How to Stay Motivated: The Science of Building Habits That Last
Most adults in the Western world know that exercise is important for their health, do we all do it? No. Data for exercise patterns in the United Kingdom show that 36% of men and 42% of women do not exercise at all. Why? Motivation has a lot to answer for our behaviours, healthy or not.
Everyone struggles with motivation, for some people it has a cyclic character, for others it is more of a permanent feature. Here are a few points that might make a difference for you when it comes to motivating yourself to change your habits for healthier ones, whether you want to tackle unwanted weight, exercise regularly, or create a freshly new healthy routine to give yourself for ageing well.
In behaviour change science we distinguish between external and internal factors that motivate people to change, otherwise they are called extrinsic and intrinsic behaviour motivators, I wrote about these recently .
This is one of my patients’ story, which prompted me to write about motivation again, as I felt her story is the story that could resonate with many.
Leanne’s Story, When Habits Stay the Same
Leanne, name changed, came to see me last week. She had a big smile on her face as we greeted each other, and her first question was, “Do you remember me?” I thought it was a rather strange start, as I had done over 1,500 coaching hours at the NHS, thus expecting me to remember one case would be a big ask of my memory. But she quickly added, “I still have the same issues as before, I still have huge sleep problems and I still have so much weight that I can’t lose”.
Reading her records made me refresh her story in my mind. I saw her two and a half years ago, we talked about her sleep issues at the time, she had poor sleep hygiene, going to bed after 2 am, waking up several times through the night, she had regular morning fatigue that made her feel sluggish and inert during the day, she often had brain fog and struggled to motivate herself through the day. She had been steadily putting on weight and seemed to be unable to change anything in her daily habits.
At the consultation last week she said, “These are the same issues that I had back then, I still go to bed too late, I stay up watching TV knowing that it’s not good for me, in the morning I feel lethargic and unable to motivate myself for much, my weight gain also bothers me, but I can’t seem to be able to change anything”. We proceeded to have a discussion about her current lifestyle, in her words, and she really stressed that her lifestyle and her habits were exactly the same as they were two and a half years ago.
Why People Are Motivated in Different Ways
People are motivated for a variety of reasons, which greatly depends on your personality. According to William Moulton Marston, the psychologist who classified the DISC personality types, some people are motivated by praise or receiving recognition for their efforts from others, others are motivated by setting goals, to which they can see tangible results, there are those who are motivated by safety and security, there are equally people who are motivated by change and those who are motivated to avoid change, both for their valid reasons.
Is it important to know which personality type you are if you’re stuck with motivation? Yes and no. You may find it amusing to read some of the quirks of your personality type according to DISC, but it will not ultimately help you change your behaviour knowing that change has always been difficult for your type.
Where Should You Start to Increase Motivation?
The four stages of motivational interviewing, MI, that I use in coaching to strengthen a person’s motivation for change, engaging with the person’s story, focusing on their goals, evoking their whys and collaborative planning, are a great place to start, even if you do not have a coach to work with. You can read more about the model via .
With Leanne, I started with her whys, asking her the “Why do you feel the need for change?” question. Phrasing it differently, you could also ask it this way, “Where does it hurt me most?” What is in your current behaviour that evokes some strong emotions, frustration, anger, maybe literally pain.
This was the very crux in Leanne’s motivation. None of her daily habits evoked strong emotions. She felt disappointed with herself, as she knew that in an ideal scenario she should have 15 kg less weight, go to bed at 10 pm and wake up full of energy. Asking yourself the why question could be the most powerful one at the beginning.
Benefits of Change vs Costs of Staying the Same
Soon afterwards, I suggest, you proceed to identifying your goals, what would the benefits of changing your behaviour be and what are the costs of staying the same? This approach, called the decisional balance by Margaret Moore and Erika Jackson, the leaders of the Wellcoaches Corporation, helps people more fully appreciate the sources of their autonomous motivation, as opposed to external factors behind motivation, and helps identify what is required to build confidence for change.
If you struggle regularly between impelling yourself to adopt a new habit or behaviour and then being unable to start the change, asking yourself the question of “Where does this area that you want to change in hurt you most?” is a good tool. If you find that it does not hurt you anywhere, in other words, by changing it your life is not going to change that much, the need for change is not perceived as important by your mind.
Why the Mind Chooses the Easier Option
Your mind always chooses an easier way out, it hears you silently say to yourself, “I can always start going to the gym next Monday, no big deal”, or “These clothes fit me well, I’ll think about weight loss close to the summer”, it then collaborates with you.
To make the mind adopt a motivation for change, the issue needs to become acute, often times we need to create an artificial pain point to instigate change. Marisa Peer, the author of Your Mind, Your Rules, calls it instructing your mind to associate pain with pleasure.
Asking your whys for the change, for the gym example, starting to exercise just because public health authorities say that people need to exercise 150 minutes per week for their health, is not a strong argument for your mind. It is also not associated with any pain point in your health. But this can change completely if your doctor tells you that you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, then overnight you decide to start exercising and create the change in behaviour.
Is there something you can create in your mind now to make this a strong enough reason to provoke a change in behaviour?
Planning New Habits That Last
Whether you work on the pain point or create the decisional balance grid, laying out all the benefits of change and costs of no change, seeing the pros and cons, creating a collaborative plan is a necessary component of change in behaviour. What is your plan? It is all good to find the whys, identify your goals, but unless there is a new routine created of hows, you may stay exactly where you are, frustrated that the goals are there but the new behaviour does not occur.
There are various techniques for creating the plan that works for change. Some people prefer to move straight into acting out the plan. They will decide that if they commit to exercising three times per week, their exercise days will be Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They will create a visual plan and hang it on their fridge door as a constant reminder not to falter from the plan.
Others can benefit from what Katy Milkman, professor of the Wharton School, calls making a commitment to another person. In other words, recruiting a social support group that will help keep you accountable for your goals. Research shows that when we involve other people in our social circle to be part of our goal, for example going to gym classes together, we are more likely to make that change work.
Hence, create peer support systems, tell your partner, your closest colleague, your best friend, or even your mum of your health goal and your new behaviour, and their asking you about these will keep you wanting to achieve and not disappoint them.
Procrastination and Motivation
Instead of looking with curiosity at ourselves for our barriers for change, most people normally give themselves the inner talk of “I’m not achieving my goals, I am so and so”, instantaneously giving themselves labels for their lazy behaviour. Identifying the barriers that prevent you from acting on your new habits to achieve goals is more effective.
Tim Ferriss has a great technique to overcome procrastination. According to Ferriss, Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in its perceived importance in relation to the time allotted for its completion. If you give yourself six months to achieve weight loss, your mind will not cooperate.
Instead, give yourself a smaller goal but a close deadline. It is more realistic to achieve the goal when you set it like this, “By the end of May, I want to lose 1.5 kg”. A 2 kg weight loss is achievable with just a 30-minute brisk walk every day, without any changes in one’s diet, according to .
Leanne’s New Plan
Leanne walked away with a plan to create a decisional balance grid, and a three goals list for the next three months, having goals that are timely, realistic and achievable, and also to ponder her pain points for change.
In my personal example, one of the main reasons I motivate myself to exercise five to six times per week is because if I do not, I will have low, trapped energy, and that is a real pain point for me. But then you might have known this about me already?
What Are Your Motivation Struggles?
What are the struggles with motivation you have? What has been successful for you to overcome them?
Stay healthy, be joyful!
Love,
Katya