Motivation…
1.) The first level of motivation we have is to survive and this is fundamental and will never change.
If you are a member of a gym/fitness programme and you are NOT getting to your training sessions right now and there are NO ‘reasons’ why you cant, then you are in ‘survival’ mode and from a brain perspective the safest thing to do is absolutley nothing (so thats what you are doing).
And this will be ‘showing up’ in your thinking through justifications and excuses
You can convince yourself of anything!
Absolutley anything!
2.) The second level of motivation is where you have made a decision to change and have started that journey and you FEEL GREAT and you are super driven and excited about the future in every way shape or form.
You are bubbly, happy, making health food choices and you have even started talking about exercise, posting about it on Facebook and even looked at home exercise kit on the internet.
Everthing has changed and nothing is going to stop you now!
Except you DO stop.
The excitement soon wears off and you start to LOSE YOUR MOTIVATION and you start missing workouts and eating crap etc etc.
There is a saying ‘motivation gets you started, habit is what keeps you going’
And this is true, but everything we do is ‘habitual’ so habits that DONT serve you well will keep you stuck in a rut.
The thing is your inital motivation will make you feel ‘unrealistically’ good and when you feel like that you can and will do pretty much anything.
You didnt really suddenly start loving exercise and eating healthy and once the initial motivation wears off, you will quickly revert back to old behaviours and habits and you will quickly end up back at the first level of motivation – survival.
And its not your fault remember!
Your brain is 100% focused on ‘survive before thrive, always’
3.) The third level of motivation is ‘Carrot and Stick’ and this was invented by us humans to get people to do stuff.
Basically we are rewarded for being GOOD or punished for being BAD and this works…
…until it doesn’t!
If I am GOOD then I will reward myself with…
If I am BAD then I will forfeit/deny myself of…
This type of motivation is all about external factors and only works short term and its all about getting the reward or avoiding the punishmnent at the EXPENSE of the journey, the experience and ultimatley the result.
And if you keep using this type of motivation, the rewards and the forfiets have to keep getting bigger for it to keep working.
And at some point however big the reward or severe the forfeit you will hit the ‘fuck it wall’ and (most people) give up and automatically go back into ‘survival mode (and lose any results gained).
And that might take a week, a month, a year.
But it will happen, to most people!
So 1 is about survival, 2 gets you going, 3 is the where we think the answers lie, but mostly it just ends up taking us full circle back to 1.
There is however another level of motivation and its here that the majic really happens.
4.) The fouth level of motivation is ‘Intrinsic Motivation’
This is about growing your own carrot and being internally motivated.
Its about understanding what you REALLY want.
And that’s to feel a certain way….
ie: happy, content and fulfilled as a person, right?
NOT to lose 2 stone, NOT to run a half marathon
There are many, many people who have achieved those and even greater goals but still end up back where they started again.
Im not saying dont have goals.
Im just saying you if you keep focused on FEELING a certain way you can achieve everything you want.
Soooo where are you now on the ‘hierchary of motivation’?
To your success.
Kieran 🙂
P.S. Looking for some help achieving your goals and making changes in your life?
Then set up a 10 minute strategy call and let me help you put a plan in place.
