MOTIVATION VS COMMITMENT

written by: Nem​
​Have you ever woken up and felt like not going to work? And even though you didn’t feel like going, you still ended up going to work? This perfectly illustrates the concept of motivation and commitment.

​You were not motivated to go to work, meaning, you did not have a desire to do this, however, you were committed to this job and you showed up for work anyway.

Similar examples of commitment vs motivation can be found in other areas of life and health & fitness world is no different. For example, you watched a video or read a story about your favorite celebrity who turned their life around by eating healthier and exercising regularly. In their interview, they might mention how they have more energy now, they feel, move and look better.

After reading this story, you got excited and determined you want to start eating better and exercising. In other words, now you feel motivated to exercise and eat healthy. However, just because you feel motivated, it doesn’t mean you will actually start doing these things now. How many times have you felt motivated to exercise or eat healthy, but you ended up not doing it? 

Once we take action and actually start exercising and eating healthy, we are committing to making a change to reach our health and fitness goals. 

Oftentimes people use this initial spike in motivation to push them to start doing healthy things. They feel excited and motivated so they start working out and eating well. However, after a while motivation usually wanes and/or disappears. At that point, most people stop and revert back to their old habits. 

This is an example of where people were motivated but they did not stay committed to their goals. Being committed, means doing things you don’t want to, but you do them anyway because you know it is the right thing to do. You do those tasks despite being hard, having obstacles to overcome, temporary setbacks and/or various forces pulling you in the opposite direction (e.g. negative self-talk). Motivation is the desire and drive to make a change.  Commitment is action, determination and dedication.

In the health/fitness world, that might mean doing a workout even though you don’t feel like it. Skipping take out and cooking healthy meal at home, despite not really wanting to do this.

IS MOTIVATION REQUIRED TO TAKE ACTION?

​We often think that we need the motivation to take action. Even though having motivation certainly helps to take action, however it is not needed to act. 

You might have noticed before that when you do the tasks you know you should be doing, but don’t feel like doing, is you end up feeling good after completing them. You feel a sense of accomplishment and success. This creates motivation that you did not have before completing these tasks. Now that you have motivation, you can use it to fuel your other healthy habits.

For example, you wake up in the morning and you really don’t want to workout. However, you end up completing a workout anyway because you are committed to change. After the workout, you feel good about yourself because you did something good for your body and you are now one step closer to your goal. You now feel motivated/excited so you decide to do something else that will get you even closer your goals. You decide to prepare a healthy and delicious meal to nourish your body properly and support the hard work you invested in the gym that day. This might then create more motivation and the cycle can keep on going. 

As you can see, this can trigger a whole cascade of events for that day that can get you even closer to your goals. That day you also might feel less stressed because you worked out, you might sleep better, go out for a walk because you left the house to workout, hydrate adequately, make a plan for the following day, etc.

In conclusion, motivation is not needed to take action. However, oftentimes when you are committed and take action, motivation comes to you. So motivation is the result of action in this case and not what caused the action. 

When you have motivation, things go easier so use this time to support your healthy habits. When motivation diminishes, keep your end goal in mind. Stay committed and stay focused.  Keep doing the thing you know you should be doing. One step at a time.

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