So you’ve decided that you want to gain some muscle. There are hundreds of guys who make that decision and “think” they can do it. Little do they know, more than likely they won’t be successful. It’s not because they aren’t capable. It’s not because they don’t have access to the right information. It’s more than likely because they didn’t realize what it was going to take in the first place. They didn’t create a blue print to gaining muscle.

This article is going to outline exactly what you need to do before you even get a gym membership for your quest to gain muscle. There are many mental factors that need to be enforced to ensure your success in this journey. Don’t be another failure statistic, learn these factors and execute them to perfection.

1) Acceptance of hard times

If you truly want to build muscle, you must accept that it’s probably going to be one of the hardest things that you have ever tried to do. The reason for this is because you are literally forcing your body to physically adapt to an environment when it doesn’t want to do it in the first place.

Your body doesn’t want to build more muscle. It’s as simple as that. In a primal way of thinking, your body thinks that this muscle isn’t needed for survival and replication. In a biological way of speaking, your body has two motivators. Those motivators are to survive and to reproduce.

In this day and age, you don’t directly need more muscle to ensure survival and the chances of finding a mate. However, this is where the conflict comes in. Your higher more evolved way of thinking kicks in and says “Hey, if we had more muscle, we’d get more respect and be more attractive to females.” So in a way, yes more muscle does mean a better chance of survival and reproduction.

So because of this conflict, you are going to experience lack of drive on certain days to work out. Everyone experiences this. The trick is to rise above your primal way of thinking and over-ride your laziness. You absolutely must commit to a workout routine to gain muscle. If you don’t fully commit, and I mean fully, then you will be another chump who tried and cried.

Accept right now that this is going to be very difficult. It’s going to be an inner struggle. Maybe not in the first or second month, but as time goes on your primal way of thinking will try to corrupt your higher self. The process of changing your body will also take at least 6 months. If this scares you, go join a yoga class or something, don’t even bother with weight lifting.

2) Set goals

This is probably the most critical step. You must clearly define exactly what you’re setting out to accomplish. These goals need to be measureable, attainable, and have a deadline. You will be setting both long term and short term goals. In fact, you will even be setting ultra-short term goals.

Let’s begin with the overall long term goal. In this case, you are looking to build muscle, but how much? Do you want to be a Jason Statham or a Sylvester Stallone? Depending on how extreme you want to go, your time line is going to differ. As a rule of thumb, for gaining lean muscle mass, your body can build 15-20 pounds of muscle in one year.

This might seem like a small amount to you, but keep in mind this is strictly lean muscle. Body weight also consists of water weight, fat cells, and glycogen storage. I gained 35 pounds in 6 months, but this wasn’t all muscle. The majority of it was glycogen storage and water weight.

So the message here is to keep your long term goal realistic when training with a workout routine to gain muscle. Don’t over shoot your goal, this will only result in you becoming frustrated and quitting due to expectations. So go ahead and set your 6 month goal right now. If it’s simply weight gain, you can go as high as 35 pounds. If it’s strictly pure muscle gain, aim for 10 pounds of raw lean powerful muscle.

The funny thing is that if you gain 10 pounds of raw lean muscle, you will probably look bigger than if you gain 35 pounds of mixed bodyweight. Keep that in mind as you set your long term goal. Now set that date for 6 months from now.

6 months is a fair amount of time. You are going to need benchmarks to hit along the way. This is where you need to set your 1 month goal and your 3 month goal.

Typically, your body will respond to your workout routine to gain muscle very well in the first month. This is where you will see your most dramatic gains. Your weight, measurements, and strength will all be enhanced the most this month. Keep this in mind. Many people become discouraged when they suddenly stop making such dramatic gains after a month.

So for the first month, depending on what you’re going for, set your goals now. Pure weight gain, you can go as high as 10-15 pounds. For lean muscle mass, 2 pounds can be achieved. Personally I like to use size measurements for my chest, arms and legs. I find these measurements to be more credible.

In 30 days I managed to gain a half inch on my arms, one inch on my legs, and one inch on my chest. This gives you an idea of what is realistic when it comes to physical measurements in 30 days.

Next is your 3 month benchmark. This is your halfway point. With that said, you’re going to find that you’ll want to shoot a little higher than half of your long term goal. The reason for this is because you shot ahead of schedule from the first month.

Typically the second half of your journey is going to be a little tougher than your first half. For this reason, it’s fair to set your halfway goals at 60% of your 6 month goal. This is also a good motivator if you find yourself behind the 60% mark halfway through your quest to gain muscle.

As for your ultra-short term goals, this is simply constant progression strength wise with your workout routine to gain muscle.

3) Visualize

Now that you know what your new body is going to be like in 6 months from now, you need to see it for yourself on a regular basis. This will take a great deal of visualization. To do this properly, first close your eyes while standing in front of the mirror. Now see yourself in a 3rd person point of view (someone else looking at you). Notice yourself with your ideal body. See yourself with great posture, looking proud.

Now open your eyes and see yourself from your own perspective still with that body. Imagine your arms, chest, back, and shoulders as the way that you want them to be. This is the way that they will be in 6 months from now. Look at yourself in detail. Notice how much larger you are thanks to the incredible amount of work that you put in for the last 6 months.

You need to do this kind of visualization on a daily basis. You’re still not ready to even start to embark on your journey. Before you start your workout routine to gain muscle you still need to make some realizations. This will be covered in the second part of this two part series.