How Can This NOT Motivate you?! (Dragon Ball and Self-Improvement, 2017)
If you’re a fan of Dragon Ball Z and you’re not trying your best at everything you do, you’ve missed a trick.
If you’d rather watch than read:
I don’t always use external motivation and I don’t recommend you do so either, 90% of your motivations should be personal and come from within you. You have to WANT to better yourself. But in those times where internal motivation isn’t enough, one external cue that I like to use to get hyped up is to simply watch Dragon Ball Z.
Today I didn’t want to work out at all. It was a heavy lower body day and I hadn’t done squats or deadlifts for 3 weeks due to an illness. I was still sleep-deprived from the night before and my dog Taffy was feeling particularly needy so I had to take him for a walk to calm him down. I had a long list of business priorities to take care of which I couldn’t stop agonising over and I ended up pissing away much more of my time than I should have. Everything seemed to be getting in the way between me and this leg workout and my motivation was running thin.
But I ended up going anyway, even though I didn’t want to.
It wasn’t a fantastic workout and it took so fucking long, but I did go and I did get through it. What motivated me to go in the end? Dragon Ball clips like the X20 Goku Kaioken against Freeza, Super Saiyan transformations, and battles on vanishing planets. A Japanese kids cartoon got me motivated to work out.
Just in case you didn’t know, Dragon Ball Z is a fighting anime with a core focus of getting stronger. The characters Goku and Vegeta are my ultimate physique goals and the attitude they apply to their training and work ethic is incredibly inspiring. I want to be like them, they go out there and crush it without leaving anything on the table. Every. Single. Time.
They may be fictional characters but when I see that level of dedication a flip just switches in me. I get similar feelings of inspiration from real life role models (such as Arnold Schwarzenegger) but ultimately the fantastical element that somebody can get so strong that they start to move planets is absolutely mind blowing to me. Especially when you consider the character history of the shows protagonist.
Goku at one point was weaker than most humans, then he worked his way up to defeating highly trained humans, then started to surpass alien races, and now he’s on the same level as the gods themselves. Seriously, how can you NOT be motivated by that? If you watch Dragon Ball and you’re not already trying your best at everything you do and you’re not already working out, I encourage you to look at it through this perspective:
Who would you rather be?
The farmer with the shotgun who gets owned by Raditz
Or
Goku and Vegeta, mortals who have claimed godlike powers with nothing but hard-work
Hell, you don’t even have to be Goku and Vegeta. Yamcha, Krillin, and even Mr.Satan are all insanely strong human beings. They could probably kick our asses anyway! Just look at them!
If you’re a cosplayer like I am I think this can be applied in a really unique way. Since you’re already trying to look like them, then using the characters as motivations to train makes perfect sense. You already WANT to be like them! I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Goku is my most popular cosplay by far, I think having a decent physique can take your cosplay to a whole new level. Using examples besides myself Living Ichigo and Leon Chiro both have physiques that are not only attainable for 90% of people, but it’s those physiques that make their cosplays truly stand out. It’s their secret ingredient!
So that’s what I do when I need some external motivation; I watch Dragon Ball Z. And if this article resonated with you at all, here’s my top 5 most motivational Goku moments to get you started: