Quote:
Originally Posted by Novadhd5150
How can I improve this?
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I've copied in the introduction from my book 'How To Do What You Don't Want To Do - Diet & Exercise Motivation Made Easy'.
Please let me know if you have any questions,
Cheers
George
Introduction:
Before we start...
Have you ever wondered why you don't get the results you want?
Why you just aren't motivated as much as you want?
The answer may be more simple than you suspect. It’s all about programming.
But before we talk about that, ask yourself a question, ‘How great would you feel if you trained, ate and lived in a way that guaranteed results?’
If you're like me, you just went, 'I'd feel fantastic, I'd have the body I always wanted, have loads of energy and love the way I look'.
I'd also be asking, 'How do I get to do that?'
You learn how to do it.
This course is about learning
Most people think that learning takes a long time, is very difficult and is frequently painful. But is this really true?
We like to think not, that's because we have extensive experience of it being quick, painless and easy. Let us show you how...
The Shortcut to work
Lets say that you take the same route to work every day, you ‘know’ it’s the quickest way there. One day there happens to be roadworks on your route and they send you on a diversion, bizarrely the new route turns out to be quicker. Now, once the roadworks have finished, are you likely to take your old route to work?
Probably not.
Your brain works in the same way; once you have learned something new your brain will take the new way over the old way every time. As long as the new route satisfies your demands, works as well or better than the old stuff you knew, and the new style is more pleasurable or less painful than the old style...
What you are about to receive.
Essentially this programme has two components:
1/ Finding a new way to get success (that is either less painful or, ideally, pleasurable). This is what generates motivation. Motivation is automatically created when you know how to get success AND getting it is pleasurable, after all, why wouldn't you do something that was pleasurable and gave you what you wanted?
2/ Teaching your brain how to make you feel good. Because when you feel good, you take more action.
It is obvious why the first part is needed, it always makes more sense to get what you want in a pleasurable way (even if you didn't know it was possible before).
But why would you want to feel good? All the time.
Just try something out for a moment; imagine being a bodybuilder on Venice beach, you are pushing 300lbs on the bench for reps and getting a mighty pump on, feeling the sun belting down and warming your hard working muscles, you notice your fellow iron pushers and there is a great sense of camaraderie, this lets you push yourself even harder and get an even better workout done, then you begin to notice all the passersby watching on in awe at the magnificent feats being achieved. Now, take the good feeling that you have just created and think of the next time you are going to go do your workout. What happens?
Did you feel a sense of desire to get to the gym or to do your workout?
Were there rumblings of excitement about what you are going to do once you are there, knowing that the hard work you do will move you inexorably toward your goals?
(and if the example above doesn't float your boat, just change the context to one you would want to feel good in, and do the example again!)
Key Point:
*****
*****When *you feel good you are more likely to take action. And just as importantly, the actions you take when you feel good tend to make*you feel even better!
So start practising feeling good, as you will do as you work through this course, it is a skill, and you can learn it.
Do you know what it being a skill means?
It means it can be acquired, that's different than an ability, which is inherited. The fact that it is a skill means you can get better at it, but you can only do so with diligent practice. Think of a highly skilled athlete. Did they get where they are because they fell out of bed one day and decided to be world class that day? No, it took time and dedication.
Now, just in case you are getting worried about setting all this practise in place, and then doing it, we will also show you how to plan and feel good about it, AND show you how to enjoy your workouts, so you feel inspired to do them rather than begrudgingly doing them.
There is a second big reason why you want to train your brain and body to produce good feelings; you make better decisions when you feel good than when you don’t. Do you want to make good decisions? Who wouldn't?
So lets put it this way: Would you rather feel good, be motivated AND get results OR feel ****, work from desperation and struggle to get results (infrequently, if at all) only to lose them?
Ready to go? Read on.
A note about the learning process:
When you learn, you get things wrong and you get things right. That is the basis of learning, and you learn from both results. The easiest way we have found to deal with the error making process is by choosing to believe something very useful;
'there is no such thing as failure, only feedback'
This basically means that everything that happens during this course (and by extension, in life) is an opportunity to learn. The irony is that you will learn whether you believe it or not, but that by believing this, your errors and slipups (and these can be either from doing, or not doing the exercises) will be seen in a positive light and help you feel good, which will help you learn more quickly.
So take a piece of advice and start to train yourself in believing this phrase, it does make everything a whole lot easier (we expand on this concept in chapter 15).
setting the scene
When we talk about motivation what do we mean?
This is probably most easily answered by asking you, ‘how did you feel the last time you were motivated to do something?’
As you re-associate into that time and feel those feelings of motivation you will no doubt now start to re-feel motivated. Where do you feel those feelings? Where in your body?
The areas will be unique to you, they may also be unique to the particular thing you thought about. What does this tell us?
Three really interesting pieces of information, that’s what.
1/ Your thoughts can create feelings of motivation.
2/ Motivation is something you feel as a result of the way you think. This inevitably leads to number 3.
3/ Motivation is not some abstract concept that is hard to define, use or develop;
Key Point:
Motivation is a workable set of processes that can be modified, changed, created and used, all to your advantage.
So, as you begin to wonder about how you can make use of that in your life, but before we start showing you how to be more motivated every day, lets point something out. There are only two ways to ‘do’ motivation;
Inspiration or desperation.
Inspiration
Does this describe you?
If you have a life, and record of achievement, that just keeps going up, you feel better and better, more relaxed, happier and feel like things just happen easily for you, it is most likely you motivate yourself using an inspiration style of motivation. We are guessing that, given that you are reading this, you will more likely have the other style (if you don't, and you want more inspiration, that's ok, this programme will still work for you).
Desperation
Does this describe you?
This is where you have to hit rock bottom before you move, before you take action. Rock bottom is all relative, of course, and varies depending on the context and the task to be done. If you experience spells of motivation and action, but they don’t last (and you’re not sure why, never mind how to change them) this may well be your style of motivation. This is the type of motivation that needs a kick up the arse before it gets moving!
More desperation?
Probably the most interesting question you can ask when it comes to motivation is ‘how do you know it is time to start being motivated?’
What is the sign in your head or your body that you now ‘have to’ take action? The answer is relevant for both long term actions, and day to day decisions. After all, the long term is made up from each day to day set of actions.
Another way of asking this question is ‘what is the low point in your cycle?’
How bad do you have to feel before you take action?
Before you answer this, consider how loud a telephone has to ring before you know it needs answering?
How loud could it ring?
As it gets louder does it mean that it needs answering more? Is this true?
Yet, if you work from a style of desperation, this is how you have programmed yourself to respond to your motivation style. So the next time you sense this happening, you might want to smile, notice the ‘phone’ ringing and ask yourself if you want to take action right now...
The good news is this; your style of motivation is just something you have learned to do, even though you don't know how you learned (and the great thing about that is that you don't need to know how either), and threfore you can learn to do it another way.
Human beings are great at learning, in fact one teacher said that it is not that humans can't learn, it's that they learn too much. The bonus for you, about motivation, is that it's a skill, and because it's a skill you can acquire it; you can learn to do something other than what you have already learned!
You can learn something new, now.
Motivation Styles Expanded
Do you continually find yourself alternating being motivated and not being motivated?
Achieving your goals and then losing them again?
If so you probably have one of the;
Four Most Common Ineffective Motivation Styles
In our searching of what makes people tick, we have found that, when it comes down to it, there are only four ways of desperately motivating yourself. As you read through the list, notice which parts you recognise, (in your memories) of what happens in the moments before you have decided to take action, and as you begin to notice those things, what would happen if you noticed that this decision is something you can make at any time...
Go onto the next page to find out...
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Complete Misunderstanding
