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.