How many times have you been told that “either you’re motivated or you’re not”, or “either you want it bad enough or you don’t”?
Although at times of gruelling perseverance – like the last miles of a long run, the dark days of a contest prep, the family gatherings where you’re choosing to practice mindful eating, and/or the days in recovery (from injury, disordered eating, hypothalamic amenorrhea, etc) to name a few – you feel like this might be true, for most people, most of the time, it’s just a load of BS.
Every time I hear yet another (usually) pale, male and stale individual on the internet shouting about how resting is for the weak, and quitting is for losers, it makes me want to throw my phone off a bridge and go and live in a remote hut. But I enjoy looking at cute animal videos on Instagram too much to do that, so here I am writing about it and telling the world why I think the fitness industry’s perception of motivation is absolutely f*cked.
And let me be clear: this isn’t about justifying “excuses” (although I do feel that often this calls upon us to listen a little harder), but it’s about understanding that motivation exists on a SPECTRUM, and as such, should be approached in this same way.
So, if motivation isn’t black or white, then what is it?
Motivation has been studied IN DEPTH in the applied field of exercise/physical activity psychology, and what we know is that there are three broad types of motivation:
- No motivation, also known as amotivation
- Extrinsic motivation, which is when the pull to do something is driven by external factors
- Intrinsic motivation, which is when we pursue an activity for the sake of the activity itself (think of a child who puts a shoe in their mouth, just cos’)
For most of us, motivation to exercise is extrinsically driven, but even here we can sub-divide it though a spectrum which ranges from:
- Doing something to avoid being punished OR to be rewarded (external motivation)
- Doing something to avoid shame/guilt OR to get praise (introjected motivation)
- Doing something because we identify that behaviour as being important to us (identified motivation)
- Doing something because it is in alignment with WHO WE ARE (integrated motivation)
So, as you can see, it’s not as simple as “nobody cares, work harder”: there’s a lot more nuance to motivation than social media would have you believe. And yes, it’s likely that the people you see professing that shite are motivated to work out and diet to the max because it’s part of who they are, it’s tied into their identity, it’s tied into their values, and they cannot separate themselves from that (i.e., their motivation to be consistent with all things fitness is integrated into who they are). Ideally, this is where most of us want to get to – a place in which taking care of ourselves through health promoting behaviours is second nature.
But for a lot of us, especially at the start of a fitness journey, … it’s not quite there yet, it’s more a matter of recognising diet (the way we eat)/exercise/fitness as something important but learning to balance it with other competing demands.
So, if you are struggling with motivation and feel down on yourself because “maybe you don’t want it enough”, take a step back to recognise that there’s more to motivation then “yes or no”. It’s a process, like anything else.
And when there’s a process, there are always things that we can do to get ourselves further along that motivation spectrum, so we can become more motivated.
What does the theory tell us?
Basic psychological needs
Just like flowers need water, nutrients, and sunshine to survive, humans also have a set of basic psychological needs that help us thrive in our day-to-day life. These are: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
What the evidence seems to suggest is that when our basic psychological needs are met, we are far more motivated to engage in goal-related behaviour. So in essence, one of the most reliable ways of increasing your motivation is to seek out ways to increase the satisfaction of your basic psychological needs.
Autonomy
Autonomy refers to our sense of volition or choice when it comes to working on a goal. It’s easy to see how this relates to being more motivated, because if you’re not doing this for YOU, out of your own VOLITION and because you really WANT to, then sticking to your goal is going to get exponentially harder over time.
My best advice to increase your sense of autonomy is to spend time identifying your values, because tying your values to your goals will make it a lot more personal and easier to do.
Competence
As the name suggests, competence relates to your ability to identify whether you can or can’t do something, and to receive feedback on this ability too.
As such, given that often this feedback comes from experience, the best thing you can do to increase your sense of competence is to define your success markers, and note down every time you accomplish something in that valued direction. I’m borrowing David Goggins’ idea of “adding cookies to the cookie jar” – treating every (small) win as a “cookie” of experience that you get to add to your “success” jar. In this way, whenever you lose motivation through doubting your abilities, you can reflect back on what you have actually accomplished so far, which usually helps spur you along, inspiring you to remain motivated and keep working towards your goals.
Relatedness
Although this sounds like a fancy term, you’ve probably heard it before in the context of surrounding yourself with people who are on a similar journey to yourself. I don’t mean that your whole inner circle should be on the same mission as you, but having people who are also working on similar goals can really make or break you when you are lacking in motivation. This is because when you can rely on the social support of a team, or know that you are representing a team with a set of values through the work that you’re doing, the meaningfulness of the work at hand increases: it’s no longer about you, it’s about them too, it’s about everyone. Think of how this might work for a sports team in a sports setting.
Of course, this isn’t all that goes into taking action – I always say that relying on motivation per se is not guaranteed to get you results, because it does fluctuate. However, one of those reliable systems you can develop to maintain that motivation is to ensure your basic psychological needs are being met (or seek out ways to do so).
So yeah, the next time you hear some guru telling you about how your absence of motivation is a clear indication of you “not wanting it enough”… *sigh* At least you can now confidently roll your eyes and know that there is more to it (and that it’s beyond their scope of limited understanding) 😉
That’s really helpful but I don’t know where to start…
If long-term motivation is getting in the way of you achieving your goals, contact me and tell me a bit more about what you’re struggling with, and I’ll reply with a video on what you can do next.
