Motivation is overrated
“Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate behaviour at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-directed behaviour. It is often held that different mental states compete with each other and that only the strongest state determines behaviour. This means that we can be motivated to do something without actually doing it.”
Wasserman T, Wasserman L (2020). "Motivation: State, Trait, or Both". Motivation, Effort, and the Neural Network Model. pp. 93–101
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion'.”
- Ali
As we enter the winter months we enter a cycle that has been in the human behaviour for as long as I have been alive. As the days get shorter, sunlight gets limited and weather gets cold and frigid our behaviour, attitude and overall health changes. Our motivation wanes. We can attribute some of this to basic geography and where we are living relative the equator but that’s an easy cop out.
How do we manage our health and wellness when the factors of seasonal change actually change our motivational behaviour?
My mental performance coach had to instil this phrase into me in some of my roughest points in my athletic and personal life. “MOTIVATION IS OVERRATED!”
The phrase is as true when he spoke it to me to this day. Its 100% overrated. I want you to think about your daily life. The work you do. The things you do for your family. The activities you engage in. I want you to think about how many times in that week you are truly 100% motivated to engage in these activities. Probably once or twice if that!
If we relied on motivation to get all tasks done we would never get anything done. In my line of work as a coach I get to hear a lot about people’s jobs. Part of my role as a coach is also part time therapist. Sometimes while training I encourage people to talk about their jobs and the things that stress them out or frustrate them. You can’t tell John at work he’s a complete ASS! But you can certainly tell me what a big dummy he is! During these conversations I get to experience the demands other careers have. Reports, year and quarter end calculations, presentations, projects and much more. Things I do not have to deal with in my line of work. There is no way in heck we are all excited to wake up each day and get that audit done or get that 50 page year-end report done.
MOTIVATION IS OVERRRATED!
So why don’t we apply that same logic to our health and fitness? If we know that it’s impossible to be motivated every day for our jobs….. Our livelihood… how we feed our families… why do we expect to be motivated daily to take care of our health?
I tell a lot of my clients this story. As a professional athlete and dedicated martial artist I spent well beyond the allotted 10 000 hours to achieve expertise. How many of those days I went to the gym do you think I was motivated? Some yes but certainly not all. In fact there are plenty days I drive to the gym and park. I say to myself “No one has seen me yet I can leave”. I get out the car and go in the front door of the academy and say to myself “Everyone is on the mats already no one saw me I can leave and no one will care”. I then walk in and people see me and then I say to myself “Shit, I’m stuck now”.
Want to know the truth, by the time I warm up and get going I don’t think I’ve ever regretted it.
Again motivation is overrated!
“ Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going”. - Jim Rohn
So how do we build healthy lifestyles without motivation? Good question.
First we need to stop viewing fitness and taking care of our health as a chore. Every day I hear from people that want to start training going from 0-1 days a week to 3 days a week. Then they say after 2 months they want to do 4 days than 5 days etc.
I applaud the intention but the execution is almost 0% realistic or attainable. It becomes a chore and then the plan falls out the window. Health and wellness is not something you just pick up and do. It’s a Habit. You cannot stay motivated to keep that kind of plan especially when you are starting out. Health and wellness needs to be a progressive over time and sometimes years (habit).
Like all routines you body must adapt to a routine and more specifically in terms of exercise STRESS. Exercise is a stressor. And it should be treated that way. It should not be viewed as an activity I must do to take care of my health. If you view exercise as a stressor you have a better chance and being able to implement it and maintain it as part of your life style.
Let me explain that a bit more. If you are like most people you work 5 days a week typically 40 hours a week. That’s a lot! How many of those hours are stressful. I can probably safely assume at least most of you will say half, but even if it’s less than half, that means your applying stress to yourself at least 3 or 4 hours a day through work. Then you have the family responsibilities, stress from spouse or significant other as well as much more. There is only so much stress you can have within a day until the cortisol levels build up in the body so much you just want to crash. You want to go home and relax and chill out.
This is why motivation is overrated. How can you possibly expect to be motivated after putting yourself though so much stress and then get off work and expect to regularly add more stress through exercise?
To achieve long lasting fitness and health you need to be able to appropriately manage the stress of your life with the stress of your activity (Make it Habit). This means setting realistic movement goals daily and not worrying about it if your body’s stress levels tell you otherwise. To build a daily movement regimen capable of adding stress to your already stressful life takes years. You cannot do this over the course of a few months.
“The Balance in your life is more important than the balance in your checking account.” - Chris Gardner
Balancing your activity is the key. It’s ok to commit to 3 days of exercise a week. But not all of them need to be at the gym lifting heavy or putting your heart rate though the roof. If you want to build healthy active living as a long lasting sustainable thing, think about different activities that you can do to suit your stress levels. If you have a hard long day at the office but are absolutely drained. Stressed. Try telling yourself ok maybe I’m going to just walk the long way home today. Take 30 minutes but just walk. You burn some calories but do not add to that stress.
Maybe you had a stressful day but have energy. You are frustrated but don’t have the mental capacity or patience to just lift weights or go for a run. Those are great days to throw on the boxing gloves and punch your frustration out on the bag.
Managing your stress through activity is the key to STAYING MOTIVATED. When we put too much emphasis on training combined with other life problems we cannot manage. Motivation lasts for 3 or 4 weeks and we need time off. We are human.
“Some people dream of success while other wake up and work hard at it.” - Winston Churchill
Another key method of living an active lifestyle is to pay attention to what time of day you feel most motivated. For many that’s either early in the morning or early afternoon. As the day goes on and the stressors increase motivation wanes. Finding a time where you feel mentally motivated daily is super important. This can allow you to put your daily movement goals in a specific time slot where you set yourself up for success.
For the longest time I trained primarily in the evenings. But as time went on and I turned professional we began training earlier in the day. I find I’m most motivated to train between the hours of 11-3pm after that my motivation wanes and I’m forcing myself to do it and thus it becomes stressful and a chore and I’m less likely to be successful or give my body a chance for optimal performance
If you take anything away from this I want it to be this. Living a healthy active lifestyle is not a function of having a schedule, a plan and being so disciplined and motivated to never stray from it. That has its place if you’re competitive or training for something specific. If you are training for a happy healthy life then train that way. Have multiple plans for your healthy lifestyle. Set a more realistic goal based on your projected stressors for the week. If you know you will have to travel and put in overtime do not schedule intense gym sessions. Maybe do some yoga. Maybe you do a light walk or run to mentally clear yourself. Maybe bike home so you get 20-30 mins to exert and have mental alone time. Maybe you attend a jiujutsu class to get out your aggression. Or maybe you simply sit in a sauna or hot tub to sweat a bit and mentally recharge. Learning this will allow your body to naturally adapt to how to manage stress. As the years go on you will notice your capacity to handle external stress will increase. You will be better at listening to your body and adapting your active lifestyle to your day to day stress. You will give your body the capacity to regulate cortisol aka stress to allow you to stay motivated but more importantly make healthy active living a habit you do not need to be always motivated for!
Motivation is overrated but also necessary.
Don’t rely on it for success but don’t underestimate its importance.
- Ashton Nemdhari ( Owner ANPT FITNESS)
