How many times have you already promised yourself to change your life or at least part of it starting next Monday, next month, next year, after you solve current problems, when you get enough money, and so on? How many times have you succeeded? And how many times have you… failed?

I bet that it’s happened not only once but probably quite a few times. You set a goal, try to go for it, but don’t get the desired result. And you probably ask yourself “why?”.  There’s something great and powerful behind all our attempts but we just don’t know how to use it for our good and it’s called motivation. 

I’ve been recently reading the book Limitless by Jim Kwik and I got really inspired by his concept of motivation. He believes that it consists of 3 components. Here’s the formula:
Motivation= Purpose x Energy x Small Simple Steps (S3)

I want to show you how each of them works in terms of Movement and Flexibility

Purpose
The purpose is the central motivating aim of your life, which, basically, drives us to act. The purpose must be formulated clearly enough for us to understand why we are acting and what we are hoping to get in the end. To my mind, the main purpose of our training and movement experience is our HEALTH. Strength and Flexibility classes should not hurt your joints, tendons, or muscles. They should free your body and provide a pain-free life.

Energy
Generating a substantial amount of energy is vital. If you are tired, sleepy, or if your brain is foggy, you won’t have the fuel to take action and be able to perform properly. Recovery is an essential and integral part of any sport and fitness and it affects progress dramatically. We will talk about it later.

S3
Small simple steps take minimal effort and keep you from being paralyzed with overwhelming and not being able and determined to act. S3 are the tiniest actions you can take to get closer to your flexibility goal. It can be a 3-minute stretching routine in the kitchen while you are cooking or at the computer desk while you are waiting for some files to be uploaded or anything else. The bottom line is that it is these small steps that lead us to the result. However, we usually dismiss these changes because they don’t seem like a big deal at the moment so when we don’t see results quickly we are bound to slide back to our previous inactive lifestyle and, consequently, we never get closer to our goal. On the other hand, when we make a minimal effort every day they become a habit.

A habit is another condition determining the result. According to James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, “success is the product of daily habits – not a once-in-a-lifetime transformation” and the idea here is to make our goal not the desired result, but the process that leads us to it. Many people are used to “putting off their happiness until the next milestone” but the secret is to enjoy the journey itself. That’s why it’s so important to develop good habits which are able to bring us closer to the result we want.

So, don’t give up once you’ve started!
The journey can be a bit difficult but it’s definitely worth what you get in the end.  

by Daria Stark,
Studio Director