Motivation Made Easy, with Shawn Hondorp
Do you ever feel unmotivated?
I know--that question is almost laughable, isn't it? Sometimes I feel like all I ever am is unmotivated. I always have a huge list of the things that I "should" be doing, and somehow it seems like the majority of it doesn't get done.
And then, of course, I have parts that feel guilty for just sitting on the couch.
But thanks to my guest on this week's podcast, I now know that me sitting on the couch is me being motivated: it means I'm motivated to rest! And we all need rest, right??
Motivation is one of those things that I hear people say they struggle with all the time. I think many of us tend to feel that we need motivation in order to get anything done, and that motivation is often elusive. And I sometimes think that we expect motivation to drop down out of the sky.
I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem to happen to me. And this weeks' guest, Dr. Shawn Hondorp, can help us understand why. Shawn is a board-certified Clinical Health Psychologist and health behavior expert. She has a top-rated podcast called Motivation Made Easy: Body Respect, True Health where she outlines effective approaches to improve health and well-being by looking at how research and real world experience collide via conversation and personal stories.
And Shawn is here to talk to us about motivation. In this week's episode we cover different types of motivation, including:
External (controlled) Motivation:
when we're changing our behavior in order to appease something or someone outside of us, i.e. trying to lose weight in order to appease your doctor or trying to lose weight in order to fit into society;
when we force ourselves to do something because we don’t trust ourselves that we’ll consistently do it.
Value-Based Motivation: engaging in a behavior that you don't love, but you do it because you value something about it (i.e. choosing to exercise not because you love it, but because of how it helps your body);
Intrinsic Motivation: engaging in a behavior simply because you love it.
Not surprisingly, the more intrinsic the motivation, the longer we're likely to stick with something.
Shawn and I also have a conversation about how we both started our careers in the area of weight loss. We both note that we still carry some guilt and shame about it. But thankfully, part of Shawn's work is to meet other helpers where they're at and educate them about the benefits of approaching clients from an anti-diet, weight-neutral approach.
Take a listen!
And head to my therapy practice website for more information on upcoming therapist trainings!
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