In life, I've found that many people who aren't doing well often encounter this dilemma: they have many ideas, but their motivation always lags behind. They often have many things they want to do, always ambitious and making many plans, but in the end, they fail to complete them for various reasons. Over time, people become frustrated and lack confidence. Some even feel like they're just lazy, destined to waste their lives. In fact, motivation is the key factor that sets people apart. On a smaller scale, it affects the achievement of one or two things; on a larger scale, if motivation cannot keep up in the long run, people will develop self-doubt and become more self-conscious and withdrawn in the face of repeated setbacks. We usually think that the strength of motivation depends on willpower and perseverance, and those without motivation are simply lazy.
But in psychology, the key to improving motivation lies in building good
relationships, which involves two aspects:
1. Relationship with tasks;
2. Relationship with oneself. A person who always lacks motivation may
not necessarily have a problem with themselves but because they haven't built
good relationships.
1.Relationship with
tasks: Why do you want to change?
"Building good relationships" may sound abstract at first, but
it's actually closely related to our lives. I once had an interesting job:
providing psychological support for people trying to lose weight. In my daily
work, I needed to understand their emotional state, progress in weight loss,
and effectiveness, etc. After a while, I found that I had inadvertently
acquired a skill: predicting whether someone would succeed in losing weight
(with an accuracy rate of about 80%). I didn't need to know their physical
indicators but to understand their motivations for losing weight. I would ask
everyone the same question: what happened that made you decide to lose weight?
Different answers reflect different understandings of weight loss. The first
two types of people have the shallowest understanding of weight loss and are
just making impulsive decisions. This means that there is only a weak
connection between them and the goal of "losing weight," and the motivation
they can stimulate is also very limited. So, it's easy to become enthusiastic
for a short time, but once the initial excitement wears off, it becomes
difficult to have motivation again. The third situation is slightly better.
Some older friends who are in poor health often suffer from illness and hope to
lose weight to become healthy and reduce pain. This means that their connection
with "losing weight" will be deeper, and they will have more
motivation to keep going. Therefore, even though their metabolism is lower and
losing weight is more difficult, because their motivation is stronger, their
motivation is also stronger, and they are more likely to succeed. Of course,
this motivation is still not the highest, after all, they are urged to lose
weight by a doctor. However, it's easy to see that the degree of motivation
shown by different degrees of connection with the goal will be completely
different.
2.The strongest
motivation comes from the deepest relationships
In fact, weight loss is like a metaphor for many things in life. We
often make many plans, such as reading, taking exams, going to bed and getting
up early, eating a balanced diet, learning new skills, etc. Everyone knows that
these things are "good" and worth doing, but when it comes to action,
they find themselves with more will than strength. That's because the
understanding of "good" at this time only stays at the level of the
mind and lacks experience. Conversely, when a person has a deep understanding
and experience of what they are doing, they can generate tremendous motivation.
Once, I met a lady named Lee, who showed amazing execution in losing
weight. In her past life, she had always been chubby and had never seriously
tried to lose weight. But after starting a strict exercise and diet plan, she
hardly ever missed a day and rarely complained. I was curious why she was so
good at it, so Lee shared her experience with me. All along, her attitude
towards life had been perfunctory; she just got by at work, wasn't invested in
relationships, and handled conflicts with her boyfriend coldly. She never
thought there would be any problem with this. Until last year, she was suddenly
fired from her job and broke up. The two blows struck her suddenly like
lightning, and she realized the problem and felt unprecedented pain. Lee wanted
to change, but she felt powerless and felt a huge sense of powerlessness and
loss of control. Just when she was feeling hopeless, she accidentally ran into
a high school friend she hadn't seen in years. In her memory, her friend was
just like her, chubby, timid, and lacking in confidence. But now, her friend
had almost completely changed. Not only had she become thinner, but she also
seemed confident in her speech and demeanor, appearing poised and confident in
everything she did. Lee deeply admired her friend's state, and her friend
shared how she had changed little by little. Lee listened intently and also had
a thought in her heart: maybe I can change myself and take control of my life.
Not long after, Lee celebrated her 30th birthday and made a wish: to change
herself and take back control of her life. One of the first things she did was
to take control of her weight. For Lee, losing weight was not just about
becoming beautiful and healthy, but also about helping herself overcome the
anxiety of losing control and regain confidence. Therefore, she had an
extremely deep connection with the goal of losing weight, which naturally kept
her motivated. Lee’s state has since improved, making others envious. So, is it
certain that as long as you establish a deep relationship with what you are
doing, you can persist? Not necessarily.
Because there is another influencing factor: the relationship with
oneself.
3.Relationship with
oneself: Is change motivated by "self-love" or "self-hatred"?
Observing those around you, you will find that many people are indeed
determined to do something but still procrastinate or even give up halfway. The
reason is that they often do things in a state of "self-hatred." You
may feel puzzled: isn't growth and change about making oneself better, isn't it
"self-love"? Not necessarily! Sharing a personal experience: At the
end of last year, I resumed my habit of running, but before that, I had
procrastinated on running for almost half a year. I often encountered
situations where I would set my alarm clock the night before to remind myself
to get up early to run, but the next day, I often woke up but didn't want to
get out of bed. Or, I would finally go out, but after running for less than 10
minutes, I wanted to give up. Why would this happen? Later, I realized that it
was because I would set a series of invisible high goals for myself, such as: I
must start running at 6:30; I must run more than 3 kilometers continuously; I
can't run too slowly... These goals may seem ordinary, but for someone like me
who was used to sleeping late and hadn't exercised for a long time, they were
actually quite difficult. Why would I set such high goals? Later, I realized a
deeper truth: because I didn't like myself. During that time, I was very
dissatisfied with myself, thinking that I was performing poorly in all aspects
of work and life. Therefore, I hated to see this annoying self and wanted to
change immediately. Therefore, when setting goals, I wasn't considering whether
the goal could be achieved but was immersed in a state of self-disgust, setting
unrealistic goals. Deep down, I would think: only by reaching such high
standards can I prove that I'm not bad, and only then can I be satisfied with
myself. However, unrealistic goals only bring continuous setbacks. I would
become irritated by small things. For example, if I woke up late or ran slowly,
I would judge and deny myself: "Why am I so bad!" And the
subconscious mind tends to seek benefit and avoid harm. When running each time
meant enduring the pain of criticism, unconsciously, I would become
procrastinated. After all, as long as I didn't do it, I wouldn't have to face
the bloody setbacks. Therefore, in an atmosphere of self-disgust, people are
destined to become exhausted when doing things, and naturally, motivation will
decrease.
4.When motivation is
lacking, it is even more important to love oneself
Indeed, when changing, people often have both feelings of
"self-love" and "self-hatred," but be careful not to let
the latter dominate. Careful observation will reveal that many people seemingly
set positive and upward growth goals, but many of them are venting their
dissatisfaction with themselves by setting high goals. For example, some people
change their profile pictures to "won't change until I lose ten
pounds," or make a New Year's resolution to "read a book a
week"... These goals not only are difficult to achieve, leading to
self-doubt, but they also disrupt the rhythm of action. And many people are
addicted to self-blame because of the influence of wrong ideas, thinking that
the more cruel and demanding they are to themselves, the better they will
become. But that's not true. While self-blame can sometimes generate short-term
motivation, fundamentally, it's a state of being hostile to oneself, which only
consumes energy in self-struggle. Therefore, to obtain sustainable motivation,
we need to change our relationship with ourselves. Later, through continuous
awareness and adjustment, I redeveloped the habit of running and summarized
three steps. If you encounter similar difficulties, you may want to try it.
a.See the real self
Bad relationships often stick to "as I wish," while good
relationships accept things "as they are." The former disregards the
actual situation and focuses solely on that ideal goal, while the latter sees
and accepts the true self. I remind myself: although life may not be going well
right now, and I haven't exercised in a long time, planning to start moving now
is already good. It's inevitable that I can't run or run slowly at this time.
When I think like this, my self-blame decreases, and I can see a few things
about myself that are worthy of praise. In fact, everyone is like this. Behind
the dissatisfaction with oneself also means that we are in a trough, and the
difficulty of change is the greatest at this time. But we are still determined
to salvage ourselves, and this intention alone is worthy of affirmation and
recognition. When we can realize this, self-acceptance will increase, and the
insistence on high goals will decrease.
Lower the goal and rebuild the "relationship" I remind myself:
now, my main task is to reduce psychological burden and find a way to make
running a less stressful activity for me. So, I readjusted the goal of running,
focusing not on how fast or how far to run but setting a minimum standard: to
go out. As long as I run, I achieve my goal, and that is a victory. Therefore,
my stress was minimized, and I successfully turned running into a habit.
Actually, when you find it difficult to act, you might as well lower the
standard, get yourself moving, and continue before there's a chance for
progress.
b.The worse the
performance, the more support you need for yourself
Later, when my running state recovered, I could run more than 8 kilometers
each time, and my requirements for myself also unknowingly increased. But once,
perhaps because my condition was really bad, it took me 30 minutes to
"run" just 3 kilometers. This is a very slow pace, and at first, I
felt embarrassed and didn't want to post on social media. But then I realized:
am I running to prove it to others? Of course not, I'm doing it for myself. At
the same time, even if I perform poorly, I accept this imperfect self. When I
think like this, I don't feel defeated but feel a kind of power connected to
myself. I am no longer an enemy with myself but a friend fighting side by side.
In conclusion
Actually, when you find yourself always having the will but lacking the
strength, don't rush to doubt or deny yourself. Those things that have shallow
connections with yourself don't have to be forced, try doing goals that you are
more willing to do first. And on the road to growth, everyone will have moments
of poor performance. The more difficult the time, the more we need to avoid adding
insult to injury to ourselves, support and understand ourselves more. Only then
can we rebuild our relationship and truly improve our motivation.
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