I thought I knew a bit about motivation, that drive to achieve our goals, but sometimes you have to see things at work in your own life to really get to grips with them.
I began to understand how individual motivation can be, calling as it does on our internal drivers, our values and personal beliefs, along with the more noticeable external factors such as rewards and recognition. Once you recognise this you can start to use it to your advantage to build new habits and change behaviours.
Our Beliefs Frame How We See Things
Before this understanding, if I did a personality test, I would always tick ‘low / none’ in response to the question ‘how do you rate your levels of self-control’ without giving it a second thought. Surely if I had self-control then I would be exercising, cutting down on the bad stuff like sugar and alcohol and generally be much healthier. I would also have a PhD and a cleaner house.
Over the last few years, almost by chance, I have proven myself wrong and this has forced me to re-evaluate things.
So how did this change happen? Well like many of us, my first six months of lockdown was accompanied by weight gain that wasn’t looking like it was ever going to plateau. For me, this coincided with menopause, which offered a handy reason to feel powerless to change things. I was unhappy but not motivated to do anything about it.
When a friend asked did I want to try walking each morning it was more that there wasn’t much reason to say no rather than an active choice. We were heading into winter and third lockdown, and, let’s face it, there was nothing else in my social calendar. So we started, unsure how long it would continue, shocked at how dark early mornings were and surprised how fast you could walk when it was so cold!
Now three and a half years later we are still walking and I am two stone lighter. Not from the walking, if anything I put on a little weight with that as I built muscle, but it kick started a new found belief in myself. A belief that if I set out to do something, then with the right drives and motivation, I could stick at it.
What Helps Me Succeed
The conditions that support our intentions are individual to each of us. For me walking with a friend ticked a lot of boxes;
⦁ It was fun – if I can laugh while I am doing something I am more likely to keep going.
⦁ I was being held accountable - someone else was relying on me to show up and I am less likely to let them down than myself.
⦁ I could measure my achievements – I love to track my progress on an app to see how many steps I’ve done.
Achieving this first regular habit inspired me to try a diet, in my case I did intermittent fasting, which I stuck at for a year. Something I have never done before.
Next Steps
Together, these new key habits meant I have had to change a self-belief. I can no longer simply tick ‘none’ when it comes to self-control and perseverance because it turns out I do have them, I just wasn’t using them. It had been a simple case of not holding myself accountable for my choices and letting myself off the hook. This is exciting and challenging in turn. If I can go out there and achieve the things I want to, stick at them until they are completed, then I have no excuses when it comes to committing to new goals or behaviour changes, as long as they are the right changes for me.
To make the changes you want you need to do a bit of thinking first. What things do you really want to achieve and why? Are they your goals or other people’s expectations? Why do we make excuses in the first place? Who and what do they serve?
Asking yourself these kinds of questions calls for some soul searching, digging deeper to find your authentic self. Your answers also give you your ‘whys’ and these are what keep you going when your resolve starts to dip. For nearly all of us, we quickly reach a point where willpower and motivation start to fail. This is when the reasons behind your goals kick in and keep you on track.
Who knew all that would come from a bit of walking!
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