May you have a Lifetime of Dissatisfaction - Fitness Struggles

Have you noticed how our world is filled with discontentment? But that's okay. Man was born to be always hankering for something better. We may not like the fact, but it's good for us to feel dissatisfied. Take away the lack of fulfillment that is our lifetime lot, and you take away progress.

Contentment and complacency never got anybody anywhere. Without the inborn desire to effect change in the pursuit of improvement (and, hence, satisfaction) our ancestors would never have had the motivation to discover fire or the whim to set up home in a cave. That would have left both you and me soaking wet, along with all the other animals, waiting out the rainstorms on the African plain.

So I do wish you a strong sense of dissatisfaction - and, if you're a bodybuilder, may the pain of it be acute. Whereas a goodly portion of fitFLEX readers are highly motivated (read dissatisfied with the body they have), to others motivation is a problem. These on-again / off-again bodybuilders get all dissatisfied and fired up to train, yet after a few workouts their bubble of motivation bursts. Interest wanes, workouts are missed and progress stops.

The problem is not that they don't want to have a great body - they do - but wanting and wishful thinking are not always enough. To keep going in the pursuit of muscle you have to really need bodybuilding success. In the absence of that need you have to devise some form of self-motivation.

If you lack the necessary inner aggression to keep to your workouts, you must somehow find it. Too many bodybuilders remain satisfied with too little. Don't be content with insignificant achievements. That is the reason many get so far and no farther. Why settle for a body that's just a little better than the average physique? Lack of drive is death. Apathy is your enemy!

As a bodybuilder you must never rest on your laurels. You owe yourself the satisfaction of making every effort to cultivate the kind of positive emotional force that compels the necessary physical action to take place. The first essential is to develop a positive, forceful mental outlook. You need to have an attitude to life that does not accept permanent limitation. You must possess an abounding spirit of enthusiasm backed by determination to ultimately make failure impossible.

You cannot develop the"I can and I will" philosophy of an active optimist overnight. The art is to recognize when you are prepared to settle for less than you could achieve, then to give yourself a swift kick in the pants to do more. Make that trip to the gym even though the weather is cold and miserable. Have the courage to see what you're really like and change for the better. Remember, a journey of one thousand miles begins with only one step, and the road to owning more lean muscle begins with your next rep. You can do it. Take that first step today!