This is taken from Seth Godin’s blog, one of the most popular blogs on the internet. Even though his blog’s topic is different from mine, I find this particular post to be very relevant to this blog.

First, here is my thought on this:

For ectormophs, training for a great physique is WORK. Tough tough work. Not only will you have to work hard at the gym, you also have to eat properly, rest properly, sleep amply, all the while finish school work and all kinds of other commitments. Thus, it’s no surprise that every once in a while, you don’t feel like doing any of it.

Of course I feel that way some times. Especially these days. I’ve got papers to write, math and computer science problem sets every week, campus job, training every day, and job applications to fill out. Everyday is filled up with work even before I open my eyes.

I just DON’T think about it. I don’t think: “Oh my god, I have so much work.” I don’t complain about it to anyone. I don’t waste time sitting there and feel bad about the whole situation. There’s no use. I’ve set my goals clear, and these are the works to be done to get there. Feelings are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter how you feel. Works are there. You either do it, or you don’t.

Just do what you’re supposed to do; don’t think too much about it.

And here’s Seth’s post:

“I don’t feel like it:

What’s it?

Why do you need to feel like something in order to do the work? They call it work because it’s difficult, not because it’s something you need to feel like.

Very few people wake up in the morning and feel like taking big risks or feel like digging deep for something that has eluded them. People don’t usually feel like pushing themselves harder than they’ve pushed before or having conversations that might be uncomfortable.

Of course, your feelings are irrelevant to whether or not the market expects great work. Do the work. Ignore the feelings part and the work will follow.”

From Seth Godin’s blog

Still hesitate whether you should dedicate so much time, money, and energy to training? (It should be your top 1 or at most top 2 priority in life for at least 3 months; here’s why). Don’t hesitate. Don’t ask what if. Life = risk. If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived.

You think about many random things. Pay attention to them. Do you see that there is always a plot to everything you think about?

When you think about a girl you’re having a crush on, do you think only of her beautiful face? Noo. You also think about some special moments you shared with her, how you can get her to be your girlfriend, and all the fun activities you two will have together. There are countless scenarios that you can easily come up with involving you and that girl.

The same goes with thinking about a game, a movie, an activity, or a road trip, etc. It is always a story that you think about. Never a single image. And you always try to come to an ending for every story—most often a happy ending. You come up with many constructive thoughts that help you reach your happy ending. The whole process is fun, and that’s why you always think about everything that way.

So, you have one or two projects/goals to achieve. Every night in bed, you will think about how you can achieve that goal, what to do to get you there—all the different scenarios, different activities that you can think of to get you closer to your happy ending. Of course, the process gets you pumped up on working toward reaching your goals. In fact, it is such an inspiring and motivational experience that you cannot wait to wake up the next morning and lift some heavy weights. You become one with your goals. Achieving your goals and thinking about them are among the few things in your life that give you happiness and peace of mind.

You become super focused on your goals. That is the best thing ever!

Unfortunately, no matter how pumped up you are thinking about your goals, the experience pales in comparison with the pleasure you get from fantasizing about a computer game, a girl, or a movie, etc. And thanks to the well-known fact that your mind prefers to think only about what is most pleasurable, you’ll quickly find yourself barely ever think about your goals at all.

That’s why you should control your desires: so that you don’t have girls, games, or any distraction to think about. Start your journey fresh, without any distraction to worry about. Keep focus on the goal throughout the journey, and you will enjoy every minute of it. Lose focus and soon doubts will block you from ever reaching the end of the journey.

“The first law of success is concentration – to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right or to the left.”  -William Matthews

• You get help and support from other like-minded people.
• You think about your goal (constructively, deeply, and vividly) more often than anything else.

How do you get that? Easy:

• Start a thread on popular bodybuilding forum like forum.bodybuilding.com. The thread will be your journal throughout your journey toward reaching your goal.
• Start a blog offering your own tips and thoughts on training

Why a thread on a forum?

• As a newbie to training, you should start a thread on one of these forums instead of a blog. This way, you will immediately get lots of attention from experienced bodybuilders and avid visitors of the forum. Just clearly state your goals, your plan, and ask people to join your journey. Soon you will get valuable feedbacks on your workout program, your meal plan, and just about everything pertaining to training.
• You are to keep posting new entries to the thread regularly (daily or at least 3-4 times a week). You will talk about your progress, any problem you may have, or any thought or tip regarding training you may have come up with. This way, you will think about training on a daily basis. More importantly, the act of writing everything down on your thread makes sure that you are thinking about training seriously. After all, you are writing to the public, not on your secret diary.
• It often happens that people with the same goal will engage in your thread. They will motivate you, give you valuable information that you may have missed, and best of all, make you accountable.

Why a blog?

• As you get bigger and leaner, your knowledge of training also increases tremendously. Your level of experience is now very valuable to many people. A thread is no longer the relevant medium. With a blog, you have more freedom regarding the topics of your writing. Also, you can categorize all your posts, choose your own theme for the blog, and become even more serious about your entries.
• As an ectomorph, you will have to lead a unique but healthy lifestyle for as long as you want to keep your hard-earned muscle. I’m talking about years and even decades of hard work lying ahead. It is a part of your life now–and a big one it is. Therefore, why not make it more meaningful? After all, you can learn valuable lessons about life from just about anything, provided that you pay attention and always be curious. Therefore:
• A blog is the perfect medium. You can still post daily entries with thoughts on training, but now on a rather abstract level. From training, you have learned how to achieve any goal in life, how to get things done quickly and easily, how to stay motivated, how to inspire other people, etc. So please, share it with the world. Share it with your very own blog!
• Your blog will make you accountable and keep you thinking about training. Coz believe me, it doesn’t take much to NOT think about eating healthy, resting fully, and lifting heavily. And just like that, you will lose so much progress that costs valuable time and money. Take this blog for example: 3 posts a week. Sharing with the world my own perspective on training. And in the process, I have learnt so much more than I could have imagined at the start while keeping a good focus on training.

So take action. What are you waiting for? Go to a forum and start a thread. Or if you are more experienced, go to Word Press and create a blog. It will be one of the best decision you’ve made in a while.

As an ectomorphs, you are at a disadvantage when it comes to gaining muscles and getting strong. You may even think that you are not very smart either. However, those are no excuse for not daring to dream big and keep trying hard when the goings gets tough. Don’t use your current limitations to justify your failures. Don’t sit still and expect a secret formula to come along and magically get you what you want.

Training to get big is about taking action, staying persistent, and giving 100% of your effort consistently. There are only a handful of principles to take heed of (and most of which are clichés). It is not hard to learn how to get big; the real challenge lies in your ability to follow these rigid principles for an extended period of time.

RECAP: Don’t use your limitations to justify your failures to get big. Don’t expect something magical to happen. Take action. Stay Persistent. Give all your heart. And you’ll get big.

When you have a crush on a girl, you think about her a lot more than anything else:

• You think about her before going to bed, maybe even right after waking up in the morning.
• You think about what you would do with her if you two were already a couple.
• Whatever activities you enjoy with her in your daydreaming, you get a specific set of feelings from them. And they are all strong, vivid images and feelings.
• You even think about how you can get her to become your girlfriend, from asking her out, to planning the first date, to planning the first kiss, etc.

The point is, that is exactly how you should about training.

You have to think about training before falling asleep, and maybe even first thing after waking up in the morning.

You don’t really “have” to; because that’s naturally what you “want” to think about, just as you would when you think about that girl. Everything comes naturally; you don’t force yourself to do anything.

You will daydream about what it feels like to have an awesome physique, how you would feel when people look at you and envy your body. Your feelings are strong, and your mental images of yourself are vivid.

You will want to think about how you can get there. How can you improve what you are doing now in order to make sure that you get there as fast as you can?

In short, ask yourself this simple and seemingly ridiculous question:

“If training were a girl that I like, how would I think about it?”

Anyway, here is a great excerpt from the book that I really want to share with you all:

There is no such thing as failure – only feedback; only results.

Price Pritchett, the author of 25 books including “The Quantum Leap Strategy,” emphasizes that failure is a sign of progress:

“Everything looks like a failure in the middle. You can’t bake a cake without getting the kitchen messy. Halfway through surgery it looks like there’s been a murder in the operating room. If you send a rocket toward the moon, about ninety percent of the time it’s off course – it “fails” its way to the moon by continually making mistakes and correcting them.”

Just because you have not been able to gain muscles does not mean you have failed. It simply means that based on your performance, that is the result/feedback you’ve got. Now, you can either throw in the towel and give up; or you can stay positive and learn from the experience. The battle is not over until you say it’s over.

Remember,

“A quitter never wins. A winner never quits.”

For an ectomorph to get big, it requires a tremendous level of determination. If you don’t have it in yourself, nobody else can give it to you.

If you need someone to give you motivation every time you want to pump some iron, you will never make any progress. These irons will crush you to nothing!!

NO!

You must be the one that inspire others to get into shape. You must be the one that your friends want to go to the gym with because they respect your motivational strength. Remember, you are in the business of getting big. It’s your job to gain muscle now. Don’t kid yourself. Be real. Get serious results son!

Just because you were born skinny (ectomorphs) does not necessarily mean you can never get huge and look really really really awesome.

And just because someone can get big just by sneezing (mesomorphs) does not necessarily mean he will automatically look great always.

Similarly, just because someone is really smart and can solve complicated math problem in lighting-quick time does not necessarily mean he will always be able to solve tough problems and succeed in life. Just because you are not so quick with numbers or good at concentrating does not necessarily mean you can never do anything intellectual.

A burning desire, an audacity to dream big, a great level of determination and consistency are what you need to get where you want in life. But the first thing you need to do is to ACCEPT who you are physically and mentally. Only then can you start to build on what you already possess to get where you want in life.

RECAP: A burning desire, an audacity to dream big, a great level of determination and consistency are what you need to get where you want in life. But the first thing you need to do is to ACCEPT who you are physically and mentally.

So, don’t bother trying to win your friends and family support for your journey to get bigger. The rewards that you will get means so much more to you than they can ever imagine. Simply getting to the point when you look normal instead of “malnourished” is already an achievement of such a magnitude that most of your friends will never even be able to reach. From that point to looking big and strong is, believe it or not, much easier than the first journey.

No one but you can feel the sense of success walking around with a great physique. People may think you were born with a great body, but only you know what you have had to go through for that. No one but you can feel the surge of self-confidence for having achieved something so amazing and so out of imagination. It does not matter what other people think. What matters is you and how your feel about yourself. ‘Coz only when you respect yourself will people respect you.

Also, think about this: If a chubby friend of yours all of a sudden goes up to you and say that she will lose 50 pounds of weights in a year, would you believe that she will be able to do it? Same thing applied to you when you tell someone you will get big and strong.

When you want to get bigger, just do it. Action speaks louder than words. And success speaks even louder than action. Here’s the quote from my favorite book—Think and grow Rich: “Success requires no apologies; failures permits no alibis.” Stick to your goal and forget about the whole world.

RECAP: Your friends and family in most cases will not support you in your journey to get into the best physique of your life. There is no point in convincing them to your point of view. Stick to your goal and forget about everyone else.

However, I do think more motivations are needed once you start to train properly for more muscle mass. After all, training then eating then eating then eating then eating some more then sleeping then training, and on and on, who doesn’t feel overwhelmed once in a while (and I haven’t even included school work and social life yet)? It is at these crucial moments that you need more motivations to push on through.

You need some motivation that makes you sooooo excited you cannot wait to go the gym to pump some iron. You need something that makes it super vivid to you the thrill of actually having a great physique, the pride you will get from having hot women checking you out and men envying your awesome body.

For example, after watching any of the three Bourne movies, do you wish you could be like Bourne (speak 4 or 5 different languages fluently, look awesome, kick some bad ass in just a few moves, drive around like crazy, read maps in 2 seconds, and always know exactly what to do, where to go, how to move, etc)?

Even though it is impossible for us to be like Bourne, the movie still makes us WANT to take some action to be like Bourne. Do you have a good motivation source that make you want to train for a bigger physique?

For me personally, Brad Pitt in Fight Club is greatly inspiring. Sometimes photos of people like Edward Norton, Taylor Lautner, Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, etc. are all motivational because these celebrities all transform their body from scrawny to brawny in amazingly fast periods of time.

One more thing, daydreaming is good… as long as it is about your goals. It is the best source of motivation. It is when you stop daydreaming about getting a bigger and stronger physique that you should worrying. When we daydream about something totally unrelated to the task at hand, that is bad because we lose our concentration. But when we daydream about our goal, we become more motivated to achieve our goal, and we focus much more on reaching it.

RECAP: You need to find some sources of motivation that make it super vivid to you the thrill of actually having a great physique, the pride you will get from having hot women checking you out and men envying your awesome body.

The journey to reaching your goals is never the same as you expect it to be. NEVER. All you need is to keep your focus on your goal, keep your burning desire, and keep on persisting. I made no gain the first two years of training. Even when I started to train seriously and properly, problems keep popping up and throwing me way off track. I make more sacrifice than I planned, but I also learn more and benefit so much more than I hoped for.

To have a goal and to REACH your goal is the best thing to happen in life. Every journey is always worth traveling if you are willing to stick with it till the end. So don’t hesitate. Start right now, whether you are ready or not.

RECAP: Start your journey right now!!! whether you are ready or not.

Once you have set your goal, say to look as good as Brad Pitt in Fight Club, you will never be completely happy with yourself until you have achieved that goal. This is the motivation that keeps pushing you through hard training sessions and ridicules from other people. You don’t settle until you reach your goal. It defines whether you are the winner or the loser. You cannot live with yourself if you are not doing anything to get closer to your goal.

If person Z makes 10 million dollars before turning 30, would he be happy? Obviously NO. He’d be very unhappy in fact. Even if he makes 80 million dollars, that will still not be enough. His goal is to make 100 million dollars. Anything less than that is a failure to him.

There lies the dilemma of dreaming big. Setting big goals mean raising the standard and expectation of yourself. It should be one of the decisions that change your life. You are setting the benchmarks for everything you do in life. And these benchmarks dictate whether you should be happy or miserable about your performance.

However, most people don’t even dare to dream. They don’t know that they have the ability to achieve every single dream of their childhood. They settle for a normal house, a normal wife, a normal job, and a normal life. They play it safe. But deep down, they will never be completely at peace, because their childhood dreams are still there. They’d look at someone with a beautiful wife, a great job, and a big house, and they feel bad about themselves. They may accept it as their destiny, but they will still think: “Wouldn’t it be nice if I can live like that for one day?”

You use your own measurements in life thus far to assess everything. A dream may be really big for you now, but it may not be so 3 months from now. You don’t even know your potentials/limitations until you have tried to do something seriously for quite some time. For example, when you are 120 pounds, gaining 80 pounds of muscles seems impossible. But once you have gained 30 pounds of muscle to get to 150 pounds, gaining 50 more pounds of muscle is only a matter of time and consistent effort. Will you ever know that if you have not dared to dream big and really try to achieve it?

Setting big dreams is not easy. That is not what you have been taught at school or by your friends and families. But dare to dream, try your best, and you will never regret anything in life.

Note: you may want to check out this book The Magic of Thinking Big. It is an easy read, but it will eliminate any doubts you may have about daring to think big.

RECAP: Dare to set big goals. It’s risky business, but it’s totally worth it. Don’t let your current limitations and measurements in life dictate what you can achieve in the future.

When you have to figure out the solution to a tough math/econ/physics question, suddenly popped into your head is the thought of this weekend’s crazy party, of playing some rock band with your friends later tonight, or of some cute girl you just met. You cannot concentrate on just thinking about the problem and get done with it. Why?

Because all these thoughts that just popped into your head are much more fun and much less difficult to do.

If you have only one goal to achieve: gain 15 pounds of muscle in the next 12 weeks, everything is a lot different. You think about it all the time. You don’t think about crazy party because drinking will mess up your training (i.e. you will be unhappy). You don’t think about playing rock band because training, school work/job, and friends/family take up most of your free time already. If playing rock band means you will have to miss homework or skip a meal, you will not be happy at all. You have one and only one goal, and you will not let anything mess up with it.

Having one goal for a short period of time (e.g. 12-16 weeks) help you focus your life around it. Nothing else in the world can make you excited or happy unless you reach your goal. It redefines all the other activities in your life. You will no longer be excited about partying, computer games, or girls because for these 12 weeks, achieving your goal is the only thing that makes you happy and gives you peace of mind. Moreover, when you have only one goal, your goal will become your true passion. And when it has become your passion, you think about it a lot more often than anything else. It just naturally happens that way. Nothing is gonna pop into your mind when you think about what you are passionate about. When you’ve reached that state, you will have a lot of creative thoughts for your passion. And that’s great! When you are passionate about getting something, sooner or later, you will achieve it.

Note: you should also read these articles: How many goals should you have beside your training goal? and The cost of a great looking physique-there’s no such thing as something for nothing.

RECAP: Having one goal focus your mind and activities on just achieving that goal.

But it is more complicated than that:

How many times have you set a big goal and actually achieved it? People set goals after goals because they think one goal is too easy, but they never really reach any of these goals. A great general thousands of years ago ordered to burn all of the ships that took him and his troops to a distant land. They had no other option but to fight and win the battle. And they did win! Having too many goals makes it impossible to focus your mind. It also gives you the excuse to fail in some goals for the sake of some other goals (usually you’d end up reaching no goal).

Set a big goal, and you can focus all your life on it. Set two goals, and each goal is only 1 tenth the magnitude of having only 1 goal. Setting three goals? It is even worse.

Once you have sat down and done some serious thinking, you’ll realize that there are only 2 to 3 things in life that you really want. Everything else is trivial. Then you can set your goals.

Training to get big for a skinny guy like you is serious work. It deserves a lot of attention and energy. But I know, it is not your (nor is it my) only goal in life. So what now?

My solution: set a goal of gaining 15 pounds of muscle in 12 weeks. Make it your only goal for these 12 weeks. You will spend all your free time working on this goal. You will think about it constantly. It will be your last thought before falling asleep and your motivation for waking up in the morning. In other words, you are obsessed with it. It is all you talk about. That will be your life for the next 12 weeks.

Everything, no matter how trivial, matters in your training (here). You will need these 12 weeks to make sure you understand everything, to make training your habit, to get into the life style of a serious trainer. Once you have gained these 15 pounds of muscle:

• You look a lot better
• You know everything about how to train to gain muscle and look awesome
• You understand your action
• You live right, eat right, train right and sleep right

After that, you set another training goal: maybe gaining another 15 pounds. However, now you can add one or two more goals (one is best). Why? Because now you don’t have to think so much about training anymore (you still can if you want though). Your life style is now the life style of a serious trainer: you can still get amazing results without having to think about it as much as before. In other words, you are like a satellite that has escaped Earth’s gravity-the hardest part is now over. Just keep your mind in the right direction and you will get there.

RECAP: Set a training goal for 12 weeks and make it your only goal for these 12 weeks.

You hate that boring History class, but you HAVE to finish all the reading, simply because you HAVE to. You hate going to work everyday, but you HAVE to. But you don’t have to work out really intensely; you don’t have to eat healthy; you don’t have to go to bed early. How then, can you get into shape?

Think about it: you have a paper due tomorrow. You have to read four freakin’ boring books to write it. You HATE it. But you still do it, why? Because you hate failing that class even more. You hate being an embarrassment to your family and friends. You know it, the prospect of failing that class is SCARY. That’s why you write that paper.

How about working out, eating healthy and going to bed early? If you miss one workout, it doesn’t feel like something bad is gonna happen to you, right? If you skip a meal or eat three Big macs, it’s just once in a bluemoon, definitely can’t hurt, right? It’s 11pm and your friend says let’s watch Fight Club. Well, why not, right?

You see, you do your homework because you are scared of the consequences if you don’t. But since you don’t understand the serious results of skipping a meal, it sure doesn’t hurt you to skip it.

I want to help you understand everything about getting into shape so you can have the proper feelings for any action you may take in your every day life.

RECAP: Understand the consequences of your action on your training goal.

Consider this: you’ve been lying in bed for nearly an hour, and you still cannot fall asleep. Actually, you are far from it. You are worried. Maybe a little panic. Your life is not going well at all. You think about all the things you want to do, yet you haven’t started on any of them yet (or you’ve been working on something for years now, but still suck at it). After all that agonizing, you decide to start again from tomorrow. It’s going to be all different from now on. You set three to five goals. You are determined. You are excited. You can’t wait to start the new day. Yeah you know how the story goes. Wake up the next morning and you are back to your pathetic lazy self again.

Don’t tell me this has not happened to you.

The next dozen of posts in this category will help get you into the right mindset for training. Trust me, gaining muscle for you ectomorphs people is a challenging but also very rewarding task. Get your mind right first. The rest will come easy.

RECAP: You must get in the right mind set before starting training.