Overcoming progress frustrations

Thought I'd put this one out there as it's something most, if not all, of us experience at some stage.

Just wondered how you keep yourself focussed and motivated when you feel your progress has stalled or gone backwards, whatever your goal/s happens to be.

The last couple of weeks, I've been finding that despite training hard as always and sticking to my diet and doing everything I need to do, I've been feeling really discouraged. In my case, it's because I happened to have dropped a little weight in the past week when I'm trying hard to gain LBM, knowing how slow and piddling the progress might be.
But even though I'm still motivated to do what I have to do, a part of my brain keeps whispering "you're wasting your time, never gonna happen. you'll be a skinny wuss at the end of it all".
There isn't a lot of inspirational stuff out there for me as mostly what you find is inspirational stuff for women wanting to lose weight/BF etc etc.
Everyone seems to have amazing success in what seem like really short timeframes.

Not very inspiring for someone who's a self motivated kinda gal 99% of the time.

I keep thinking if I just keep plugging away, I'll come around. I keep reminding myself of the little wins I have (e.g. OMG I smashed my DLs, look at how many chinups I did today .. yada yada ...) but ...

Would love to hear from your collective experience.
How do you overcome any niggly sense of failure??
Or do you just never feel that way??? Is it a gal thing? No?

I prob feel like that at least once a week id say....the biggest thing for me though to keep going is knowing there are better/bigger ppl out there than me....now I dont think oh "Ronnie Coleman is bigger than me I must try and beat him" blah blah...but simply...I wanna be the biggest dude in my gym, I want ppl to look at me and think fuck I wanna look like that....thats what drives me...

Like I said I prob feel like I am going nowhere at least once or twice a week...You have to remember though that looking at yourself everyday its so hard to judge the changes you are making, even if your weight is going up and down abit....so NEVER judge yourself because its impossible...

Being a natural athlete it takes ALONG time sometimes to get to where you wanna be and when you there you prob wont even be 100% happy....

Just keep smashing out the sessions and eating your meals and you will get there...just a matter of time!

If you feel really un-motivated and not driven to go to the gym then take a step back, have a week off...you may be over-trained...

I get ups and downs all the time, it is frustrating, I just look beyond the short term, and look back 6 months or a year.. I have changed dramatically in a year.

when it comes to weight loss and weight gain, it seems to go in waves up and down. Be patient, if in 1-2 months time you still haven't gained some weight, up your calories slightly.

I am rushing my weight gain a little too much, I have gained about 4kg in 3 months.. I wish I went a little slower, my BF% has gone from <9% to >10% (roughly), and it isn't nice.

your probably doing everything right.

You're probably right there, Joel.
I should pay more attention to my trainer's assessment of my progress than my own.
I tend not to compare or compete with others but just focus on my own thing. That has an upside but it also means you can get discouraged easily if you don't have external cues to keep you going.

The only times I've felt like I can't be stuffed going to training have literally been when I have been too sick or tired and a rest was overdue anyway.
I actually really enjoy training as it's my time-out so never a struggle from a motivation point of view.

Less assessing, more just doing ...

Being mediocre is easy. It's what most people's bodies want them to be. You are trying to buck this innate tendency. That's why it is hard. That's why, if you want olympic gold, you have to be driven.
The hardest part is recognising that it really is about the paths, not the destination.
It is probably harder for chicks to get these small goals right, because of the mon thly variations.

Everyone from Mr.O to avg joe on the forum will question their progress at some point in time...if that be every day, every week, every month, every year....EVERY single person who wants to grow, be better, improve will question if they are doing everything they can to do it and also question if they are infact improving...

But you need to stay focused on what drives you (this is diff for everyone), and focus on your goal....

This is a Arnold quote that I have sort of lived by for a number of years...gives me peace of mind in my faith and confidence that I will improve and that I will reach my goals...


Vision is purpose, and when your purpose is clear so are your life choices. Vision creates faith and faith creates willpower. With faith there is no anxiety, no doubt - just absolute confidence.

May I offer the support of thinking long term and not being at the mercy of what you're seeing here and now.

If you're not where you should be (or want to be), then it is very good that you are acknowledging your position. Don't be too hard on yourself. What's more important is that you are doing something positive for your health and wellbeing. Progress isn't linear but curved such as 2x2 = 4, 3x3 = 9, 4x4 = 16....on a graph this is curved. Another way to look at it is the speed of a car when driving between 2 suburbs...the speed will vary....but the distance grows. Yeah? Calculus really is fcuking cool

PowerBuilder said:

May I offer the support of thinking long term and not being at the mercy of what you're seeing here and now.

If you're not where you should be (or want to be), then it is very good that you are acknowledging your position. Don't be too hard on yourself. What's more important is that you are doing something positive for your health and wellbeing. Progress isn't linear but curved such as 2x2 = 4, 3x3 = 9, 4x4 = 16....on a graph this is curved. Another way to look at it is the speed of a car when driving between 2 suburbs...the speed will vary....but the distance grows. Yeah? Calculus really is fcuking cool

Click to expand...

LOL I think this is the answer I've been looking for in a language I can understand.... yay CALCULUS to the rescue (plus bonus car analogy)

This is really the crux of it. Forest vs Trees vision ... getting discouraged never makes me give up or stop doing what I'm doing but it can just put that little negative voice in your head that is SO annoying.

Waiting for the curve or inflexion, whatever ....

Calculus is way way waaaaaay cool

I get that sometimes and sometimes my diet goes out the window and I drink a little to much but I keep training no matter what. It's better then not training at all.
If I drink and eat to much I gain a little weight ( fat included) and my lifts go up as well. At least I'm still lifting. If I don't drink and eat clean as can be my weight goes down a little. It goes in this circle all the time. But in the long rung over the long term I can still see that my body is getter stronger because I've kept lifting.
If I put 100% effort into nutrition, training, sleeping etc etc. I expect to much and get disappointed because it's a slow progress. So I balance beer, food, training and good times and still progress but enjoy everything else in life I like doing as well.

Edit: I stopped lifting for 3 months end of last year because I felt I wasn't progressing. Ate shit, drunk beer didn't care. Wish I would've kept lifting as that's 3 months down the drain towards the long term goal.

Now that we are on the same page, consider the first derivative of speed (position), the second (acceleration) .... do you know what a change in acceleration (the 3rd derivative) is called..

Its a jerk. The 3rd derivative is jerk. Perhaps you (or somebody close) can make this happen to increase your acceleration...

PowerBuilder said:

Now that we are on the same page, consider the first derivative of speed (position), the second (acceleration) .... do you know what a change in acceleration (the 3rd derivative) is called..

Its a jerk. The 3rd derivative is jerk. Perhaps you (or somebody close) can make this happen to increase your acceleration...

Click to expand...

Can i just call it the rate of change in acceleration? I never really warmed to the whole "jerk" terminology. I spent several years being an expert in the phenomenon of creep in materials. Enuff already...LOL
but yeah, spot on in concept!!

Kingburger said:

I get that sometimes and sometimes my diet goes out the window and I drink a little to much but I keep training no matter what. It's better then not training at all.
If I drink and eat to much I gain a little weight ( fat included) and my lifts go up as well. At least I'm still lifting. If I don't drink and eat clean as can be my weight goes down a little. It goes in this circle all the time. But in the long rung over the long term I can still see that my body is getter stronger because I've kept lifting.
If I put 100% effort into nutrition, training, sleeping etc etc. I expect to much and get disappointed because it's a slow progress. So I balance beer, food, training and good times and still progress but enjoy everything else in life I like doing as well.

Edit: I stopped lifting for 3 months end of last year because I felt I wasn't progressing. Ate shit, drunk beer didn't care. Wish I would've kept lifting as that's 3 months down the drain towards the long term goal.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't waver from my path which is good. Just looking for good signs. Probably missing them along the way, is what I'm gathering here. I'm making progress but not really appreciating the small wins as I should!

PS for Powerlifter ... now that we've sorted the whole neutrino speed < lightspeed, I guess I should take heart from that aside from the fact I don't need to trash my whole thesis.

What's good for the neutrino...

i still don't think anything can go faster than the speed of light. With the CERN study...im a bit skeptical....

You can call it Δacceleration or jerk or even jolt...I suppose it doesn't matter too much. In a lot of stuff I've read it talks about the change in acceleration...though I think of it as a jerking motion.

PowerBuilder said:

i still don't think anything can go faster than the speed of light. With the CERN study...im a bit skeptical....

You can call it Δacceleration or jerk or even jolt...I suppose it doesn't matter too much. In a lot of stuff I've read it talks about the change in acceleration...though I think of it as a jerking motion.

Click to expand...

Neutrinos can't go faster. It's been independently proven ...article published recently. Big sigh of relief for me....or whole thesis would be kindling...

which, upside - is a good analogy for not getting discouraged about training. If I stuck out my damned thesis for years, I can do this, even if it takes AGES. Dammit.

Thanks guys!!!!!!!

im glad I could help. Meanwhile im struggling to grapple entropy.

I think traveling into the future is possible...while nature has set it up so we can't go backwards.

I use an app (jefit) and a web based social exercise network? (fitocracy) to track my progress, any time I need a bit of motivation I go look at the graph for the last few months of my squat progress. Looking at the results of a timescale longer than a week or two is very helpful.

Seeing my mates smash out some solid exercise routines via fitocracy is also a strong motivator to get my ass into the gym.

hmmm that's messing with the natural order of things....or is that disorder?

Semillon said:

I use an app (jefit) and a web based social exercise network? (fitocracy) to track my progress, any time I need a bit of motivation I go look at the graph for the last few months of my squat progress. Looking at the results of a timescale longer than a week or two is very helpful.

Seeing my mates smash out some solid exercise routines via fitocracy is also a strong motivator to get my ass into the gym.

Click to expand...

yep I've got a spreadsheet and started a training log again.
last week was a bit demotivational though LOL

You'll always have ups and downs. I never look at anything as failure, just a result. It might not be the one you wanted - but you pick yourself up and try again.

There's always someone doing it tough or tougher than you. The motivation has to be internal as much as it is external. Praise from others is a motivator, but ultimately to achieve your goal it has to come from within.

On the days I feel flat - a few inspirational videos help. When you see an amputee pushing day in day out - you're training issues pale in comparison. I was running around the block once, bloke in a wheel chair on the opposite side of the road looked at me smirking, happy as larry and said "smart arse!" as if to say, I have to roll around everywhere! I think I ran 11k that day, usually do 5k.

I picked up the 50kg dumbells today and pressed them - felt good to be back at the business end of the dumbells. What kills my weekly regimen is if the diet is poor - or a big night on the piss. Motivation is suppressed a few days then.

Oh and for me - using a log book to track your sets and reps and monthly regimens helps a lot. My structure is out the window if I don't record everything.