This week’s Thrive in Five is about ways to maintain motivation to work towards hitting your goals.
This month we’re talking about healthspan versus lifespan. We’re sharing tips and ideas on ways you can introduce new habits that help you stay healthy and ensure you are planning now for longevity when it comes to living a healthy life.
Today our health coach Liz is talking about motivation and goals. Working towards a healthier life, creating new positive habits, we need to set some goals. We need long-term, medium-term and short term goals. Staying motivated towards those goals is quite an art in itself. We need to understand first why do we sometimes lose motivation? Why do we become discouraged? And then why do we beat ourselves up when we fail? And even if we fall how do we get straight back up and regain momentum?
Where does motivation come from
It’s important to look at where your motivation comes from. So often we’re drawn to external sources of motivation. So things like body image, looking a certain way, or short-term money goals. These all rely on something outside of you that you want to reach. These motivations often can have negative connotations.
What we actually want is an intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is defined as the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfaction, rather than for some separable consequence. When intrinsically motivated, a person is moved to act for the fun or challenge entailed rather than because of external products, pressures, or rewards.
So something that comes from inside of you, something that feels fun. Creating a drive to want to do more of it.
So for example:
- A skill you really like to achieve
- A sport you’ve always wanted to try
- A language you want to learn
- A cuisine you want to learn to cook
Making it something you are passionate about means you’re always brought back to that goal, as your actions really make you just feel good inside. This is a huge difference in motivation toward a goal and becoming consistent in your healthy habits. So you want to find goals that actually come from that source.
How To Maintain Motivation And Stay On Track For Your Goals.
1: Intrinsic motivations
Look at different areas of your life and think about where those intrinsic motivations for you could come from. Perhaps a new hobby or sport. Something you find fun, rather than the gym if you find it a chore.
2: Support
A support system can be a huge differentiator when it comes to motivation. Without a support system, and accountability often some people can lose motivation. A support system offers positive encouragement and they help us keep accountable as well. So your family or friends, personal trainer, coaches, can really help.
3: Community
The same applies to community, whether that is teammates, neighbours, community schemes being involved in something bigger than you can help you stay on track toward achieving your goals. You will be encouraged to go back to see those people and they will help and encourage you toward your goal.
4: Communication
Having somebody in your life to talk is important, our inner voice and self-talk is also vitally important. So don’t forget to include yourself. This could be journaling, it’s a fantastic way to stay on track with your goals.
5: Never miss twice
Habits are formed and goals are achieved through consistency so apply the never miss twice approach. Make sure to never miss twice on your goals. See if you can put that to practice with whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve to create consistency.
You may also like our recent podcast on Creating Consistency for Healthspan where Leanne shares three simple tips on habit-forming.
