Sometimes getting out of a warm , comfortable bed to bounce around in a gym or fitness studio seems to defy all logic and reason. Hell, I'm even having a hard time finding the motivation to write this blog post! (I started writing this on Monday. Today is Wednesday.)
Motivation has always been a bit of an obstacle for me, even when I was child. When I was younger though, the struggle was in finding the motivation to clean my room or do my homework. The actual doing of whatever task it is that I don't want to do usually isn't the problem. In situations where I end up doing the thing that I didn't want to do, the actual task is never as horrible as my opposition to it lead me to believe. I guess I'm just chronically bad at doing things that I don't want to do.
Now that I think about it, the only time that I ever did anything that I didn't really want to do as a child was out of fear of punishment. As an adult, my self discipline process is similar to the system of reward vs punishment that was inflicted upon me as a child.
There are basically three general approaches to discipline that most people employ when raising their children. There's the "if you don't eat your vegetables, you're going to get a beating/punishment" (Do it or suffer! Mwa ha ha!) approach, the approach that I've become accustomed to. There's the "if you eat your vegetables, you'll get a reward" (Do it and get rewarded! You'll be cool!) approach, which is a step in the right direction. Finally, there's the you're not going to be forced to eat your vegetables, but all you have to do is take one bite. See, that wasn't so bad. Do you think you can take another bite?" (Ultimately whether or not you do it is your choice, but you are encouraged to try first and then make a decision.) approach.
Both the first and second approaches cause you to maintain focus on the entirety of the problem, rather than breaking it up into smaller, more manageable parts. When I was studying Psychology (a program I didn't finish because I was focusing on the problem as a whole 4 years out of my life rather than just focusing on the semester at hand), we learned about a phenomena that I can't remember the name of so I'll just describe. Say you want to borrow $20 from someone, but you are pretty sure that person will say no. You will greatly increase your chances of getting what you want by posing the question this way:
"Hey, I'm in a jam, can I borrow $50?"
"$50?! Absolutely not!"
"Oh ok. How about $20 then?"
"Yeah I can do that."
This is the same reason why monthly payment plans work so well even though you end up paying more at the end.
This weight loss endeavour around, I am taking the third approach toward motivating myself to do something that I don't want to do (get out of bed). Now I'm not suggesting that one should not be aware of one's goals. If you don't know where the finish line is, how else will you know where to bobsled? There is a gap between me and my goal. Rather than focusing on the gap, I should be focusing on the things that bring me closer to the goal.
Also, I'm an instant gratification kind of girl. The longer period of time that will take for me to reap the benefit of completing a particular task or the larger the gap between myself and my goal, the less likely I will be to complete said task or achieve said goal. I only planned to do these on Thursdays, but that last sentence sounded like the beginnings of a great Weight Loss Tip...
Weight Loss Tip of the Day: Make smaller, more realistic goals and make more of them. If your ultimate goal is to lose 100 pounds by the end of next year, you can break that into smaller milestones. For example, "I'll lose 10 pounds by Valentines Day" or "5 more pounds by St. Patrick's Day". This approach allows you to focus your determination on the immediate task at hand and makes your long term goal seem less daunting. Losing 100 lbs in a year seems much harder than losing 8 lbs a month. This will help prevent your mind from defeating you before you really get going.
I wish you good feelings!
Love,
Rachael
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