It’s impossible to rationally convince someone to get ‘motivated’-Emotion is the only true ‘intrinsic’ motivator for humans! What do I mean by that? Well, most of us can relate to having a friend who we really want to help lose weight, or find the right kind of partner, but despite our best intentions to help them ‘get motivated’ they just can’t seem to stick with it, and we can get frustrated. The secret is to create emotional habits of successful weight loss.
Emotional Habits Of Successful Weight Loss
Let me give you an example of a conversation I heard recently, about someone talking about how their friend can’t seem to ‘stay motivated’ to get healthier despite bad health news: “I don’t understand why he/she can’t stay motivated, it just doesn’t make sense–in fact, it makes perfect sense for them to BE motivated to lose that extra weight because they just found out that they have diabetes!”
Here’s the thing–motivation isn’t about logic or what we ‘should be doing’ or what ‘makes sense.’ Motivation is about finding the EMOTIONAL need behind what drives us to do one thing and not another.
For example, until someone is able to dig deep into the emotional need and desire behind wanting to lose weight, it’s very hard to actually lose 10 pounds by sheer ‘force of will’ alone.
Self help and business development guru Eban Pagan often talks about this at his seminars, and it’s a very common reason why most diets, or self-help programs for things like weight loss fail people, because they’re based in ‘should do’s and ‘logical steps’ instead of keeping on reintroducing the emotional need behind the desire.
And even the concept of ‘motivation’ is pretty abstract. It really and truly is about getting someone (or yourself!) do to something every day so it becomes automatic–so you just do the things you need to do every day without thinking about it, without taking the time to consciously decide for or against it, (which often leads to you ‘convincing’ yourself not to do something that is good for you!)
A great life coach, doctor, teacher, or any kind of wellness consultant does this part really well. The leaders in the field of Health and Wellness Coaching and consulting are masters at this—they have a knack for discovering your emotional need and connecting you to it again and again so that motivation comes easily and naturally and doesn’t fade after a week or need continuous outside ‘pushing’ from well meaning friends or even ‘experts.’
How To Create An Emotional Habit
So if this is starting to sound familiar and you are thinking you may need to start digging deep into your emotional motivators to get the health results you want, take 10 minutes today, get a notebook and pen or paper and ask yourself what is the deeper emotional reason behind your health or weight loss goal–is it finding your dream partner, is it to feel confident in you own ‘skin’ even on the beach? Is it to be able to run in a charity race for cancer because you have lost a loved one to this disease? Dig down, then dig a little deeper into that reason, and then deeper still. Whatever it is, write it down, and then stick it somewhere prominent, like on your fridge, your bathroom mirror, you get the idea! Constantly thinking about the emotional reason behind your new needed habit is what reinforces it, and being constantly reminded of it is the key to creating this new thinking habit.
And, as always, I LET ME KNOW what happens!!
Yours In health,
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