How to find motivation?

How to find motivation from Hybrid Performance Method on Vimeo.

How to find motivation?

You may often hear answers like ...

“Discipline, not motivation is the key to success.”

"Even if you don't want to, just do it."

Another common answer, “its habit. Just make it part of your day, like brushing your teeth”.

These answers make sense, but how do we do that? 

Discipline is even harder to find than motivation. 

Habits are easy to follow but tough to change. 

Maybe the solution isn't to change you: it's to change your environment. 

As the behavioral economist and psychologist Dan Ariely highlighted in his recent ted talk, certain features of our environment make choices easier or harder, regardless of whether they are actually in our best interest. 

To go to the gym 3 days a week, you need to decide to get a membership, set aside hours of time within an already busy schedule- and repeat that process over and over again. Those are the hidden costs of establishing a healthy habit. 

Conjuring more discipline or wishing habits into place is a recipe for failure. But what if we made the right decision easier? What if our environment was present so it “nudged” us toward the right decision instead of the wrong one?

Look for nudge opportunities in your environment.  

Maybe a home gym setup is feasible, to eliminate the drive to the gym. 

Maybe you can commit to going with a friend, so to decide not to go, you would actually have to tell them that you were opting out, attaching a social cost to the unwanted decision. 

Our decisions are more automatic and more shaped by our environment than we think. 

At best your environment should work for you, and it at least shouldn't work against you. 

Don't jump straight into an intense time-consuming training plan. Start simple with the simple things- like not leaving cake out on the counter. 

Remove those environmental saboteurs before they sap your discipline and your confidence.

With a few tricks of psychology, we can inject the habit-forming process with some much-needed momentum. After you see some success, you'll begin to enjoy that feeling of accomplishment and see the value in the process. 

Then people will start asking you about finding motivation. Think carefully about how you will answer them.

Want help making your environment work for you so that you can finally achieve your fitness goals? 

Learn more about working with a HYBRID Nutrition Coach at strong.hybridperformancemethod.com/nutrition 

-Stefi