Episode 35: The Truth About Motivation (and How To Feel It More Often)

Want to be more active but struggling to feel motivated? Know that you function better when you meal plan and have groceries at home but not feeling motivated to do the planning, shopping, etc.? This episode talks about what motivation really is (spoiler alert…it’s not what you think), where it comes from, and how you can make one simple change to feel more motivated. 

Episode Transcript:

INTRO MUSIC: Welcome to The Compassionate Wellness Podcast. I'm Alex Treanor. I'm a Nationally Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, and I am so excited you're here. The wellness industry is full of do's and do not's, should's and should not's. But I like to take a different approach. I'll be sharing all things health and wellness from a joyful, real-life compassionate perspective. If you're ready to drop the cookie-cutter approach and create a life you truly love, while eating a cookie or two along the way, let's dive in.

Hey, friends! Welcome to this week's episode of The Compassionate Wellness Podcast. I hope that you are having a wonderful Tuesday. I kind of feel like I need to get some jokes or something to start this podcast. I'm still a little bit awkward with that. But I hope it's a great day. Thank you for being here.

I want to start today's episode by reframing how we think about the foundation of all behavior change. Yup, we're talking about motivation.

See if this sounds familiar to you. (I know it does for me because I wrote it). Ok so deep down, you really, really, really want to be more active. You know the list of benefits that come with being active, you know how important it is to your health. And you even know that every time you do it, you feel better. You've seen those benefits in action. But when it comes time to be active to actually lace up your shoes to go outside or go to the gym, you're just not quite feeling it. You may even have said to yourself, "I am just not motivated today".

Or maybe you know how much smoother your weeks go when you have your meals planned out, you've gotten groceries, maybe you even chopped a few things up ahead of time. But when your weekend comes, and you finally get a bit of a break after a long week, the last thing you feel like doing is scouring for meal ideas, then putting together a shopping list and going to the store, grabbing everything, fighting the crowds, coming home, putting everything away. There's just no motivation for that sometimes, right?

And as a coach, I hear the phrase, "I just wasn't feeling motivated" all the time. It's so common. Hi, I've even said that phrase countless times myself! I know that feeling. I think we all know that feeling of just not feeling motivated in the moment.

The good news is that motivation is actually a whole lot more than a feeling. Today in our episode, I want to talk with you about what motivation really is, where it comes from, and how we can reframe our thoughts and learn to adjust in those times when we just aren't feeling motivated.

So what is motivation? It's a big topic and that is a big question! I looked it up in preparation for this episode and the dictionary actually defines it as "the reason that we have for acting a certain way". Pretty general definition. In the research, when we have articles and things like that about motivation, the way it's defined there is "the energy that directs our behavior." So from that what we can take is that motivation is our why. It's what pulls us towards certain goals and makes them important for us.

Motivation itself can come from a lot of different places. It can be an internal desire, something that is meaningful to you personally. We can also be motivated by external factors, maybe there's a competition that we want to win, or you get a prize if you do something, or maybe there's a punishment if you don't do something. So we're motivated towards an action because of those external forces.

Motivation is super complex. I have read so many articles about motivation. And I still can't even claim to be close to an expert. I understand the theory and know the generals, but everyone is so unique, and our feelings and our emotions and the things that are meaningful to us are so personal, that I truly don't know if anybody is an expert on motivation, right? Like we do our best. And we use the tools that we have, but it's complex. However, I do know a little bit. So I'm going to tell you a little bit of the theory surrounding motivation. And the main one that we use in behavior change is called self-determination theory. The name sounds fancy, it's not important. You don't have to remember it, just giving you the information in case you happen to want to look it up one day or ever comes up now you know what it is.

So self-determination theory tells us three things that are necessary in order to have motivation. Those three things are autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Let's put them into real world definitions because I know those words probably don't mean anything to most us.

So autonomy tells us that for you to have motivation, the goal has to be something that you have chosen. You have to have the control and make the decision about what you want to do. This is why as a coach, I will never assign you a goal. We might come up with options or different things that could be goals that are of interest to you. But it's ultimately up to you to pick it, because when you pick it, you're much more motivated towards it. It also means that for goals to be important to us, it can't be something that we feel obligated to do. If someone is telling us, if social media or diet culture or these outside messages are telling us you need to work on this goal, you need to be thinner, you need to eat less, whatever it might be, that goal may never be truly important to you. So to have motivation towards a goal, you need to have the autonomy, meaning it needs to be something that you feel truly called towards for yourself.

The second element was competence. And that tells us that you will feel more motivated with a goal if you feel like you have the skills, the abilities, the resources to achieve it. When it feels doable, it's a whole lot more likely that you will actually do it.

The last piece is relatedness, which tells us that we'll be more motivated with goals that we have connections or social support for. For example, if everyone that you know all your friends, your family members decide that they're running 5k's every weekend, at some point on the weekend, you may say I guess I'm gonna run a 5k to be with all these people that I care about. The people that surround us influence us. And so when we have support when we have connection, when we feel like we belong with people, our goals are more likely to happen, especially if those goals relate and are similar to the goals of the people around us.

So these three things form our foundation for motivation, that real deep desire for change that thing that is very meaningful to you. However, here's where theory meets real world. These three things don't necessarily make you feel motivated. For example, on that weekend, when it's time to start meal planning, and you just don't feel like it...just because your neighbor who you're very close with his meal planning, may not make you feel like it still, even though something is deeply important to you, and you know, it makes a difference, that doesn't always mean you're going to feel like doing it.

Motivation at his core is more than that in-the-moment feeling. I would bet that those times when you are telling yourself, "I am just not feeling motivated", that you actually are motivated; you're also just tired or not in the mood or wanting to do something else in that time. The fact that you're even thinking about doing whatever the activity is, whatever that goal that you have in mind is that tells me you're motivated. You're thinking about it, you know it's important. You're also having a human moment where life is life-ing.

So for the times, when you aren't feeling up for it, I want to give you a simple thought reframing exercise to help you navigate that reluctance that you might feel.

The basis to this thought reframing exercise is the idea that the feelings we have stem from our thoughts. Not feeling motivated is a feeling. If we want to change that feeling, we have to look at the thought and change the thought first.

So let's use an example of being active. Maybe that's the thing that you're motivated towards. Let's say it's Friday afternoon, you finish your workday and it's time to go for the walk that you have planned all week. You shut your computer, shut it down, close up shop, whatever wrapping up your workday looks like and you think to yourself as you're closing everything up, "it was just such a long day, I just want to sit on the couch and decompress for a little bit". And as a result of that thought, you are not motivated to go for a walk. You are not feeling energized, you're not feeling "motivated" (in air quotes) to lace up those shoes.

If we want to change that feeling, we have to look at the thought. The thing is, sometimes thoughts are automatic. I would say a lot of the times our thoughts are automatic. We don't even recognize them. We don't recognize that 'I'm not feeling motivated because I'm thinking about how I had such a long day', we just all that kind of happens at the same time. We just feel it.

So when you're not feeling motivated. What I would encourage you to do is to consider what you're telling yourself. What are the thoughts that are leading you to feel that way? Could you maybe change the thought to something that feels more helpful? That changes your feeling into something that also will help you with the goals that you have? Maybe you could think about, purposefully think about, how you always feel energized after you walk, so it'll likely feel better than sitting on the couch. Or maybe as you think about that thought and say, "hmm, I did have a long day, I really do need to decompress. So maybe that thought is valid". And you believe that is true. And you do need that moment to decompress. With that information, now could you maybe be active in another way that does allow you to decompress and still honors that deeper motivation that you have to be more active in your day to day life? Maybe you could do some yoga or some stretching.

This is a way that we can use our thoughts and our feelings, to help ourselves pivot and to not be stuck in that all-or-nothing mindset where we just get on autopilot and dismiss our goals when we're not feeling like it. This is a way that we can look at the feelings that we have, why we're not feeling like it, think of the thought that's making us feel that way. Looking at the thought and thinking is this true? Is this something that has a meaning? Is this something that I can pivot or adjust for which will change the feeling and ultimately change the action or the behavior that you choose to do?

I hope this gives you a little bit of insight into what motivation really is where it comes from. And I hope it also empowers you to pay attention to your thoughts and how they're impacting whether or not you feel motivated in any given moment. We explore motivation a lot in coaching, because it is important to understand our purpose for change. However, motivation as a feeling is never going to be reliable. Feelings often as a whole are not reliable, they come and go. So not feeling motivated, day to day doesn't make you a failure at your goals. It doesn't mean that they're not important to you. It just makes you human. And I feel like I say every episode, it's hard because it's hard, not because you're bad at it. It's just part of the process. And we can learn how to adjust for it. And I think learning how our brain works and how these things pop up can be a helpful tool for recognizing that it is part of the human experience. We're all in it together and allows us to have a little bit more of that self compassion as well.

All right, as always, I would love to hear your feedback, thoughts on this episode, things that it made you feel experiences that you've had, you're always welcome to email me DM me on Instagram. Whatever you want to do, I always appreciate if you could rate or review this episode. That means the world to me. I always get so excited when I get to read reviews. You are all so kind and it just always makes my day.

If you need support reconnecting with motivation, I'd love to chat with you about that. I also have coaching availability. If you're interested in diving a little bit deeper with any of this these topics. There is a link in my show notes to schedule a free chat. It's completely zero obligation, just some time to see if my program might be a good match for you or how I can best support you. We can even have snacks, keep it casual if you want. So, link is in the show notes if that might be of interest to you.

I hope that you have a wonderful week this week and I look forward to talking with you again next week.

OUTRO MUSIC: Thanks for joining me on this episode of the compassionate wellness podcast. If this message resonated with you, please share it with someone you care about. I'd love to connect with you as well follow me on Instagram @alextreanor.coaching, or visit my website alextreanorcoaching.com. And as a reminder, Treanor spelled kind of goofy, it's T-R-E-A-N-O-R. For any references mentioned in this episode, be sure to check out the show notes. I hope you have a wonderful day and don't forget to make time for something you enjoy.