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Moving Towards Health

How to stop relying on motivation

Maggi Fitzpatrick
Posted 2/28/23

If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t always feel motivated to practice healthy habits such as exercising and cooking nutrient-dense foods. It’s easy to get stuck in the …

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Moving Towards Health

How to stop relying on motivation

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If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t always feel motivated to practice healthy habits such as exercising and cooking nutrient-dense foods. It’s easy to get stuck in the trap of waiting until we “feel like it” to get the things done that we know are good for us. The issue we run into when waiting until we feel motivated is that this doesn’t lead to the level of consistency we need to see changes and achieve our goals. We must find another way to stay consistent, but how?

Struggling with consistency and not feeling motivated is a vicious cycle. The more we give in to not taking action because we don’t feel motivated, the harder it is to find motivation again. This is why it’s important we understand that motivation is not the key trigger for us to take action on the things that are good for us. Motivation is a nice spark and can help us get started or change direction, but it won’t be around long enough for us to rely on it in the long term. 

Although moving toward health is a life-long, ever-changing journey, it is possible to be successful at reaching goals and milestones along the way. In order to be successful and reach our goals, we must be able to find consistency in our habits. We know that motivation is not going to keep us consistent, and so it’s crucial we find another way to help ourselves take more action. 

A mindset shift that helps me take action toward my goals when I don’t feel motivated choosing to think about what will feel good to have done, versus what will feel good to do. Oftentimes we get sucked into craving what will feel good to do, but this will not help us truly feel good later, nor will it help us reach our goals. 

For example, there was a soccer game I really wanted to watch the other night and I felt like just sitting on the couch and watching it. Sitting on the couch and watching the game would have felt good to do in the moment, but it wouldn’t have made me feel good afterward, and it wouldn’t have helped me reach my goals. What would feel good to have done was getting my workout in and cleaning up the kitchen. Asking myself the question of what would feel good to have done versus what would feel good to do helped me make the decision to complete my workout while the game was on. 

This allowed me to both watch the game and stay consistent toward my goals. Although motivation wasn’t present, I was still able to take action because I’ve chosen to prioritize what’s most important to me and decided to take action toward it even when I didn’t feel like it. 

We must understand that taking action toward our goals is a choice. Shifting your focus on what will feel good to have done versus what will feel good to do in the moment will help you take action, even when you aren’t motivated to do so, but it won’t make the choice for you. It’s still up to you to choose your healthy habits even when you don’t feel like it. I know you can do it!

Xoxo

Coach Maggi 

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