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Alexis Story

UNDERSTANDING YOUR WHY PART 1: EMOTIONAL CONFLICT VS. INSTRINSIC MOTIVATION



Why what you say? Well. Why you are here on this site reading this blog or newsletter? Why you are interested in getting “healthier” or to a better version of your self?

So let’s talk about it and what will separate out those who will really change their lives. Oh don’t worry, I’m going to help you get there too.

Understanding your why is very different than an emotional conflict even if it is emotional conflict that got you here. Such emotional conflict normally starts with “I should” or “I ought” and is often driven by something outside of oneself- No one will date me if I don’t lose weight…. My partner may leave me if I don’t stop over indulging in X, Y, Z… My boss has seemed to have less respect for me lately (causing fear of losing job) so I better make an extra effort with this project

When we look outside ourselves, we give away any power we have to make real change in our life.

Your why is your intrinsic motivation and thereby creates a “whatever it takes” mindset. It’s what inspires you and will ultimately be your highest stimulus for change. Does this passion, this level of motivation seem like a distant memory? And it should, because as children, almost everything is exciting and new- an adventure where we believe we CAN and WILL tackle the world, succeed, be anything we want! it’s a far cry from being an adult. As an adult, we are skeptical, cynical, cautious… because we are so aware of failure that it we have begun to like the comfort of staying the same vs. seeing the excitement in starting something new, because we are experience and weary of pain. Even our biology dictates this to us- stay away from anything that could potentially cause us pain.

Don’t get me wrong. Failure is painful. Saying we are going to stay on a restricted way of eating and giving in to something not in line with what we are “supposed” to be doing, feels bad. We feel like we are undisciplined, that our integrity has been challenged and we are a fraud at being goal directed people.

Ouch. I know. I got deep there didn’t I? Ok so you may not beat yourself up that bad and you may not even relate to this scenario… but a lot of people do and maybe, just maybe, there is one small area in your life that you do this, maybe not work, but in relationships. Maybe not in relationships, but in organizing your garage or closet… do you see what I mean? We are all adults and have changed our inspired child-like way of being to a more cautious one. Going back to external motivation; it can be the thing that gets us to act. Once we act, we feel better. Once we feel better even if the situation hasn’t changed that much, the pressure is relieved. With less pressure = less emotional conflict which then means less reason to act or change. So we no longer follow through and then before we know it, we are back to the original scenario, emotional conflict returns and the cycle begins again. Along with whatever baggage (blaming others, ego-saving) or self deprecation (I suck, I am so bad at discipline!) gets caught up in our head due to not following through or not committing. Final thought before we part ways… oh I know I haven gotten to the other side of the equation yet and told you how to solve it… well I will but that’s for Part II… gotta break it up for the short-attention spanned 😉

But to really drive it home… if you were told you had only a month to live, but you could potentially live months or years longer only if you did this one thing every day (similar to chemo/radiation etc or HIV suppressant drugs) would you do it? Absolutely, right? Because you want to live. That intrinsic motivation is inherent to our species but it really puts a squelch on that commitment thing or not being disciplined right? You’d for darn sure be disciplined if you were going to die… and there we have it. How, just how do we get to have intrinsic motivation for our health? Stay tuned… for Part II we’ll dive in to that!

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