Internal Motivation: Setting Ourselves Up for Success
Internal Motivation: Setting Ourselves Up for Success
“Come on, you can do this. We can’t just sit here. Do you want people to start looking at you and wonder what’s wrong?”
The voice sounds a little frazzled, and as you turn your grocery cart down the aisle, you realize it’s a parent, whose child is lying on the store floor. The child looks a little too big to just pick up and carry, and the parent’s cart is already full of groceries, with no room for a passenger. You pause on the same aisle because you have to look through the herbal teas.
“Honey, people walk on that floor all day. It’s so dirty. Get up.” No response from the child.
“Get up and shop with me, and I’ll let you pick a treat when we’re done! Hurry, let’s go!” The parent models false enthusiasm, but the child just flops around a bit, and a quick glance at the parent’s face reveals they’re probably nearing the end of their rope. You feel a pang of sympathy, and can tell they’re working really hard to keep it together.
“Seriously, off the floor. This is embarrassing,” the parent says through clenched teeth. “I can’t get that game for you today; it’s really expensive. What if we take a picture of it and put it on your birthday list?” Ah. The child is lying on the floor in protest. You’re invested now, so even though you found the right tea, you pretend to keep looking.
The parent leans closer to the child and says, “If you keep acting like this, you can’t play your other game this afternoon.”
That gets a response, and the child sits up quickly, scowling. “What?!”
“It’s true. If you can’t behave, and this takes too long, we’ll probably both need a nap instead of having video game time.”
The child scrambles to their feet, and the parent looks relieved.
“But you promised I could play it today,” the child protests, even as they start walking next to the cart again.
“I was planning on it, but if we can’t get this done, we’ll probably run out of time,” the parent says loftily, the relief apparent in their voice.
“What if I’m super duper good? Could I have extra time?” the child asks eagerly, their previous protest forgotten.
“It’s possible,” the parent says. They walk out of hearing distance, and you continue with your shopping. You realize their negotiation is familiar, because it reminds you of a few conversations you’ve had with yourself.
We’ve all tried to bribe or threaten ourselves into “behaving.” We really want to lose that first ten pounds, sure that if we can just get some momentum it will be easier to stick to our exercise and food goals.
Or maybe we really want to watch the next few episodes of that series we’ve been so invested in, but we actually need to get a work project finished. Maybe we try to bribe ourselves, saying we can sit and watch them once we’ve reached a certain point in the project.
What if we could figure out what drives us, what really sparks our interest, and what gets us up in the morning? What if we could tie our goals into our internal motivations, instead of trying to attach little rewards or punishments to the “right” actions?
Are we setting goals that don’t align with our personal beliefs, but instead are things we feel we should be achieving? What if we remember that spending more time with the people we love is actually more important to us than ensuring that next promotion? What if we realize that we really do want to spend more time planning and cooking healthy food, because it helps us feel so much better, which makes it possible to pursue some of the other activities that bring us joy?
Even when we’re leaning on our internal motivations, our goals should be challenging yet achievable, allowing us to experience a sense of accomplishment. If we truly know ourselves, we should also know our limits, which will help us to avoid overreaching. For example, committing to do twenty push-ups every single day for the month of January might be setting ourselves up for failure, but practicing dance (if we really love it, and want to get better) for one hour a week in the same month might be achievable and even enjoyable.
We need to make sure we’re not neglecting our physical or mental needs, so we have the internal resources to work on positive change. For example, a body and mind that is overspent because we haven’t slept enough lately is going to struggle more when trying to make changes. We’ll have more success when working with our body.
It also helps to surround ourselves with positive, supportive people who will support us and celebrate our wins with us. If Aunt Janice is always asking pointed questions about our dating life or the weight we need to lose, she’s probably not a good cheerleader. We can look to other friends and relatives who are more encouraging, and hopefully build each other up. We need people in our circles who love us just the way we are, but who are also excited for us when we want to change things for the better.
Setting ourselves up for success helps us enter a positive self-improvement cycle, instead of constantly feeling exhausted and burned out. When we set achievable goals that line up with what’s important to us, reaching them helps us feel internal peace and success. A natural result of feeling successful and at peace is having good energy and attracting other like-minded people to us. All of this builds our self-confidence and helps us have more presence, which helps us believe we are capable of becoming an even better version of ourselves. Then we begin a positive-feedback cycle, which helps us continue to be more successful and funnel more energy into the things we care most about.
That sounds a lot better than trying to bully or bribe ourselves to make things happen, doesn’t it?
Let’s start the New Year by taking a look at the “why” and “how” of the goals we’re setting for ourselves, and see if we can make some improvements! Join me during my free office hours on Facebook every 2nd and 4th Saturday at 11 AM MST so I can help you figure out where to get started!