Some workouts are hard, if not impossible, to complete without taking strides to keep ourselves motivated and on track. This is the very reason people hire personal trainers – to create additional accountability and ward off their inner-pussality.

Yet, if you’re trying to get in shape, and really want to tackle some tough workouts, here are some tips to keep you with it ’til the end. *PLUS!! As a bonus, read to the end to learn a new word for softness that I just invented!*

A Soft and Delicious Destructor. You're just soft.

1. Go Somewhere

Guess what? That collection of gym equipment in your basement is now a collection of cobwebs and abandoned dreams for a reason: your domicile is too distracting to get real work done. Get a gym membership or go to the local park just because it will specifically dedicate your time to working out – and not answering the phone, playing with the dog, or appeasing the spouse.

2. Go Somewhere

Ever do an interval running workout? It’s hard. So hard that you’ll want to quit about 20% of the way through. How do you prevent this? Get away from your starting (and quitting) point.

When I want to get the most out of my interval running, or locomotive workouts in general, I make them either on a huge, workout-encompassing loop or two separate starting and finishing points. That way, every step you run away is one step you’ll have to run back. If every time you finish an interval you’re right back at your car, it’ll be way too easy to just call it a day. Run away from pansydom!

3. Bring an Equal

Bring someone who is at your level, is equally motivated, and will push you both toward your goals. Accountability to another person is huge, and I always look for a partner when I really want to do something outside the box and difficult. If neither of you wants to be the quitter, then you’ll both avoid sissification and get it all done.

4. Bring a Newbie

This might even be better than having a hardcore equal as a partner. If you can find a newbie who wants to get started on what you have been already doing, then you have a lot to live up to. A motivated (though these can sometimes be difficult to find) newbie will want to work hard both for their own goals and to impress you, oh seasoned vet, which will require you to step up your game. When showing someone the ropes, you are undoubtedly going to want to look impressive and avoid losing face, which will keep you moving at top speed and perfect form, and DEFINITELY not quitting before they do or before you’ve done what you said you would.

5. Change Surroundings

I walked in the newly renovated weight room of my alma mater and left wanting to go back and pump serious iron there. Why? It was new, shiny and fancy. Sure, the equipment I had been using was good, but the change of venue put a little pep in my step.

6. Get Hopped Up

Could be emotion. Could be supplements. Could be caffeine. There are lots of things that can get you feeling amped that won’t put you behind bars, but will get your ass up that hill or under the squat rack rack one more time.  I’m not a big supplement guy or energy drink or drugs guy, but every now and again a big ‘ol dose of caffeine will get me in gear with some extra fight. Just make sure you don’t take so much that you can’t get down from that gear.

7. Chop Your Goals

Reality is, you can take one more step, do one more rep, or keep going for another second. You might not think you can, but you can. Piece together all those individual reps, sets and seconds and you’ll eventually put together a mosaic you can call a decent workout.

So if you’re solo with no one to push you, push yourself by calling yourself out in small increments. Ultimately those 5 more miles you have to run are run one step at a time, so chop it up and tell yourself that. You can do one more of anything.

8. Distract Thyself

Be one of those retards rocking out to music while working out, if it will help you work out. Sometimes tricking ourselves or just having a distraction is the best way to divert attention from the pain we are enduring. Tool (watch singer Maynard choke out an unruly fan in the above video) and Rage Against the Machine are pretty awesome tools for amplifying aggression and suppressing all those feelings of uncookedbiscuitism (yes, that’s the word that you’ve been waiting for!).

We’re all a little Pillsbury on the inside…

but take some preventive measures to ward it off, and get the most from your time in search of improved athletic prowess, health or whole-body hardness. Don’t be soft, and don’t quit.