Motivation: Where to Find It

Motivation is something that everyone seems to struggle with at some point in their lives. I am no different and find myself looking for external motivation when I can't seem to muster my own internal motivation. Before I get too carried away talking about motivation, let's define it. Dictionary.com defines it as providing a reason to act a certain way. Pretty simple, right? There's one word in there that causes some issues, REASON. Why is reason such a big deal? In order to find your motivation toward a goal, you have to have a reason. This is your WHY. WHY are you looking to achieve this goal? Your why is so very important to the success of whatever you are trying to achieve. If you have a strong why, then your motivation candle will burn that much stronger. The most important thing about your why is that it has to be YOUR why. You can't achieve your goals living on somebody else's why. It has to be for you.

So, once you have your why, you can look to find that motivation. Motivation comes in two forms: internal and external. Internal motivation is simply doing whatever it is because you find it rewarding.  It can be a hobby like painting that you find rewarding. You may start working out and find it rewarding because you feel great after it's done. Internal motivation does not come from anybody else, it is simply yours. Your health is often a strong internal motivator. Knowing that if you workout and improve your eating, your health will improve is often enough for people to flip the switch. Other times, people need external motivation from their doctors to achieve their health goals. An example would be exactly how I started my fitness and health journey. My doctor told me, after he checked my blood pressure, I need you to track your blood pressure for two weeks and come back to visit me. If at the end of that two weeks your numbers haven't improved, then I will put you on blood pressure medicine. My external motivation was avoiding medicine while my internal motivation was to not be a out of shape, unhealthy twenty year old.

As noted above, external motivation is doing an activity for a reward or to avoid some sort of punishment. Our challenge groups provide external motivation. It is rewarding to be patted on the back by your peers for a job well done and you tend to stick to your goals when somebody is going to call you out for not showing up. External motivation also comes from compliments you receive on how well you're doing with your health and fitness. Workout buddies provide external motivation in the same ways that our challenge groups do. If you leave your workout buddy hanging, I'm pretty sure you're going to hear about it. The idea of an accountability partner, in your journey towards a healthier you is a tremendous way to maintain your motivation without slip-ups. Our journeys are best traveled with both types of motivation helping us along as opposed to us trying to go it alone. If you don't have that accountability partner, join one of our challenge groups and let's get after it together. We love helping people find their why's and sharing the journey towards their goals. We'd love to have you. Thanks for reading and go help keep someone else accountable this week even if you don't quite have your stuff figured out. Find out more about our challenge groups (a new one every month) by following us HERE. Also on Instagram, Twitter, and will be reviving our YouTube channel soon.

In Health,

Tim