Now is the time of year when the New Year’s resolutions to get fit, lose weight and eat healthily start to dwindle down.
It just seems that the payoff is too far down the road and the daily activities that it requires are too difficult to maintain.
Many theorists have noted that motivation for sticking with any particular task depends on two variables.
First people must believe that they can be successful. If they can believe in their own power to succeed and the support system in place, as well as any other learning (such as instruction from a nutritionist, or a personal trainer), then they are more likely to succeed by keeping the course.
Secondly, people must value the outcome. They must believe that the goals they are striving for are worthwhile, either being valuable to themselves or seen in the eyes of society or significant others as having merit.
Some people have mastery goals. This means they truly want to master a skill or state of being for their own self-fulfillment. Others have goals that are more about looking competent in the eyes of others — or at least not looking incompetent.
These kinds of goals are not necessarily mutually exclusive and usually with weight loss and getting fit it is an interplay of doing it for oneself and feeling good for oneself as well as to be seen as lean, fit and strong by others.
The best way of sticking to it is to remind oneself of why you started on the path off fitness and health initially and to set short-term goals, as well as overarching long-term goals.
For example, if you want to lose 50 pounds and learn how to eat right, then a short-term goal might be to stop eating at fast food restaurants, buy a blender to make up easy and nutritious protein shakes and set your intention as 2 pounds of fat loss per week. Very doable. By focusing on the short-term goals the long-term goals will be achievable and each weekly success of losing 2 pounds builds up personal confidence that the long-term goal will be reachable.
Sometimes certain factors impact motivation. Some of these factors might be a person’s past successes or failures.
If someone has tried unsuccessfully many times in the past to stick with a program of healthy eating or regular exercise, they may fall off the wagon more easily than someone who has been successful. The unsuccessful person might excuse themselves by saying that they “just can’t do it,” or they “just don’t have the will power,” which is of course a lie that they tell themselves.
We can do most anything we put our minds to, and certainly working out and eating right are not difficult or impossible goals.
They are easy goals compared to dying from obesity or complications from diabetes. We must learn self-discipline in order to reap the benefits of a healthy lifestyle until it becomes a no-brainer — just simply the good way to live.
Other factors are the beliefs and worldviews of one’s culture. Children grow up in a culture that either promotes an “I can do it” attitude or an “I cannot do it” view. The positive attitude promotes persistence, preference for challenge, effort and mastery of any goal, whereas the “I cannot do it” attitude results in a learned helplessness that leads to giving up quickly in the face of challenge.
We must promote a winning attitude for our children and our other loved ones who must develop healthier lifestyle choices. Keep the faith. You can do it!
• Jane Riley, M.S., B.A., C.P.T., Certified Nutritional Adviser, can be reached at janerileyfitness@gmail.com, 212-1451 or www.janerileyfitness.com.
