I have a bad habit sometimes of starting to ask ‘why’ after I’m already deep in the ‘what.’ Ideally I figure out why I need to do something and how I’m going to get it done, then I start on what’s actually required to get it done without thinking anymore about the ‘why.’
Sometimes when I’m in the gym doing a particular exercise I’ll start to think, why am I doing this? Is this the most efficient route to my fitness goal? And all of a sudden my motivation is sapped. I’m no longer concentrating all my energy on the exercise itself. Instead I’m distracted thinking about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ that I already spent time deciding on before I started the workout.
Your motivation is like a muscle too. Every decision you make taxes the muscle a little more. Decision fatigue happens when you’ve fatigued your motivation from making too many decisions.
I have my best workouts when I spend time to decide on my exact training program: what exercises, lengths of rests, number of sets and reps, weight amounts. So all my decisions are made before I begin. And my only focus once I start the workout is all execution and getting each exercise done the right way with max effort.