New Year's Resolutions, the beginning of your new gym membership, the new diet you’re starting AGAIN on Monday, your commitment to clean out the garage, the launch of the WIN program: You feel so energized, excited, and invigorated at the start! But the ugly reality is you will fail before the end of the year. HARSH!!
Studies show that only 9% of people stick with their New Year’s resolutions. A decline over the months show that by the 6 month mark, less than 50% have stuck with it, and with each passing week, the outcome becomes more bleak. It seems as if the motivation we had at the beginning has all but faded away!
Most of us believe that motivation brings about action! If we are motivated enough, we will get the results we are seeking. We just gotta keep the motivation up!! But what if the best approach is almost the opposite? What happens if we ignore our motivation in order to see our habits change? Does this make any sense at all?
Wisdom and experience have shown us motivation can wane, so how in the world do we get past that, and past that enough to see our goals through? There is an expression “mood follows action”. So perhaps changing our physical state we can impact our mental state. Many successful athletes can tell you that although they may not FEEL LIKE starting their training session that day, but by forcing themselves to at least START, they find their mood has improved and the motivation tank starting to fill up a bit.
But “forcing” yourself to take action, is that really the way to go? Cognitive behavior therapists place a priority on “behaviors”rather than trying to alter the thoughts or emotional response as it relates to anxiety, and depression, and thoughts because the more you try to do that, or even suppress the negativity or current pattern, the stronger that thought seems to become! For instance if you are thinking “I really don’t feel like exercising today”, the more you don’t feel like exercising today! The more you try to change how you feel, the more stuck you’re liable to be. But what you CAN control is your actions (behavior)! A real life example of what that might look like could be a thought process like “ it’s cold outside. It’s warm in bed. I’m going to fail this marathoning challenge and let my team down, so who cares? Give me all of the brownies.” Now that is a LOT of thoughts swirling around that seem like a cycle tough to get out of. But if you force yourself to ignore those thoughts, and take action to get out the door with your shoes on your feet, you are giving yourself the best chance to reset your thoughts! (This is one reason exercise has been proven so many times to treat mild depression). And it is a rare thing to regret that walk you just took. In fact, you feel pretty proud of yourself. Mood follows action!
As stated earlier, so many are gung ho when first setting goals, motivation is high! And things are looking up during that first week! But there are bound to be highs and lows along the way, and a motivation tank that seems to have dwindled to empty. So when that rough patch hits, maybe the solution is to force yourself to show up. Do something. Take action. Do that walk. Lift those weights, Make that salad. When you start to do this consistently, what is that familiar feeling you start to recognize again? It's that feeling of being motivated! Hello old friend!
Of course these actions take practice, and we won’t get it right all the time. When we make big goals we think we must commit ourselves to them, but really, it is more about dedicating ourselves to practicing all the little actions along the way that will continue to build motivation, and closer to achieving those goals!
What actions can you do today?