Long-term success in health and fitness is often determined by motivation. When people start losing motivation to achieve their goals, their chance of success is often lost as well. The good news is you can predict your level of motivation by evaluating behavior and your goals. Then you can use this information to develop goals that will create higher levels of motivation for you.
Step 1: Figure out what you want to accomplish and why
Having a well-defined objective is certainly important because it gives you something specific to work towards. Most people put some thought into figuring this out, but fewer people go the extra step and ask themselves why they want to accomplish this. For example, if you know you want to lose 20 pounds of fat, you should then ask yourself why is losing this fat important. Answering this question will help determine your level of motivation.
There are 2 basic types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation occurs when you want to do something for yourself and extrinsic motivation occurs when you are doing something to achieve external rewards. This is important, because intrinsic motivation is more beneficial than extrinsic motivation. Choosing an objective you want to accomplish for yourself instead of for someone else will create intrinsic motivation and improve your chance of success.
For example someone desiring to lose fat to feel better and live a longer healthier life will have better motivation than someone desiring to lose fat so other people will complement their appearance. If they are waiting for complements and do not receive them, their motivation will decrease, regardless of the progress they made. If the same person is instead focused on feeling better, any progress made, such as having more energy or having less muscle pain, will serve as motivation to keep them going. Plus this person will still be motivated by complements, but they will not be dependent on them.
Having intrinsically motivated objectives does not ensure you will stay motivated, but it certainly helps. Once you have finished this step, you will have the makings of a good primary/long-term goal.
Step 2: Determine if your primary goal is truly important to you
This may sound strange, but having a strong desire to accomplish a goal, such as losing fat, does not ensure the goal is truly important to you. Usually people’s primary goals are determined by their strongest desires and emotions. To find out how important something really is you need to look beyond your emotions. Emotions can typically change from day to day, but things that are really important to you will almost always be considered important and receive a high priority in your life.
To determine if your goal is really important, you need to ask yourself the right questions. You must go beyond asking how much do I want or desire this and ask yourself what am I willing to give up to achieve this. Asking how much you want something will tell you how strong your emotions are regarding that issue. Asking yourself what you will give up lets you find out where your goal will rank on your list of priorities and subsequently give you a good idea about your probability of success.
If your goal is to lose fat, you should ask questions such as “Am I willing to stop eating my favorite unhealthy food or skip my favorite TV show to have the time to exercise?” I am not saying that you will have to do these things to lose fat, but these types of questions help you find out what is really important to you. If someone prioritizes eating fried food, watching TV, and partying (drinking alcohol) over losing fat, even if they have a strong desire to for fat loss, they will probably be unsuccessful.
Spend some time thinking about the activities are most important to you and how you prioritize your time. It is a good idea to write your priorities down and rank them from highest to lowest. Then see how well your goal corresponds with your highest priorities. Do your priorities assist your goal, obstruct it, or have no real effect? Repeat this process with each of your goals.
Few people consciously think about how their actions convey their priorities. Just going through this process often causes people to reevaluate their behaviors and shift their priorities so goal(s) end up being higher on the list. Naturally this results in a greater chance of success.
Some people are forced into a similar process, although it is often unintentional. A common example is when people receive bad news from their doctor, such as being headed for a major heart attack. Then the person may be advised to eat a low-fat diet. The person is essentially forced to ask the question of what is more important, eating healthier and avoiding a heart attack or eating poorly and possibly dying. This is a simple question to answer and it results in eating healthy being placed at or near the top of a priorities list.
These situations are also a very powerful source of motivation. It is important to note that the real goal is to prevent a heart attack and prevent death while eating a low-fat diet is actually the tool to achieve the goal not the goal itself. This goal is intrinsic, desirable, and very important, which means the motivation to succeed will be very high. People in these circumstances have been known to completely change their eating habits overnight.
By using the strategies discussed above you will be able to develop your own highly motivating goals. Whether you want to lose fat, get in shape, or even accomplish something unrelated to health and fitness, you can apply this information to maximize your results.
