How Motivation Really Works in Health & Fitness

You don’t actually lack motivation

I’m quite often told by my inbound online personal training clients that in their own view they are “not very motivated to exercise” 

What’s worse is that for one reason or another, many have actually incorporated this limiting belief into their identity, using statements like “I’m not a very motivated person”

Knowing the power of this kind of statement to be taken as fact by the sub-conscious mind, I tend to push back and question the validity of that statement. That’s not to say that I think I’m being told a mistruth, but rather that to me the description is inaccurate. Not to mention setting the individual up to fail at any new workout program before it’s even begun… no matter how comprehensively designed the workout plan might be.

To expand on what I mean, let’s frame the context of the conversation; I’m not going out asking people at random whether they are motivated or not, the conversation is happening because they’ve booked a consultation call with me in the hope that I might be able to help them achieve their fitness goals, so the fact that we’ve even met is proof that there is a desire to change. This is actually what we should be speaking of when it comes to motivation.

It’s probably more accurate to say that when most people think of a lack of motivation, what they actually mean is that whilst they have a desire for change, what they currently lack is momentum toward that goal….

“Motivation is not an identity, it’s an emotional state.”

At first glance, the quote above could easily be brushed off as semantics. But words have power, especially the words we tell ourselves on a regular basis and allow to become a part of our identity.

This is why positive affirmations can be so powerful – always be careful about letting yourself or anyone else for that matter assign you a disempowering ‘identity’. Therefore, I would suggest a better and more accurate statement to be:

“I am motivated to achieve my goal, but I don’t yet have the momentum I need”

Remember that your subconscious mind will take all identity statements you assign yourself as truth whether they are true or not. Whilst the revised statement above is by no means a positive affirmation, the statement referring to a lack of momentum is a statement that is based on circumstance, not identity. An important distinction because you can change your circumstances easily, but a disempowering identity is going to be much slower to correct.

So to be clear then, motivation is not an identity, it’s an emotional state. Like all emotional states, it is impermanent and can be managed. The creation of motivation is actually an automatic process generated by the distance our brains perceive between the way things are and the way we would like them to be.

So calling yourself unmotivated isn’t accurate because in seeking out a conversation with a personal trainer your brain has already identified the way things are and the fact that you are currently an uncomfortable distance from the way you want them. Consulting a personal trainer is often a step toward traversing that distance.

Getting back to motivation there are generally two distinct types, the first is a desire to move toward something desirable. This would encapsulate things like completing an achievement, hitting a quantifiable goal or even feeling a greater sense of confidence or attractiveness.

The other type of motivation is the desire to move away from that which you don’t want, so in the world of fitness, this would be the desire to move away from future health problems, to move away from pain and from an emotional standpoint, the desire not to miss out on things like playing with your children, attracting a partner or falling short of one’s potential. Essentially to be living a successful life by your own assessment.

Essentially, the extent to which your brain registers the distance between where you are and what you want (or don’t want) to be will determine the extent to which you feel the motivation to take action. Therefore all of your health & fitness results will depend on your ability to take that action.

In order to influence this automatic calculation of distance, there are a few things that you can do to close it in the direction of taking action…let’s explore them.

Raising your standards

Actively pursuing a course of personal development, studying the success of others and familiarising yourself with proven, effective methodology in the areas that you seek to advance in will allow you to set a higher standard of expectation for yourself.

This new standard will influence the calculation your brain is running about the distance between where you are and where you want to be and, by raising your expectations of yourself, you will start to feel uncomfortable with your current position earlier. You can then use this discomfort to invoke action, which as we’ve just discussed will happen automatically. 

A great example of this might be having savings. When you start out with your first job, you might consider seeing zero pounds in your bank account as not having any money. What if you could replace the zero with £2000 as your new threshold? You’d act like you had no money at all whenever you approached £2000 in savings, the action would be the same but you’d have greater resources to make things happen, you’d still be able to pay your bills and you would have a huge amount of peace of mind. All by changing what out of money meant to you. 

Omitting serious health challenges and major life curveballs, for the most part, we accept the level of health & fitness we have set for ourselves. We make sure we get what, by our own definition, we must have. So by raising the expectations, you will be forced into action. This is where we need to be radically honest with ourselves. Again, omitting unforeseeable setbacks, in the final analysis, where we find ourselves today is a reflection of what we have been comfortable with, or perhaps more accurately, what we have not been uncomfortable enough with. 

Modelling behaviour

Your journey in health & fitness is going to be your battle with yourself. Comparisons with others, particularly via highly curated social media content, can be terrible for self-esteem and mental health because you can end up comparing someone else’s curated & manufactured best against your day-to-day worst, so just don’t set yourself up for that, there is no fruit there.

Having said that, one of the most powerful psychological tactics you can harness is modelling the success of someone like you. Seek out someone who you feel started in a similar or worse position to where you are now. This will serve as both faith and inspiration for what can be done. Because if someone else like you has done it then it’s 100% possible. Your task then becomes finding the right approach and sticking at it until you achieve the desired results too.

For example, this video outlines the journey of some of the people who have achieved fantastic results in my online personal training program, perhaps one of their stories will resonate with you and add fuel to your flame. Watch my testimonial video here. 

Lowering the barrier to what you don’t want

Because we humans are wired to prioritise survival over ‘self-actualisation’, our brains are pre-disposed to weigh a potential threat heavier than an opportunity. Basically, because any real threat could become an existential threat and if we allow that to happen, well… the game is over, so the best choice is always to prolong the game.

A quick example of this is to consider how you would feel if you lost £10 of hard-earned money, over how you would feel if you found the same £10 on the ground. Generally speaking, it is much more painful to lose the £10 you already had than it is enjoyable to find a new £10.

So how does all of this apply to Health & Fitness? Well, commencing a new health & fitness regime can actually be perceived as a threat. Especially if it’s not the first time you find yourself at the point of high discomfort with circumstances. Often this is the point at which one remembers previous cycles of restrictive dieting, missing out on social functions, low energy, poor mood and everything else associated with multiple historic attempts at achieving this same goal. This includes a fear of failure which for many feels like enough of an existential threat to even prevent you starting.

This can also apply to those that are out to achieve a health & fitness goal for the first time. The thought of sweating, feeling embarrassed in a gym or being out of breath can all feel like ‘threats’ associated with exercise and may be enough to block any attempt at a new regime.

If this is the case, it’s important to construct an approach which lowers the perceived threat level to the point that the opportunity feels greater than the threat associated with the hardship of the program. This is why it can be a good idea to start out relatively light with exercise and gradually build habits which can be consistently sustained over time.

For instance, lowering the glycaemic index of your meals and enjoying a brisk walk each day would be far more tolerable than jumping headlong into restrictive dieting and deciding that you need to be out jogging each to the point of exhaustion just to move the needle. Working with a program designed by a fitness coach can help you drastically lower the hardship you’ll need to go through to achieve your goal, because they will be able to find the most efficient and effective workout program possible. 

The unfortunate element of this is that there are some serious health risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle or an inflammatory diet for example, but without a thorough education on the matter or a warning shot in the form of a health scare, it is unlikely for our brains to be factoring these risks into our automatic calculations, just think about how many people smoke even though they know that on a long enough timeline it will likely have negative consequences.

It’s for this reason that I urge my clients to proactively defend a position of wellness as rigorously as they would fight a disease or illness. Do not wait for the choice to be taken out of your hands.

Transitioning from motivation to momentum.

Always bear in mind that the consistent approach is how health & fitness achievements are maintained. If you can start this way, you’ll have a greater chance of keeping everything you achieve (i.e. no rebound).

A great analogy for this process is imagining what it takes to get an aeroplane to take off. First, you have to start the engines; with maximal output, this is the part where you’ll feel the most discomfort with your current scenario. Then, as you are driven forward by this desire to take action, you make sure the runway is clear and free of friction and before you know it you have enough force to generate lift. Once off the runway and at cruising altitude, the amount of energy (or in our case effort) it takes to maintain that altitude is just a fraction of what was required for take-off. It is at this point that you’ve made the transition between motivation and momentum. With continued momentum, you are all but guaranteed to achieve your goal, of course assuming you are following the right training program.

The role of coaching

Enlisting the best fitness coach or personal trainer to help you through this process can fast-track your results by working with you to consider asking more of yourself, agree on an all-around lifestyle that will get you to your goal and then provide accountability throughout your fitness journey to hold you to the new standards you’ve set together. The coach is then tasked with taking as much information into account as possible and ensuring that you establish the perfect route to achieving your goals.