do. And then I think the last thing I wanna talk about is today is, is about the reason why you have chosen to have a healthy lifestyle in the first place.
(19:35)
And reconnecting with why it is that you want to pursue these goals that maybe you’re not feeling motivated to pursue right now. And so if we just look at exercise for example, why do you want to exercise? I know for myself in the beginning, like back when I first started exercising, I liked how strong I felt and, uh, then I liked how good I looked. I’m not gonna deny it. I mean, I was very excited to feel like how I looked was so awesome and, and, and sexy and, and physically like powerful. And I realized over time that the aesthetic goals were kind of a little bit too much of a driver for me. I was a little bit caught up in appearances and that wasn’t enough of a reason for me to continue to train or continue to eat healthy. I would get so worried about my weight, for instance, or about how I looked in a bathing suit.
(20:32)
I would not really enjoy the moment of swimming or being at, at the beach or whatever. I was more worried about how I looked than, um, how I felt and what my health was like. And as a result, I made a lot of choices that ran my energy levels. I overtrained I under ate, I, i I don’t feel like I was very healthy. And I, as I started to really, I, I started going to therapy and, and really digging more deeply into the root causes behind why, you know, those were drivers for me. Why? Like needing approval for how I looked was such a big driver for me. Um, I started to shift, you know, what, what I needed really shifted. I I did that, I did, I did a lot of work around that in myself and started to really feel more and more connected to this deeper, more long-term need to be strong, autonomous and powerful in my own life from a foundational perspective.
(21:30)
And the foundation for me was my physical body because it’s the vessel that carries me through this life. And I started to really think about the internal organs and the, the, the cells in my body, the blood vessels, the bone tissue, the muscle tissue, the fat tissue, and how it all had this really important role to play in my health. And if I didn’t think about those parts of myself with love and kindness and the choices that I was making each day with the food that I was eating and the exercise that I was doing, if I was doing it for the wrong reasons, I didn’t get a very good result and I didn’t get a long-term result. And I also would lose motivation to, to do all of those things in the first place because my reasons weren’t very strong to start with. So as my reasons shifted to more of a self-loving place of a place of nourishment and strength and long-term health, it became just as natural as getting up and making breakfast or eating like just as natural as breathing to, to want to take those actions.
(22:36)
And I, I really looked to relatives I have who are older than me for inspiration. I have an aunt who’s in her eighties who she’s so healthy and she, she walks all the time. She, she just, she, she constantly pays attention to her health and she’s gone through all these different like phases of the, the, the generations that have come and gone, all the different ads and fads that she’s witnessed in her lifetime. And yet she stayed true to some certain core principles that I feel like are part of why she has this incredible amount of resilience. Like she went through, you know, a surgery recently and, and the first surgery she had, she, she bounced back really quickly, but the second surgery she had, which was pretty close after it was, she, she had, she experienced some, some symptoms and she didn’t feel very good.
(23:22)
And, and I remember going through that and watching her and, and, and really worried about her for not how she wasn’t feeling well. But I really had this faith that because of all the good work that she had put in, because of all of her health practices and her health habits, she was gonna come back strong. And she did. And that’s been true for several occasions that I’ve witnessed her go through. And, and, and she’s, she goes back to her health habits every time she goes back to her healthy eating. She pays attention to her protein intake, she pays attention to her healthy meals, she walks every day, she does all of these things to stay engaged, to stay healthy. And, and she’s constantly open to learning new things, which I think is a huge point in why she continues to have this incredible resilience, um, mentally and physically and the stamina that she has to get through all the things that life throws her way.
(24:10)
So I just look at her and I think I want to be healthy and strong when I’m in my eighties. I want to be able to be calling the shots in my own life. So the main thing is your mental abilities to be able to have access to them, to have the autonomy to, to choose and to call the shots. So taking control of your health now, every day you can think about it like deposits that you’re making in your health savings account that over time will pay dividends. So like when you get sick, for instance, at any life stage, you’ve got the muscle tissue to weather that storm. Like you will be able to get through that because of the resilience you’ve built in with your regular daily healthy practices. And that doesn’t mean you’re working out every day. It means that you’re eating healthy as much of the time as you can.
(25:00)
It means that you have a regular exercise practice. It means that you’re thinking about having a regular bedtime and doing your best to adhere to that. It means that you’re thinking about your stress levels, which we all deal with, and you’re using practices, you’re being proactive about practices to deal with the stress that your body has to mitigate. So I just went through the four pillars of health. You probably noticed that if you’re familiar with them, because I really feel like our health is just this completely holistic process and there are many things that are beyond our control as we age. Our hormones are going to change. It’s a given as we age, our bodies are gonna change. We don’t produce as much collagen in elastin, right? We, we, we go through a lot of different stages in life as women and as men and our bodies change.
(25:43)
But there are certain things that are always within our control. And those are the choices that we make about these four pillars of health. And those are sleep, nutrition, stress management, and exercise. And those are things that if you are being proactive and staying on top of those practices as best you can remember all or something, you’re going to have more resilience. You’re gonna have more access to better health, more energy as you go through time and really be able to enjoy a long life and a healthy body that you love. So I, I know I framed this with motivation because I feel like that’s an issue that a lot of us struggle with. So I want you to really think about where in this conversation you felt like it was about you the most. Like, are you bored? Are you burned out? Are you overwhelmed?
(26:32)
Do you not have things to look forward to? Or do you need to reconnect with why these things are important to you in the first place? And there’s no right or wrong why. I went through a couple examples of like stages of my life where my why evolved. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the person who had the why that was an aesthetic goal. Like a person of my, the version of myself who cared more about how she looked like that’s where she was at and I needed to be her in order to get to where I am now. And those were valuable lessons. So never say mean things about your past self. She was doing the best that she could with what she knew at that time, right? And we have to forgive her for the mistakes she made, but also remember that that woman set us up to be the woman we are today.
(27:17)
And the choices that we make today are gonna set ourselves up for the woman that we become tomorrow and the woman that we become in 10 years, 20 years and on. So really think about why it is that you care about these topics, why it is that you want to train, why it is that you want to be stronger and, and just tune in and, and let me know. I’d love to hear from you. Let me know, you know, what, what’s going on with you. If you’re not feeling motivated and maybe you are feeling motivated, maybe you’re feeling super motivated after this conversation, you’re like, I’ve got this. I hope you do. And just know that I’m always here for you and check us out and rock your life if you would like some specific guidance around your, um, training around your nutrition. If you are in any different life stage that you would like specific guidance for your training with perimenopause, post menopause while you’re training in your regular cycling years. We really do have that conversation and have customized programs for you inside of Rock Your Life. So thank you again so much for tuning in and hanging out with me today. I love talking to you and I look forward to connecting with you again very soon. As always, I’m Betty Rocker. You are so awesome, flawsome and amazing. Bye for now.
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