How to Never Miss a Workout, Even When You Don’t Want to Go

If you want to become the kind of person who never misses their workouts, creating systems is the answer.

If you’re a busy parent, you know better than anyone that relying on motivation never works... (Life always finds a way to get in the way, doesn’t it?)

But what if you could take motivation out of the equation completely and start making a healthy lifestyle a “no-brainer”? Keep reading.

Make going to the gym a “no-brainer”

Motivation is like a flaky old friend that loves to drop in unannounced.

It comes knocking when you look in the mirror at the end of a long day, or get to the last hole on your belt…

And it’s right there cheering beside you when you finally decide, “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”.

But, as usual, it’s conveniently gone when you come home after a long day and need that extra push to get to the gym… Until next time.

We all know motivation is unreliable.

But when we plan for our goals, we assume our future-self will be motivated, inspired and ready to go when the time comes.



There’s a simple way to make your plans much more powerful, and make it much more likely you’ll get to the gym when you say you will.

BJ Fogg, the director of the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University, said in an interview on habits ,

We should assume that our ‘future self’ is going to be lazy with no motivation. We need to set up systems to make achieving our goals as easy as possible - even when our motivation is low.

When you plan to make a change in your life, assume your future self will have NO motivation. Assume your kids have been throwing tantrums all day, and you’re feeling run-down, tired, and unmotivated.

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Now ask yourself:

“In THAT situation, how am I going to get to the gym?”

That’s where systems come into play.

( Note : There are also those days when you just really, really don’t feel like it, and we’ll talk more about how to overcome that below.)

A system makes a task simple, repeatable, and essentially a “no-brainer”.

And a successful system does this by taking all the decision-making OUT of the result.

For example: Going to the gym 3x a week in the morning.

Let’s be systematic about this and remove all the little decisions in the way of our goal.

If I plan to work out in the morning, I take 5-10 minutes the night before to:

1. Set my alarm for the morning and put my alarm clock across the room,


2. Put a water bottle beside my alarm clock,


3. Pack my gym clothes in a bag and put them by my bed,


4. Put my gym shoes by the door, and


5. Put my car keys by the front door

Getting up is the hardest part - but setting and moving my alarm helps me overcome that.

Now I know that as long as I take the 5-10 minutes to set my system up the night before, I’m much, much more likely to get into the gym the next morning.



This also works for eating healthy. Take the time to decide what you’d like to do (let’s say eating more vegetables instead of processed snacks), then add the food you need to get to your grocery list, wash and prep whatever you’ll need for the week once a week on a certain day, and then commit to your system.

Now you’ll have vegetables ready to go when you need them, instead of having to prepare them every time, making it much more likely that you’ll eat them.

James Clear, author and entrepreneur, tells us to ask ourselves,

If you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your system, would you still get results?

Once you perfect your system, you’ll be ready to do regardless of how you feel.

Remember, there will always be days when an unexpected wrench gets thrown in the middle. Your kids may have an emergency, you might stay late for work, or you get sick.



(I’ve written more extensively on consistency and how to deal with the unexpected on my website, and you can find a link to that below.)

But your system will make it much easier to overcome the expected obstacles - like a lack of motivation, feeling tired, or being unprepared.

At the bottom of this post, I’ve included 4 simple questions you can use to build your own system for any goal.

But even with your system in place, there are still those days when getting yourself to move is like moving mountains...

What if you really, really don’t feel like exercising?

On the days when I’d really rather lay on the couch or stay in bed, I tell myself one thing:  Motion creates Emotion.

Contrary to popular belief, motivation doesn’t only come before action… Taking action can lead you to feel more motivated.

When you feel “stuck” and nothing can get you going, pick an extremely small task and work through it to completion.

This could be as small as standing up. Or going to the kitchen and drinking a glass of water.



Be very deliberate - even say it out loud. Pick a tiny task, and do it.

Then once that’s done, pick another. Keep taking tiny steps until you get to the thing you need to do.

This works for two reasons,

1. The act of completing little tasks creates a feeling of momentum - and eventually, motivation. And,


2. You’ll find it much easier to keep moving once you’ve already begun, and starting to move doesn’t take much.

You can even start with a task that has nothing to do with the thing you’re trying to get to. Once you start moving, break down the steps to your end goal into tiny pieces and work through those until you get there.

The next time you feel stuck, try this out.

4 questions to build your own “no-brainer” systems

There’s no one-size-fits-all system that you can use in every situation, but there’s a simple process you can use to build your own.

Take some time to think about this. It’s worth it to focus on building a clear process to achieving your goal, even if it takes a little longer to plan it out.

Once it’s in place, you’ll set yourself up to be more consistent long-term and more focused on what matters.

Build your own system by asking yourself these 4 questions

1. What is the result I want to accomplish?


2. What are all the things I need to be able to do that thing?


3. How can I prepare all those things ahead of time?


4. What obstacles might I face - and how can I overcome them?

Then test it!

Remember your goal is to take all the decision-making OUT of your end result, so that it becomes a simple step-by-step process to get there.

And finally, a way to supercharge this process is to add accountability. Having someone to check in on you, or share your wins with, is a proven way to keep you going through hard times.

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BONUS: Dai actually has a Facebook group designed for this purpose. You can join the WLFM Tribe HERE. Share your challenges and WINS with a supportive group of people on the same journey towards health.

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Once you take a little time to plan out your system, pay close to attention if it fails.

It might take a little tweaking to get it right, but when you fail you’ve simply discovered what doesn’t work and you are now closer to discovering what does.

If you’ve found this helpful, SHARE this article and COMMENT your biggest insight below. I’d love to hear what you think!

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Author Bio: Ridwan Mao

Ridwan Mao shows busy men how to completely lose their belly fat, increase their energy and still have time for their families. His goal is to show you that a healthy lifestyle is possible even if you’ve been struggling with time, energy and motivation - and he spends all his time creating strategies to do just that. Become the man your family needs you to be. See how at www.ridwanmao.com

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