In the last five years one of my greatest challenges has been to stay motivated. I've had to find several techniques to defeat the voice in my brain that wants me to quit.

For me, I find that simple advice can be the most effective. A small phrase that's easy ro remembered like "if you save money, you quit having emergencies, and start having inconveniences" tend to stick with me for years or even decades. So I'll share two such things that have helped motivate me for years.

Many years ago, I was telling my older brother how I planned on living forever. I'm still convinced that if I live long enough, science will take over, and I'll be drinking a beer on the moon the day that the last bitcoin in mined.

I had quit smoking years before I was having this conversation with my brother. What he said to me struck hard. "Hey, you know how sometimes you see a really old person smoking a cigarette that beat the odds? You don't really see that with fat people do you?"

That one hit hard, because I don't consider death to be a great option. It was the thing that eventually got me to start getting in shape, so I made a bunch of different goals for myself and started working out.

I had to watch a ton of videos to learn proper form and technique while lifting, and came across one that was very motivational by athleanx. In it the video he said "Fuck your goals." You can give up on goals, and you can change goals, so you have to figure out why you have those goals. Are you getting in shape so you can play with your kids? Or maybe you just want to be able to live to see them graduate. Because the "why" doesn't change.

I had my "why." I don't want to die, simple. Just like the video said, it wasn't long before I gave up on every single goal that I had. I knew that there was no way I was ever going to lose the weight, or be strong, or physically attractive or anything else that I had planned to do no matter what, and I often wanted to quit. I didn't forget the "why" though.

So when my brain told me "even if you lose weight, you'll still be weak, why bother?" I'd ask myself "Ok, but do you want to die? No? Then pick up the weights you little bitch"

Shockingly, my brain still tries to sabotage me AFTER I achieve a goal. It says "Haven't you gone far enough? You've done everything you set out to do, and more. You should quit." Nice try bitch, we're not done digging yet. I still don't want to die.

So stackers, figure out why you have your goals and why they are important to you, because those are the things that you don't give up on.