Motivation for exercise

Stick To Your New Years Resolutions: Part 1

PsychElite Performance

Thomas Regan

09/01/2018

Are you sat on the couch watching TV, with a takeaway and wondering why you cannot get off the couch and go do some exercise? Most likely you are living a sedentary lifestyle and unmotivated to do exercise which can lead to health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Whilst people try and start exercise, 50% of individuals who start a programme drop out in the first 6 months. Does this sound familiar? Well it is down to your motivation but this blog will try to change your perception on exercise behaviour and other behaviours that you want to change.

There are two main types of motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the feeling of doing exercise because you enjoy it and are competent in it (love a challenge). Extrinsic motivation is the feeling of doing exercise for the result. There is also 'Amotivation' but, in my opinion, this is flawed as everyone has motivation to do something. For example, a person watching TV instead of going the gym is more motivated to watch TV than to go the gym. 

 Transtheoretical model 

The transtherorectical model (Prochaska and DiClemente) proposed that individuals go through 5 stages of behaviour change to aid their physical and mental well being. Everybody starts at the first stage and makes their way through stages.

The first stage is the precontemplation stage in which nobody takes action and invest their time and effort into different things other than the behaviour they should change. Individuals tend to not care about exercise and they do not care about the benefits of exercise. This stage is very dangerous to the health and well-being of individuals as they can increase their chances of health problems in the future. 

The second stage is the contemplation stage in which people tend to think about taking action and want to change their health behaviours (normally during the months of December and January). Even though individuals want to try and change behaviour, they have an inner conflict and make excuses to not change their behaviour. For example, "I want to go the gym but I'm not comfortable because i am fat and people with look at me." Many lose the confidence and talk themselves out of it. Most just going back to the precomtemplation stage.

At this stage, you should try and change your behaviours by either changing a well learnt attitude, acquire new information to combat our old behaviours or reduce the importance of the old behaviour. Lets take drinking sugar fizzy drinks for example (this was my process)

- Fizzy drinks are full of sugar and the more you drink the more likely you will become fatter, your teeth will decay and more likely to get diabetes. The taste of the drinks is not worth the increased body fat, tooth decay and diabetes. Instead of drinking the 'full fat' drinks, start drinking the diet drinks instead. I know this is not the best but nobody is perfect.

The third stage is the preparation stage in which a person is ready to make the change such as buying new gym clothes, running shoes, gym memberships or reading brilliant written blogs. By making this small step, is the first step on a long journey towards your perceived health goals. Most people who are reading this is are probably in this stage right now! Also, most people in this stage are extrinsically motivated because people do not fall in love with running, gym or doing sport straight away. I only started lifting weights because i thought i was too skinny and weak to play football. Funnily enough, i lift weights more than i play football now. My motivation, at the start, was an extrinsic one. You have to grow to love your new behaviour and always want to get better at it.

The fourth stage is the action stage in which the individual wants to keep on top of their newly found behaviour. The behaviour change has been a success and the behaviour can go either a positive or a negative way. This is down to the perceptions of individuals of the three Basic Psychological Needs (Deci & Ryan) which are autonomy, competence and relatedness. If one of these three needs are challenged, the behaviour might relapse and the individual will fall back into a previous stage or straight back to the start. 

-Autonomy- the feeling of being in control of the situation and wanting to do the exercise. For example, going to the gym and following a programme that you want to do. At the start of your new behaviour of becoming fitter and healthier, doing something is better than nothing. On the other hand, try not go balls to the walls straight away. If you have never done an advanced spin class, do not go to one as you wont feel in control. Instead, get on a spin bike and do it as your own pace until you feel competent. 

-Relatedness- the feeling of belonging in a community and feeling connected to others. Many people that tend to start a changed behaviour, do it with a partner or a group because they have a sense of belonging and feel they are not alone. It has been proven that having a partner increases the chances of a behaviour change (Jackson et al., 2015). My advice, if a partner is serious about a behaviour change, get one so you can both encourage each other and help each other with your goals.  It will be harder to do it on your own, but it is not impossible. Just because you want to change a behaviour on your own, doesn't mean you are alone. There are many tools online, such as forums, that you can talk to become motivated and be motivated. 

 

- Competent- the feeling of being in control but also wanting to master the experience. When we achieve goals (mastering), it elicits positive feelings including happiness, excitement, confidence and pride. Positive feelings will help intrinsic motivation to continue the new behaviour you have learnt. However, if we do not feel that we are in control and not mastering our goals, it elicits negative feelings such as sadness, pain and embarrassment. As humans, we do not like to feel negative emotions and this tends to be the reason why people stop their new behaviour because they cannot cope with the negative emotions and feelings. 

Let us put this into an example, Fred wants to lose weight because he is 200lbs and has high cholesterol. He decides he wants to go to the gym, lose weight and get his cholesterol back within the normal range. Fred goes the gym 6 times a week for 1 month and Fred loses 10 lbs and his cholesterol is in the normal range.  Fred feels competent as he set out a goal and he has mastered that goal. He feels pride and confidence that he has stuck to it. Fast forward 3 months, Fred is struggling to lose the weight and has only lost 5lbs. He feels that he hasn't mastered his goal of losing weight and feels ashamed and embarrassed that he has not lost more weight than he did in the first month, even though he is doing the right things.

Fred has 2 options. he can either maintain his behaviour and keep going the gym and hope his hard work eventually pays off or they relapse or quit all together and go back to stage one. Which leads us onto the next stage which is key to maintain the new behaviour. 

The fourth stage is the maintenance stage, this is the stage in which we have to stay for our new behaviour to be a permanent behaviour. People are less tempted to relapse and become more confident and they continue the behaviour. We grow to 'love' the behaviour change and have more intrinsic motivation to stay in this stage and the new behaviour is now apart of you. However, it is still possible to relapse so you have to keep working hard to maintain the new behaviour.

 For a new behaviour change to become part of your lifestyle and new habits. Individuals need to be aware of the temptations to go back to our old behaviours. This is done by increasing our self efficacy (ones belief in ones ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task) (Bandura). Once intense urges kick in, our will power needs to stay strong to prevent these urges from taking over and relapsing. This will be the hardest part but by resisting the intense urges because if you give in, then you will relapse. By knowing what triggers the urges will aid the prevention as you can minimise the triggers. For example, if you are feeling stressed at work because you forgot to finish all of your jobs makes you want a cigarette. Make sure you have plenty of time to do your work to prevent the trigger to have a cigarette. 

Overall by sticking to your goals (a blog for goal setting: http://ow.ly/fGFj30hJMl7 ) and going through the transtheoretical model in stages will help you establish your new behaviours. It will be hard and there might be set backs, but please get back into it and prevent as many relapses as possible, if not any. Increase your self-efficacy and confidence and take it day by day. The temptations will subside (urges will always be there) but your confidence and willpower should prevent relapse. 

Smash your goals for 2018!