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Motivation - July meeting follow up

1texasmom
on 7/29/09 10:33 pm

Do you often find yourself where your motivation went? Do you suddenly revert back to your "old ways" without really understanding why? If so, you may have a misconception about motivation.

Many people think motivation means not having to struggle with opposing desires. Not so! It is in our nature to pursue both the gratification of our senses (eating what we enjoy) and psychological gratification of meaningful but abstract goals (health, fitness). Both pursuits are necessary.

Your motivation will be as strong as the amount of effort you put into making your own decisions with conscious awareness. No one controls you, but you. No one can make you eat. No one can make you choose unhealthy foods. No one can make you go off your plan. Only you have the power to choose to do so or not.

Intrinsic motivation comes from rewards inherent to a task or activity itself. You are likely to be intrinsically motivated if you:

attribute results to internal factors that you can control (e.g. the amount of effort they put in),
believe you can be effective in reaching desired goals (i.e. the results are not determined by luck or actions of others),
are interested in mastering the new life skill (being healthy)

Extrinsic motivation comes from outside. Acknowledgement or approval from others is the most obvious example, but coercion and threats are also common extrinsic motivations. While they may be effective in the short term, they will not be effective motivators in the long term. To be successful, motivation must come from within yourself. However, others may inspire you or expect more of you which provides confidence and self esteem, but this cannot be your only motivation because support of others can fluctuate. You must look within you. Practice positive self talk. Do not be self-limiting!Rather than focusing on what is wrong, focus on what is right and what success you've experienced to date. When you hear yourself say something negative to yourself, stop! Replace the thought with something more positive or neutral. By stopping negative self talk and creating habitually positive internal dialogue you can reduce stress and empower yourself.

Your motivation wilol be weak when you consider yourself to be helpless. There are 3 primary reasons we lose motivation. They are 1) a lack of confidence, 2) a lack of focus and 3) a lack of direction.

Reasons We Lose Motivation

There are 3 primary reasons we lose motivation.

1. Lack of confidence – If you don’t believe you can succeed, what’s the point in trying?

2. Lack of focus – If you don’t know what you want, do you really want anything?

3. Lack of direction – If you don’t know what to do, how can you be motivated to do it?

Gain Confidence - The way to get out of this thought pattern is to focus on gratitude. Set aside time to focus on everything positive in your life. Make a mental list of your strengths, past successes, and current advantages. We tend to take our strengths for granted and dwell on our failures. By making an effort to feel grateful, you’ll realize how competent and successful you already are. This will rejuvenate your confidence and get you motivated to build on your current success.

Tangible focus – concrete goal, define actions, measure. When know what you want, you become motivated to take action.

Direction - an ultimate goal, direction is having a day-to-day strategy to achieve it. A lack of direction kills motivation because without an obvious next action we succumb to procrastination. Keeping track of your most important tasks will direct your energy towards success. Without a constant reminder, it’s easy to waste entire days.

RNY: 11/19/07

SW:260

LW: 140 (January 09)

CW: 180

GW: 155-160

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