We wanted to share a discovery today.
Motivation is the key when it comes to weight loss or weight management. On certain days we feel perfectly motivated and not at all on some other days.
Philosophers and Psychologists have been working for centuries to get a definition of motivation and understand what motivation is.
Here are some current definitions:
- “Internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested and committed to a job, role or subject, or to make an effort to attain a goal.”
- “A force or influence that causes someone to do something.”
- “A reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way.”
- “Desire or willingness to do something.”
Factors, Force, Reason, Desire! This suggests that nobody really knows what motivation is.
So, we analysed thousands of data from the Mental Weight Questionnaire from three different countries to understand more.
We discovered that there are two types of Motivations competing one against the other, which we call – Positive Motivation and Negative Motivation.
What We Found:
1. Positive Motivation is based on goals and benefits (less pain, more self-satisfaction) essential to short-term weight loss success. Most people are positively motivated. It is natural to want to look good, feel good and become healthy.
Here is the positive dimension of Motivation:
A. Event: I could not buy the clothes I wanted because of my weight.
B. My thought: I want to look better; I am fed up with my actual look.
C. My automatic emotion: I am highly motivated.
D. My automatic behaviour: I am registering for the Motivation Programme right now.
2. Negative Motivation is the cornerstone. It is only by decreasing the negative factors of motivation that positive motivation will achieve successful weight loss.
Here is the negative dimension of Motivation:
A. Event: I could not buy the clothes I wanted because of my weight.
B. My thought: I would like to look better, but I can’t diet.
C. My automatic emotion: I am poorly positively motivated. I am highly negatively motivated.
D. My automatic behaviour: I comfort myself with more food.
Positive Motivation is not willpower, not a desire, not a force, nor a factor. It is an emotion, a feeling. Since emotion is automatic, which means out of control of your conscious mind, it is useless to tell yourself: “Come on, be more motivated”. As you know, it does not work.
If you want to be highly positively motivated, you need to work on your B sequence, your thought.
