Motivation Expiration
Trent Taylor
Member, Practitioner, AFS Staff admin
There's a "Best by" date
Don’t rely on motivation to accomplish your goals. Sounds like the opposite of what you’d expect to hear from a fitness and wellness coach. We use deadlines and expiration dates throughout our entire day, week, month and years to come. From reaching all the way in the back of the dairy section for the latest date on the milk, to making sure bills are paid on time, to hitting that goal weight for the big wedding, we are almost bound by expiration dates. Have you ever told yourself or someone else that you’re just not motivated right now? No matter what the task might be, we are very good at relying on a finite source to accomplish various goals or tasks. Why is that? Well, when we set deadlines for ourselves, we also internalize a motivation clock or fuel tank to use to hit the marker. Often times, that fuel tank or clock runs out before we pass the finish line, thus leaving ourselves resetting that goal, refueling the tank or winding the clock back, and starting over. The reason? We just lost motivation.
I challenge that you didn’t just lose motivation. If I asked you “do you want to achieve this?” More often than not, your answer would be yes. So, why then can you blame the motivation for not getting you there? It’s because we have the realization that the goal, we set isn’t appropriate for the amount of motivation we’ve created for ourselves. It’s almost a sudden thing too. It’s not something that comes on gradually. We start off really excited and eager with all sorts of new habits to adopt and old ones to drop. Then, the fatigue sets in, and all it takes is one or two missteps to derail. How can we let something that we want so bad, slip so easily let the motivation dwindle?
Prioritizing your self-worth
Once the excuses start to flow, it’s almost as if we expect there to be a reason for not working towards our goal. If there actually isn’t anything, we create one, prioritizing others, or other tasks ahead of ourselves. I think that we tell ourselves it’s not that important right now, which literally means, I’m not that important right now. It can all come back to the idea we have no motivation. If I said I have no motivation to take care of me and prioritize me, people might get concerned. Something that always seems to stunt your motivation is outside influences that are out of your control. It’s easy to put aside our own goals and aspirations and hit the rest button, often saying “I’m just not motivated enough right now” paired with “there’s just not enough time”.
I don’t want to come off as too selfish but I often look at situations like these as when you are on a flight somewhere during the directions in the even the O2 bags drop down. Put yours on before you help someone else. This does not mean choose yourself over others in every scenario, but I there’s some value in it. I believe in still choosing yourself, even if the focus isn’t 100%. If you look at a scenario where your child is sick (VERY COMMON) and they have to stay home so you can’t go get your workout done. It’s not the end of the world. You can still prioritize self-care and worth by doing something that is inherently beneficial for your well-being. Maybe you can’t go exercise hard for an hour and a half, but there’s opportunity to jot down ideas for meal prep, plan out a backup for that day’s miss, meditate for just 5 min, SOMETHING is better than nothing. Rather than get on yourself about not hitting your goal that day. This little bit of prioritizing doesn’t stem high levels a motivation, but believing you’re your self-worth.
Rewiring your motive into a reason
Something that’s become a powerful solution for lack of motivation, for me at least, is finding a reason for doing what you’re doing. Reasons remain grounded and by that, I mean they never really change. Your reason for doing something doesn’t stop, doesn’t give way to unforeseen/uncontrollable factors, but rather adjusts to stick on the track. This gives breath to thinking of things as a dimmer rather than a switch. Allowing yourself to be in this mindset will allow you to adjust to unforeseen circumstances, while holding true to your reason. Another benefit of having a reason is they are flexible and malleable, meaning they aren’t concrete and can be a little broader. Take an example of a reason for lifting weights: “I lift weights because they make me feel stronger and confident”. This doesn’t have anything about how much weight to lift, how many days of lifting, or anything with body composition. If I want to lift 4 days a week, but something happens (i.e. sick child or pet) and I’m not able to make it my 4th day, I’m not a failure, things aren’t awful, and my reason remains the same. Rather than start catastrophizing (It's a real word i swear LOL) the situation, I adjust. Maybe I do a 30 min session at home, maybe I rework my next workout to incorporate more work, maybe I do something to ease my thoughts and map out a contingency plan should this happen again. My point is not to let ONE thing derail you. Let it serve as a tool to adjust and grow. Motivation is temporary and will fade, YOUR reason is lifelong.
Comments
Definitely got me thinking and evaluating my “reasons” dude. As I read your blog I got to thinking how little thought energy we put into those reasons. Does my reason mean something to me down deep? Is it broad enough to give me that room to “mess up” sometimes without getting too far off my path? All good stuff to think about!
thanks for shining a light on this and generating some thought/discussion around it.
@Nate Langley , great points. We can easily put so much energy into a short term, finite path to something but when it comes to the long haul, a little more though should go into it.
Great encouraging words! This is why establishing good habits are so helpful. You often won’t feel like doing “x” but if it’s a habit, you don’t have to rely on your emotions to dictate your decisions. I’m excited to read the book Atomic Habits to learn more about this.
I've always been very fascinated by the idea of motivation.. Especially as it pertains to the attempts so many of us make to change our health behaviors, sometimes successfully, but so often unsuccessfully as well.
I am in the process of reading a book called Immunity to Change which introduces the concept of commitments you have, versus commitments that have you. The concept is brilliant, and a bit beyond an easy explanation in this comment.. but I'll try my best to give a brief summary..
The authors of this book state that for many goals we have, especially those we really struggle to achieve, we have largely unconscious conflicting commitments (or motivations) and priorities that function as a sort of "immune system" against the change required to reach that goal. If we want to make true change, the authors propose that we should thus focus less on the technical aspects of the goal (such as going on a diet to lose weight), and more on the thought structures, and limiting ways of thinking that inhibit change instead. Otherwise, even if we change our behavior in the short term, if the underlying ways of thinking persist, we will inevitably revert back to old behavior. These immune systems are not bad things... in fact they serve to protect us and can be quite beneficial in many areas of our lives. However they can sometimes become too constrictive, and need to be altered to permit desired behaviors. Here's a 14 minute video from one of the authors explaining this a little more, and showing the tool they use to work though this. I am only a little ways into the book, but I am very excited to continue with it as I feel like this is super relevant to health behavior change (and LIFE in general).
In short, building on your post... I would encourage all of us, if there's a goal we have that we have been struggling with for a while, to explore the hidden motivations that might support NOT doing the desired behavior. Once you know them and name them, you can challenge them.
Love this topic. Thanks for starting this conversation, Trent.
Agent of Change / Fitness Innovation & Education Coordinator
@Sawyer Paull-Baird you just described my passion in life! Had no idea there was a book on thought structures!
Dude, this book is literally amazing... I am only 60 pages in and I feel like I have already gotten more out of this book than my last 6 months of continuing education combined. You need to read it. An @Jeremy Seligman recommendation.
Agent of Change / Fitness Innovation & Education Coordinator
@Sawyer Paull-Baird - exploring ‘have you’ commitments and/or realizing motivations aren't actually aligned with desired outcomes can be life-altering, glad you added this comment!
@Trent Taylor, I love this concept. There is a quote from a Greek poet (Archilochus) that comes to mind here and I think it's true of most things in life. The modern version of this quote has been adapted to "[under pressure] we don't rise to the level of our expectations, we sink to the level of our training." This is often quoted axiom amongst Navy Seals and high level athletes, but I also think it holds a powerful message for the achievement of any goal in life.
To extrapolate out how I interpret this quote with regard to motivation to goal achievement, I'll break it down below into three elements:
So how does this relate to relying motivation (or for that matter willpower) to achieve your goals? It's all about training. What is training? It's about doing something so many times you can do it without thinking (otherwise known as a habit). Navy Seals in combat, an NBA player shooting the game winning shot, or you trying to make a healthy dinner decision when you're out with your friends, all of these situations are pressure-filled (granted your dinner decision is hopefully not life and death like it is for the Seals). In all of these scenarios your habits will get through, not willpower, motivation, or expectations. If the concept of habit formation interests you there is a great book on habits I've linked below:
Michael E. Stack, BS CFP CSCS*D CPS
AGENT OF CHANGE, CEO, & Exercise Physiologist