Motivation and exercise Part 1

If you surf the web like I do, you have read lots of information about how much exercise we are supposed to have. I’ve read you need one hour every day of exercise that increases your heart rate. At the other extreme, I have read walking for half an hour three times a week is all anyone needs. Other sites will tell you that you need strength training in order to keep your bones healthy.

I’m not going to try to resolve all those conflicting pieces of information, but I think we can all agree you do need some physical activity, on a regular basis. But sometimes, even if we take a minimalist approach, we just don’t do what we know we are supposed to do, which is get a reasonable amount of exercise. I read somewhere that at least a quarter of the people don’t exercise at all.

The problem is simple, we aren’t motivated to exercise. What’s the solution when we aren’t motivated? The solution is to get motivated, by applying the model for self motivation.

Here’s the model for self motivation:

MOTIVATION = ƒ (VISION, SUCCESSABILITY, ENVIRONMENT).

What the model means is that in order to increase your motivation, which is on the left of the equals sign, you need to positively impact at least one of the three factors of motivation, which are on the right side of the equals sign. The three factors are your vision, that important change you want to make in your life, your successability, which is your confidence in your competence, and your environment.

That’s how we apply the model. We use our intent to change one or more of the factors of motivation. Let’s take them one at a time. Today we will talk about vision.

Vision: Vision is the change you want to make in your life. It is that on which the motivation is to be focused, the movement we are looking for. In order for your vision to be motivating, it has to be a worthy pursuit. But being worthy, or valuable is not enough; it has to be worthy to you. Being worthy to someone else doesn’t cut it. Just because your spouse, your boy friend, your best friend, or even your family doctor thinks it would be beneficial to you to get some exercise doesn’t make it valuable to you.

The first strategy we use to increase the value of a change we want to make in our lives is called valuing the vision. In this strategy we write down all the benefits that the change can bring to our lives.

Because the vision is defined as “a change that we want in our life that will make our lives so much better,” we list all the ways this change will make our lives so much better.

There are many benefits to exercise. Here are a bunch:
1. makes you look hotter
2. lowers cholesterol
3. strengthens your bones
4. helps you lose weight
5. reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke
6. makes you smarter
7. fights depression
8. lowers blood pressure
9. fights insomnia

The second strategy we use to increase the value of our vision it to make it fun or at least pleasant. We are going to value a sport more if we enjoy it. The most obvious way to do this is to find some exercise that you enjoy. Try new sports, with the understanding that it is okay to quit if you don’t like it, so long as you try something else. Investigate team sports. The social aspect of team sports might may them more enjoyable, so might the competition.

My most enjoyable exercise is running. Unfortunately I enjoyed it a little too much when I was younger, and now I am having to rehab my left hip and knee. So I work out with kettle bells. the two major benefits for me are the social aspect, and reason number one, it’s making me look hotter ☺

That’s how we apply the first factor of self motivation, the vision, to our task of getting some exercise. In my next posting I will be discussing how we apply the other two factors to this same goal.

See you then.

Getting motivated to exercise

There are so many articles these days about the importance of regular exercise, few would question it is important. Nevertheless, though we admire those who seem to like nothing better than exercise, for many of us exercise comes lower on the priority list.

So how can we use the model for self motivation to get us to put on the tennis shoes and start working out? I’m glad you asked.

The model for self motivation is simple:

MOTIVATION = ƒ (VISION, SUCCESSABILITY, ENVIRONMENT).

Anything you do to any of the three factors on the right has a direct impact on your motivation. That's what makes the model so practical. It's easy to put it into practice. Here are some helpful strategies using the model you can use to get you, and keep you, motivated to exercise.

Vision (the worthwhile pursuit) The more worthwhile or valuable your pursuit is, the more motivated you will be to work on achieving it. Consequently, your goal is to make exercising more worthwhile. How we do this:

• Find an exercise that you enjoy. The more you enjoy it, the more value it has.
• Learn the benefits of exercise. Exercise will help you live longer by avoiding hypertension, heart attacks, strokes, osteoporosis.
• Create your personal "reasons list"; the reasons you want to exercise. Some examples are: fit into you old slimmer clothes, be better at the sports you love, looking better for another person, be stronger, look good when you go to the beach, stress relief.
• Use the time exercising for just thinking about things
• Take advantage of the social benefits of exercise, getting to visit with similarly focused people. The track club was a big motivator for me when I was running
• One of the funniest benefits, a friend’s reason for running: being able to eat and drink all you want.
• Rewarding yourself: Although most experts say external motivation doesn’t have the motivational impact of internal motivation, many people find creating rewards for successful completion of tasks, for example, renting a video for every two work outs completed, increases their motivation, perhaps by indirectly enhancing the worth of their vision. Try it out for yourself.

Successability: the more confident you are in your competence the more motivated you will be. How we do this:

• (yup, here too) Find an exercise that you enjoy; you are more likely to do it and enjoy the motivating impact of many successes. A success is when you do what you are motivating yourself to do, in this case, exercising.
• Exercise first thing in the morning, every morning. Make a habit of exercise.
• Set and write down precise goals; the more clear you are the more motivated you will be.
• Make sure your goals are attainable. Don’t have as a goal something you are unlikely to accomplish.
• Keep track of what you have done with an exercise log. When I ran I always kept one, but especially for the races. Over the years my PR’s would slowly come down, and I was able to use my successes in races to keep myself training day to day. For most runners racing is more fun than training, so you use your racing successes to motivate you on your training runs. Successes increase successability which increase motivation.
• Take time to appreciate the results of your exercise program.
• Read inspirational stories of persons doing the sport you are doing, or who are accomplishing the goals for which you are exercising. The successes of others will help you realize that your goals are achievable, that you can be successful.

Environment: You can adjust/change your environment to enhance your motivation. Here’s some strategies:

To enhance your physical environment, the place where you live and where you do your work:

• take a photo of your self at the start of your program and at regular intervals so you can see the improvement and post them on your wall.
• Put motivational quotes or posters on the walls.
• Put pictures of sports models, who look like you want to look, on the walls.
• If you go to a gym, make sure it is a place you want to be at.

To enhance your social environment, the people and organizations (groups of people) that surround you:

• Exercise with a friend. (I used to run weekly with a much better runner; he would motivate me to push harder than I ever would have pushed by myself.)
• Find a fitness class or hire a trainer. Not only will you rely on their expertise, but also on them motivating you to try "just a bit harder."
• Join a club of like minded people.
• Tell people what are going to do; your pride will motivate you to “keep your word."

Do you have a strategy for keeping you on an exercise program? If so, please share it with other readers by commenting below.