Episode 9

Barriers to Motivation and Encouraging Mindset: Podcast

In this episode, Rob and I talk about barriers to motivation. What roadblocks can exist for someone preventing them from working out. We share some ideas on how we motivate ourselves, and how to address external factors and internal mindset to overcome these obstacles.

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Barriers to Motivation and Encouraging Mindset – Transcript

Mukund
Hey, Rob. Good afternoon. I know last week we ended the podcast by wanting to talk about barriers to fitness, right?

Rob
Yeah, that’s it. That’s the was the main topic on my mind. I’ve been reading a lot recently about people as they enter their mid 30s, late 30s, early 40s sort of struggling with. Various, you know, barriers to gaining physical health, mental health, whether it’s lack of time, lack of energy. And I just thought that would be a good thing to bite into today. So yeah, I think. We should talk about that a little bit more and see where it takes us.

Mukund
So last week for. Uh, for our listeners, we started talking about how to be motivated while working out. We gave some examples. I talked a little bit about what gets me motivated on a individual sport basis like I do cycling and weightlifting by myself. Sometimes with group rides. And you predominantly do a group activity in terms of playing soccer. So I think we had a good conversation on on what motivates us individually in these different types of sports settings. So yeah. So let’s jump into what prevents somebody from what they want to do to keep fit.

Rob
Yeah, I think the the, the main one that I I was thinking of when we we thought of this topic was time when you know we get into our careers in our late 30s, forties, 50s. You know we’re usually getting into like the let’s say the peak of our careers for lack of a better word and. Unfortunately, for most of us now, our careers involve sitting on a computer, staring at a screen or answering phones. Fitness is probably, and general health is probably the furthest thing from our mind about 75% of. Our weak right.

MukundYou’re right. Yeah. Even for me. My 9:00 to 5:00. I’m in front of a computer at work. Working from home. Gives you a little more flexibility. But. But what? Some of them or most of them don’t understand is it makes you work a little bit extra. Right. So that takes away your. Free time to do extracurriculars like, you know, working out, going for a walk or whatnot. But that’s not to say that, you know, people who log off at the right time are able to do it because they might have other commitments. But yeah, but timing is the main constraint that people have that kind of prevents them from, you know, engaging in physical activity.

Rob
Yeah, absolutely. And I think part of it too. Say say you want to go to the gym and you, you you know you have to. It takes time to get ready to go. Then you’ve got to drive. Then you’ve got to spend time there and then, you know, in our heads. And this goes into the motivation part of it. You you’re already thinking about the energy and effort it takes just to just to start working out. You’re already. You’re, you know. For most of us, we’re already sort of in that space of I’m tired after I’ve done. A day of. Work. My brain is full of of all the things that I’ve been thinking about during the day. It’s full of emails and texts and phone calls. It’s, you know, projects that we’ve got to start or in the middle. How do I allocate more resources when I don’t have the resources that I need to motivate myself to get fit and to get healthy there? There are no there is no big answer here, but I think it’s important to talk about and important to realize that almost all of us have this impediment. This sort of blockage to to. Fitness at one time and there are ways. There are ways that you can build in time to sort of even have a few minutes per day to. Get some to to get. A few uh physical activities out and sort of in build your fitness regardless of these sort of constraints on your time.

Mukund
Right. So for timing, I have kind of what worked for me right, I can share what kind of work for me before the pandemic, I used to go to the gym. I used to do CrossFit. Even before that, I used to go, you know, to the gym just to. Lift weights. I did. Allocate morning time from, say, six to seven, 7 to 8, especially in the. Spring summer fall seasons. Just because I was able to get up early when the weather was relatively much better than the winter. Times in the winter I I flipped it around. I used to go in the evening just because my body is already warmed up during the daytime and honestly, I I don’t. I can’t get up. Much early in the in the winter. So in terms of motivation, right? What usually prevents people from getting motivated is the morning time frame. At least some of my friends, they are midnight travel for lack of a better description, so they. So they’re getting up at six AM, 7:00 AM. It’s not realistic. You need your body also needs at least seven hours or. Sleep, you know to function properly. So it’s not that they’re doing anything productive, productive within quotes. It’s like watching TV or, you know, having late dinner, which prevents you from getting enough sleep, ignoring any medical things. Right. I’m not talking about insomnia or anything, just a regular habit has been to get a bit late. There’s more habitual that’s more kind of mental training. If you go to say instead of going to bed at 12, say, even if you go to bed at 10:45. Right. Couple of days, 1130, a couple of days after that, you know slowly in a week or two weeks you’ll be going to bed like at 10/30/11 which is which is much. Better than going to bed at 12 or one right?

Rob
Yeah, you’re talking about making those incremental changes that can have a bigger effect over time rather than trying to make a. Big change all along.

Mukund
Exactly. And and even me right now is prioritizing my activities of the day. I’m guilty of it. I watch TV more than required. More than. End it, but I at least you know at the back of my head I’m something keeps telling me, you know? Hey, what are you doing? You know you need to. You need to not watch this much TV or you need you. It’s like 1130. You know? It’s it’s. It’s time to start going to bed. Kind of a thing. It’s not a sudden change I did have. I also used to. Be a midnight owl, but this was in my college years, but after starting starting. 29 to 5:00. This kind of hit me even harder because my work was an hour. Away each way. Right, 50 miles each way. So I needed to manage time to get to work on time and come back and and at that time was when I also started getting interested in act in, in lifting weights and Jim and all those things. So I had to prioritize myself. What? What time I need to get home. What I needed to. Eat what? When do I need to come back? How much sleep I need to get to get back, you know. To repeat the same way when I.

Rob
Can I ask you something about that? Particular is that something that you’re always thinking about throughout the day, that schedule thing or is that something that you at one point you’ve planned it and then you just know that plan going forward or is that scheduled something that you’re always thinking about throughout the day?

Mukund
This works for me. For example. What time do you eat lunch every day? I would say around 12 to one right 12/12/31, maximum 1:30 if the day. If I have meetings or anything, or if I’m running late for something. If I it’s past two, I just have a quick snack and then I wait for dinner time because that kind of messes my dinner. I eat dinner like around 7730, maximum 8. So this was this was through trial and error and this timing worked for me and I wake up like around 6:37, you know, on most days, if I don’t have early morning calls, I do some, I do a workout for an hour, half an hour, then get, then get into. My work day. Then you know, have a quick breakfast while while working, you know, lunch time around 12/1. Yeah. So the day is working. And whatnot, four or five. I have a quick snack after, you know, if I don’t work on the morning evening time, I workout around, then and then it’s time for dinner and then and then. Time to bed. Right. It’s just a very loosely constructed kind of a a schedule. But I stick to the 12:00 PM one PM lunch, and then the 7:38 PM dinner, because those two I know I will be eating at those times, right? And I need to eat. Everybody needs to eat. It’s just fixing these times. Help me plan the day because I know what I’ll be doing at those two times and. Work around those things.

Rob
Do you think? And this is sort of a theoretical question I guess, but do you think a lot of the? A lot of people’s lack of. Ability to work out or barrier to barriers to working out is. They don’t because they don’t have a schedule. They allow the their schedule to get out of sync so that they spend more time. Let’s say they spend more time at work or they spend more time watching TV because they don’t. If you don’t know, well, I only have half an hour before. I have to work out. You just sort of go. I I’m gonna. I’m gonna. I want to watch the next thing are you is it to think that sort of. Living in the moment rather than planning ahead of time, do. You think that’s a a big? Impediment for our people.

Mukund
Yes, I mean, I was watching a show this weekend. Actually this is a show. That’s that, that’s a very nice one. It’s called deadlock. It’s on Amazon Prime, by the way. It’s a, it’s a, it’s an Australian show. I saw watching it around lunchtime yesterday.

Rob
Oh, OK, check that out.

Mukund
It was very engrossing, but around the four 3-4 PM time frame, I’m like, look, I’ve been watching this for three hours straight, right? It’s not gonna have work to do. I stopped because I I said I I told myself, let me do this while I’m while I have. While I’m having dinner. Right. So that kind of something to look forward to. And I personally if I miss my own goals, I kind of beat myself about it. I mean, like, you know, I, you know, I kind of. Like what? What an idiot. You know, I should not have done this. I should have, you know. Done the more productive thing or done the more high priority thing. Rather than watching TV, right? I beat myself about it. If I’m don’t do something. So. So that’s that’s who I am. That’s my personality. Maybe that’s what has helped me kind of stick to this fitness routine, but for people trying to get into a routine, the better. I think what will help them is make the reward for working out right in the same example, if they are, if they want to watch a show, like one more episode, but they only have half an hour. 30 minutes left before they have to do their next next task of the day or whatever. They can say, hey, listen, I I watched you know, 2-3 episodes already. Let me let me break this up. Right. So let me finish this. Let me finish. I know 1/2 hour of run or a quick workout or a quick walk walk the dog. Come back, make dinner and when while eating dinner, maybe I’ll watch what I wanted to watch earlier.

Rob
I was also thinking that if we’re talking particularly about watching Netflix, a lot of what people are doing now is they put their tablet or something like that on a treadmill and they actually they watch these shows while they’re actually working out. And you can sort of.

Mukund
Right, right.

Rob
You almost forget that you’re working out. It’s sort of like last week. I was talking about when I’m playing soccer. I’m not really thinking about the fact that I’m working out. I’m running. I’m stretching through things. I’m using my muscles for things. But I’m not thinking about the fact that I’m working out some. Sometimes I think a lot of the the mental block people have is I’m not. I don’t feel like it working out well. You don’t have to necessarily quote UN quote work out. You can also watch your show and do a thing at the same.

Mukund
Nowadays there’s like tablet holders for row machines for treadmills, for for stationary bikes. So for Netflix or kind of watching a video while working out there are there are lots of options to let people do that. If people are kind of restricted in the what they can do, meaning like if they only have a treadmill or you know a bike or whatever, this is a very possible option that won’t that will actually let them do 2 either, right? So which actually exactly it’s more efficient. They don’t feel guilty about doing one thing or not doing something else. So that’s a very good option.

Rob
Right, it’s more efficient.

Mukund
That people have who have trouble motivating themself. So that can be like you know, hey, you know, they can. I’m just saying if they watch stranger things for an hour and episode, you know, they work out for they do biking for an hour, biking for an hour. It’s close. It’s, you know, at a good pace. It’s like 50. Yeah. 20 miles, right. So that’s a very good workout. You burn close to 1000 calories. Right. I’m just again throwing out like approximations here.

Rob
Yeah, it’s not. They can’t be specific. It’s individual to each body and and and whatever effort they put into it.

Mukund
Right, right. So so this is one option that they have to kind of not feel guilty of not working out or doing or, you know watching TV and working out together. The other option I would say is you don’t have to spend one hour. I think last week I mentioned I go for quality more than quantity. So I do like a lung bursting. What for 10 minutes? 15 minutes. I’m done for the day. That’ll include anywhere from cleans, pull-ups, push-ups, you name it. Right. You can make your own workout. Good quality workout for 10 minutes 15 minutes, 20 minutes and then you’re done. And and this you can do it in your garage, your home, wherever you. So these are the different options people can think of going to the gym, taking your car, driving there, dressing for the particular, you know, workout session is not always possible and even thinking about it makes me tired now. But me doing a quick Rep, I mean, a quick word with a couple of different exercises will give me. A similar quality of exercise than going to the gym and lifting weights and coming back in an hour, right? I would choose the. I would choose the first option which is 1520 minutes and I’m done. Rather than planning your whole day around that one hour exercise.

Rob
Exactly because that sort of builds in with it, you’ve got to, you’ve almost got to motivate yourself to plan it as well. There’s there’s there’s there’s way more motivation involved, way more brain power involved rather than just taking a few minutes per day instead of setting your entire schedule like that, you can just sort of. Go do it spur of the moment when you have time. Just do the when. You have time, moment.

Mukund
Thing and now when we’re getting to the fall and January is the busiest season for gym because everybody starts getting new memberships, new resolution, preparing for the summer. All I’m saying is people don’t have to go to the gym. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Rob
Right.

Mukund
People don’t have to go to the gym for this particular activity. It it doesn’t have to be a new resolution and from what I’ve heard and what I’ve experienced, resolutions are hard to stick to rather. Plan on something doing better than yesterday. You don’t have to be the best. Having that incremental change is what helps people stick to good behavior or good practice for long.

Rob
Yeah. And it’s also also I think it’s also about recognizing when you’ve made even a small amount of progress. It’s hard for us to sort of, not necessarily celebrate, but sort of be aware when we are making positive change in our lives. We sort of you know we, you know, we know that we are doing good things. We know we’re trying to do good things, but we don’t often sort of sit down and say, oh, you know I’m I’m really happy that I I did that work out today. It’s recognizing that even like a small workout is something to sort of. Recognize that you’ve done and you’re actually making significant progress, because what you’re telling your body and your mind is I can do this thing and I will continue to do.

Mukund
This thing exactly so again, like I said, going to gym is not a bad, bad idea or bad practice. It only becomes an impediment to. A fitness goal. If you think about it too much and you feel tired even thinking about it, so All in all, I think you all you and me, you know what we. Want to convey? Is if there’s a barrier to fitness, find out what it is. If it’s time constraints, you know you can work on your schedule, try to prioritize, and again, your workout doesn’t have to be an hour for it to be effective. 1015 minutes workout routines exercises that you can find online to do that in your own room in your living room, in your garage, wherever you are in a small apartment. If you do want to go to the gym, it’s more power to you because you have a lot more options and there is a. Solution for everything and come to route itself right.

Rob
Right, you can workout all muscle groups and.

Mukund
And and going for a walk, right. And what we talked about last week walking is one of the best exercises you can get. It’s low impact. You can do it at your own.

Rob
Pace, what I would recommend for a lot of people is just get a dog. You will walk more than you’ve ever walked and you’ll meet everybody in your neighborhood. He has a dog.

Mukund
And one thing we touched about last time was in terms of people getting afraid or embarrassed going to the. I think people overestimate how much others pay attention to you. I know, I know. TikTok and all those things, all those videos where people make fun of the fun of others. I think it’s wrong. You know? It’s it’s. It’s it’s kind of, it’s not even wrong. It’s kind of, you know, very demeaning for the person doing it, right? Taking the video. Why would we even do that kind of thing? But that’s, but that’s in. But that’s in the minority like, not that many cases, even though it’s on TikTok and stuff like that, it doesn’t happen everywhere and all the time. I would just ignore it, right? I would just ignore it. Stick to your workout if needed you can help somebody else.

Rob
Yeah. And what I would say about that is the vast majority of people that you meet either at the gym or on a day-to-day life when they see that you’re making a positive change for yourself, they will be. Very happy for you. And forget it. Forget about everyone else because they don’t matter in terms of your. Progress. You are improving yourself. That’s the only thing that matters.

Mukund
Exactly. I want to mention that because that’s what has also been people have talked to me. I would be like, hey, I feel bad because I don’t do this movement well or you know, I’m too overweight. People make fun of me like, no, no, everybody is overweight. They won’t be in the gym if they are in the. Tip top shape they are there in the gym to work on improving.

Rob
Of course, even the person that’s in the best shape right now if they didn’t workout for a week, they would be in worse shape than they are. So they, you know, you have to work out to maintain that and even from the the fittest person to the the less fit people you have to work. Out to get there and we’re all. We’re all sort of working towards our goals individually and. Support the support of everyone else is important.

Mukund
And the main thing is right. You only have one body. It has to last you throughout life, right? It it it? It might be very corny of me to say this, but you need to take care of your one vehicle that’s going to last you until you die. Right? So you know it. Either be your joint pain or you know, like a back back problem, or you know something. You need to get those strengthened to kind of last you till you die, right? So and only you can do it and you only you can do it at the pace you’re comfortable with and. The way you’re comfortable with.

Rob
And I think that’s that’s a good, that’s a you hit upon a good thing that when you say only you can do it that that is the the core of what we’re talking about right it’s. You can tell someone, hey, I think you should workout. This is what you should do, but unless they have their energy within themselves to do that, they’re not going to do it. You can’t change. You can’t change that. That that part of them. And it’s really about trying to find. Ways to encourage yourself and to realize that you have the potential to do these things. We are all restricted in terms of like we’re talking about time. There are other barriers to I know a lot of people have physical barriers that they they have to sort of manage, but there are ways that you can work within those. Larry is, and that’s what we’re talking about, right? That’s what we are. Everyone is sort of trying to work towards is trying to manage within the constraints that they.

Mukund
Have and when they say only you. Can do it. As I don’t think you need much more motivation than that, meaning you have control over over it, nobody else can make you. Workout right? We covered the time part of it. We covered kind of you know what others think of you part of it and also kind of a self motivation is if you want to improve only then will you work on it if you don’t want to do it. I mean it’s it’s as simple as that. The door is closed right now.

Rob
Yeah, I mean, I guess the question right there is what is what is wanting to do something, what is that that feeling, what like?

Mukund
Right.

Rob
If we are, as we talked about people when they get to their late 30s, early 40s, when their careers start taking off a little bit and they start getting more comfortable and their families still still growing. They gotta take, take care of their house. If they have a house that’s you know, so there’s other competing interests there. So what do we mean by wanting to to to improve like is it just? Because for a lot of people right for guys I know in particular. My motivation is often. I want to do this for myself, but for a lot of people. It’s like I want to look a certain way or I want to feel a certain way and it’s part of me too. Is sort of like I do wanna. I not necessarily wanted to look a certain way but I I know I feel feel a lot better after I work out. So a lot of the The thing is I want to feel a certain way and how do I do that? And for most people it will be. Improving their physical fitness, improving their general well-being means improving their physical fitness and their health. They’re interconnected, right?

Mukund
So when you asked about now what it means, I am a strong believer of the body mind connection. Unless, like you said, really the feeling after you workout, you know, you get like a good feeling. You get like a calm feeling. That is the body mind connection I’m talking about. It’s it has to do with adrenaline. It has to do with, you know, the stress relieving hormones, everything in. Work works together to make you in that state of well-being after workout. That has a longer term effect because from what I understand the brain does a lot of interconnections because the increased blood flow. Because of that, your concentration improves, your memory improves a feeling of happiness gets over you, or rather comes over you. So even if they don’t want to work out if they’re happy. The way they are, that’s fine. If people are having some sort of difficulty concentrating or difficulty kind of paying attention, science has proven that workouts or even a good walk in nature like you know, go for a walk in the trails, you know, in the local park. That has helped to calm down the stress hormones. In the body. Release the serotonin I think it is the the the the the feeling, right? So those things have scientifically been proven to help people with kind of any sort of emotional or a mental issue. This is not just putting on muscles or you know, just like you’re one hour in the gym running, you know, on the on the treadmill. There’s also physical mental connection that’s part of it. It’s much more complex than what we think it’s going to be because of what, 200,300 thousand years of evolution, if we’ve always been connected to nature and we’ve always been physically active, you either. Either run or right, right. Kind of a situation when when we were hunters. We have not gotten over that instinct yet, so we still need the physical activities for our mental but right.

Rob
Yeah, 100% and and exactly what you’re saying is. Because of that evolution, our Physiology depends on the the mind being in a certain state and being having that, I think what what’s happening is we’re sort of getting away from those internal motivations by tricking our brains with distractions, right? Becoming we’re so distracted by little things throughout the day that a lot of people don’t have. A. The focus and B the ability to use that focus and allocate some sort of mental resource to going what do I want to do because they’re they’re sort of scattered into like 15 different places and different as you and I have talked about when we. Look at our computer. We have about 1000 tabs open at one time right that that often happens in our brains. I think I’m not a neuroscientist and I’m not an expert on this at all, but I think what for me, what happens? I’m sitting at a computer. I have all these. Things that I have to do. It’s overwhelming. I go for a walk and it’s almost as if our brains sort of realign themselves. When you are outside and doing something physical, your brain is going. This is you’re doing something physical, that which means what there is a. A. A reason for that? Your brain sort of decides that for you, for that for itself, your brain goes, why are we doing something physical? OK, we maybe we need to pump more. As you were talking about, like serotonin, something like that. It sort of rebalances our kept the chemicals in our brain a little bit because I think it really changes. Sorry changes. What’s happening in our mind at that time, it sort of refocuses what we want to do, and we sort of get outside and channel our energies a little bit differently, away from what’s immediately in front of our faces to what we’re thinking about, what allows us to sort of. Re align our brains a little bit more effectively I think.

Mukund 
One other thing is working out in nature and you know at least being outside is vitamin D we don’t get enough of it from because we are inside the inside the house. So the office most of the day, that’s why in the winter for a lot of people, they go into depression because of lack of sunlight. For some people it it it happens. Seasonal depression as thing. I think that’s what it’s called. I mean I I digress, but that no that that goes in hand in hand in terms of. Working out in terms of being outside in nature for your mental health. Right. And also working out doesn’t have to be a complicated activity for anybody. It just movements and new movements to get your body used to so that that can help you get stronger or maintain your lifestyle for the foreseeable future. The joints are the first things to kind of deteriorate as we get older. Just because of use overuse, misuse, whatever you call it because of our modern culture, more modern lifestyle. Squats, deadlifts. You know, pull-ups, basic things you can do wherever you are, right? I’m not talking about complicated snatches hand stands, you know, ring pull-ups. You know, those are much more advanced, which is not really needed for overall fitness. The motion to. You know, to mimic sitting on a couch or bending down to pick up something, it’s satisfied by the squats and the deadlift. Your lower body tends to get weaker as you get older. Just because you don’t bend as much or squat as much as you keep getting older, and I want to keep doing what I like doing, and that’s also key motivated, right? If if somebody is not as active now, fine, you know you’re not. But if a hobby, if you pick up you know. Even golf, right when you’re in the Fifties, 55 right? Golf is not an easy sport on the body, especially your shoulders and your wrists and your elbows.

Rob
Lot of twisting.

Mukund
And and in your back in your lower back and you need to walk those things. You know you you can’t. You can’t expect to. Drive the golf cart everywhere. So even like a low impact sport like golf is not as low impact as you think it is, you need some sort of a fitness to maintain it once or twice playing here and there. It’s not a big deal, but what I’m trying to say is even later on in life, if you get into a new sport. This should not be a handicap for you to not enter the sport right. At least you should have the basic kind of fitness to do what you like doing. Little bit every day helps, even if you have 10 minutes, right you can do like 10 squats for for for example, or a burpee for for for example that’s. A total body workout. Right. That was going to be my overarching message in terms of overcoming obstacles to motivation is that now you’re fine, but what about a year from now? You know your kids are small now. But what if you want to? Do some activities with them.

Rob
Yeah. I’m. I’m I’m wondering whether because fear is a big motivating factor, right? Fear is obviously something that people. You know, they they think about their their fears all the time. And it’s something like, well, it’s the reason we, you know, what everyone works so, so hard all the time is like, I want to keep making money. I, you know, I’m fear I lose my job if I don’t keep my boss happy and I gotta keep sitting in a computer and that’s why I work too many hours and. Then you know you don’t have the time to do anything. Else you’re right in terms of, you have to think about what that’s gonna look like in the future. Like if you’re in pain now in your 30s and 40s, then obviously 50s, sixties, 70s, it the pain, it’s like you’ve gotta think about how your body is going to be able to to work effectively at that age. You don’t necessarily have to be fearful about it is. I guess my point is that fear blocks people from doing a lot of things. We talked about fear, fear of going to the gym blocks, fear of people being mocked, stops from going to the gym. I think for a lot of people fear of aging or fear of injury stops people from working out. And and and it’s one of those things where you try it for the first time and you realize maybe it’s not. As a dangerous and B sort of strenuous on the body as you first thought and maybe you inbuilt those experiences into your psyche, right, you sort of like you do the thing and then you have that experience and it’s not as bad as you saw. And then you maybe you’ll do it again. So I Think fear is a big. A big topic, but maybe that’s for another time, but yeah, fear is another big block and I think it’s something that. People should talk about more of their fears and about why they don’t want to do something rather than being count ourselves.

Mukund
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. What we addressed today was kind of the time constraint, self starter kind of motivation that can be, like you said, the fear of not able to lift weight is preventing a lot of people from going to the gym. That, that’s fine. No one was born with them to like deadlift 500 pounds, right? So everybody had to start somewhere. I personally would love to help people in those initial stages just because I was. I was them at one point in my life, right? So that should not stop anybody from doing it. And also, unless you want to do it, there’s nobody else that’s gonna force you to do it right. So motivation should be first self attained. Seeking help is the second part of motivation where you know what you want to do. You just need help for. Somebody to push you in the direction.

Rob
Right, right. The internal motivation eventually leads to external motivation.

Mukund
Exactly, exactly. And. And the third thing is what all we, the things we talked about was for anybody with no issues, right. No medical issues, no psychological issues, those are. Circumstantial. Those are specific cases which there are solutions for out there with the qualified people that they can talk to to get out of their, you know, psychological problems or whatnot. People do go through it, especially guys which you know, which is not addressed as much. So again, like you said, I think it’s a topic for a different conversation.

Rob
Yeah, and that’s that’s another good point, actually. You talked about the fact that guys like ourselves, we don’t often talk about what’s stopping us from doing it, something we like to show off and and show off our accomplishments. But we don’t necessarily talk about our failures and difficulties that we experience. Maybe we can talk about that at another time.

Mukund
I think I think I think a top discussion is kind of good just because we’re talking about motivation and you know this can also be a a roadblock to not only a physical fitness, but to many other things in life, right. So I know people in my in my life going through what they call as a middle life crisis. There’s a lot of not a lot of people. Talk about especially guys just because our solitary nature or you only have one or two good friends who we talk about. But even then revealing our weakness is considered taboo, for example. So maybe we can pick it up next week. Rob. You know if if.

Rob
Absolutely. Yeah. I think that’s a very important topic to talk about and be very interesting to sort of delve into that and see what we can figure out.

Mukund
Sure. So let’s kind of you know, close this close, this week’s episode, Hope people or rather you know the listeners, understood what you’re trying to trying to say. Hope they get the, you know, overarching message that it’s not hard to be motivated. But even if they are, there are solutions out there to help you overcome the obstacles. Right.

Rob
Absolutely, yeah. We’ve talked about the time constraints. We’ve talked about things that you can sort of build into your work day and your everyday life. And it’s such an important topic that I think it sort of would benefit more discussion. But I think I’m hoping that people benefited from listening to us here talking about motivation. In general, and I would just say like we’ve talked about, just get out on a walk and see what you can experience and see how you feel. So this reminds me, I think I need to get my dose of workout today maybe after this. Podcast you know. Go it’s it’s. It’s raining where I am, so maybe I might do some internal rowing. Or, you know, stationary bike.

Rob
Nice one. Nice one.

Mukund
So thanks rob. Thanks once again this is I think a very, very nice topic to talk about, you know, so next week, let’s pick up on this and kind of expand on the subject.

Rob
Absolutely sounds great. Great talking to you, Michael.

Mukund
Thank you. Rob, you have a. Nice weekend. You too, man. Thanks. Bye. Bye now.

Resources

Cycling for Mental Health“, Pedal My Way

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