Through all my reading and researching I believe there
are two basic types of motivation: External and Internal. They both have their uses and their draw
backs, but what exactly are they and how do they work. You probably can guess
most of what I am going to say so to help you visualize I am going to explain
through a story.
What is External Motivation? (or how Really Fat Matt got fit the first time before becoming Plain Fat Matt)
This is a story about a boy and his shorts, not under
ware, but a tale of cargo shorts.
You see, Fat Matt is also Cheap Matt and so we go back close to 15 years
ago to a store, a cheap fat boy, and sale on shorts.
Fat Matt was in college, working, and had little time for
proper nutrition or exercise, but needing new shorts for summer made his way to
a store that was running an advertised sale.
After trying on several different pairs and styles of shorts he found a style he liked and without trying on all the shorts he just bought. Going past the point of return by tearing the
tags off, throwing away the receipt, and washing the shorts, Fat Matt quickly committed
the shorts to wardrobe rotation he was like a Show Time Rotisserie he “Set it and
forget it.” He wore the blue shorts and liked them,
then the khaki shorts which were his favorite, then came time for the green shorts. There the problem began.
It seemed the green shorts were purchased two full sizes
smaller than they should have been. Fat
Matt was not angry he could not fit in the shorts, but more that he had wasted
his money. Fast forwarding the story a
little, when really Fat Matt woke up one day and realized he was one Chinese
Buffet away from a heart attack and had to do something he read a ton of
exercise and nutrition books that all spoke of motivation (I bet you wondered
how I was going to work that back in.) One in particular suggested buying an
outfit too small and hanging it somewhere you could see it every day. Still
angry Cheap Matt remembered the green shorts. Promptly they were dug out of the
closet and hung in a place of honor.
Fast forwarding again.
I, Fat Matt, lost a lot of weight, I mean a lot. Over 60 pounds and still could not fit into
those shorts. They continued to motivate me long after I hit my stated weight
goal until the day I could fit in them.
It took a little over six months of dedication and hard work but I could
wear those shorts, and even though by that time they were out of style it
didn’t matter I wore them anyway because I had accomplished my goal.
That is the whole problem with external motivation. To set a motivating goal it has to be;
Believable and Achievable. If it is not both of those there is no motivation.
The real problem comes in obtaining the goal.
Use my story for example, where do I go from there? Obviously, back to Fat Matt, since that is
where I am today. All of the so called
expert say I have to set new goals. I
had such a low body fat percentage that there was nowhere for me to really
go. If you have never tried to maintain
a body of less than 10 percent body fat I can tell you it’s exhausting and
eventually all you really want to do is eat cake…mmmm cake…
There is my theory as to why so many of us fail. Goals have dates and weights are
numbers. Once obtained there is very little
motivating you to maintain. What fun is maintain? What do you get from maintaining
emotionally? Maintaining ever make your
waste smaller? No.
One more quick example.
Just look at the Biggest Loser show.
How many of them have lost more weight than you or I weigh and a year
later they are morbidly obese again? Once the prize money is removed, or the
external motivation, there is little reason to keep that little waist when cake
tastes so good.
In conclusion external motivation can have a profound effect on a state goal. The drawback to external motivation is only temporary and
not lasting. Once the external goal is
accomplished very few of us are good at setting another goal, especially one
that will engage us as emotionally as the first. Maybe the question should be
how do we continue to find external goal as emotionally satisfying as the
originals? Maybe one day I will find out. Until then, this blog is external
motivation and I will let you know if it works.
Now, here is the daily recap.
Daily recap:
Matt: 38 min Jog (at non-Cheetah type speeds)
Kelly: 60 min Speed Walk (probably faster than my jog)
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