[rixatrix]

You know when you run into a friend you haven't seen in months and they've lost a bunch of weight, and you start thinking about what YOU'VE been doing during those months and how you probably could've met your goals if you'd just been consistent? Yeah. This time, be that person who consistently plods away after her goals until she reaches them. This time, be the person who surprises people with how good she looks.

You're going to have good days and days where working out feels like punishment. Recognize that it's totally normal. I can't remember where it came from, but I remember reading something along the lines of: Some days you're going to look in the mirror and feel like you can't see any change. And some days you're going to look in the mirror and feel like you changed completely overnight. Your results should be consistent over the long term - gained strength and lean mass, loss of body fat. But day to day, they're going to bounce up and down and be totally unreliable.

Reward yourself for your behavior. Motivate yourself that way. Say, "If I lift three times this week and do HIIT twice, I'll buy myself a new CD." That way, you've got a system where you'll feel good about what you're doing even if your results aren't as fast or consistent as you would like. Set up as many goals as you can - A goal to work out a certain number of times in the month of April, a goal to lift a certain amount of weight in a specific exercise, a goal to follow a 90% clean diet this week, a goal to lose XX amount of weight by such-and-such date. Give yourself a million different things to succeed at and celebrate, rather than getting hung up on the one goal you don't always have complete control over - the way you look. If your results are slow, but they keep coming, you're doing something right and you just need patience.

Hang in there.