| What is motivation?
Motivation to change problem behavior and sustain the change is:
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Being willing to make sacrifices necessary for change. |
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The acceptance of the belief that if there is "no pain'' then there is "no gain.'' |
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A commitment to rid yourself of problem behaviors, both now and in the future. |
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The rational perspective that it takes time, energy, effort, hard work, internal strength, and drive to change and sustain the change. |
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The inner voice of patience, self-love, and nurturing that allows you to recognize the necessary changes that need to be made. |
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A call to respond to the challenge of life. |
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Being willing to initiate recovery lifestyle activities. |
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Enjoying the changes made and wanting to sustain them. |
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Being unwilling to return to an unhealthy lifestyle. |
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Accepting relapse in the pursuit of recovery and picking yourself up to start again |
Negative consequences of a lack of motivation
If you lack motivation to change or to sustain efforts, a recovery lifestyle eventually will cease. Excuses used, conscious and subconscious, for your lack of personal motivation include:
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Your scapegoating of other people, agencies, or circumstances as to why efforts to change or sustain change are unsuccessful. |
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Experiencing stress, depression, or confusion as to why the efforts to change or sustain change are unsuccessful. |
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Denial that the change is stagnated. |
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Blaming others for the inability to succeed in recovery. |
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Blaming a lack of money, effort, energy, persistence, or time to attain or sustain change. |
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Not realizing how hard it is to attain and sustain change. |
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Becoming discouraged with the length of time change takes and the necessity for lifelong commitment to sustain change. |
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An inability to accept personal responsibility for self. |
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Depending on others to provide prodding, cajoling, and nagging to attain and sustain change. |
Pitfalls of depending on social support to overcome your lack of self-motivation
If you lack personal motivation and depend entirely on social support to attain or sustain a change, you could:
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Eventually resent the prodding, encouragement, and support of the others. |
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Resist sacrificing for change. |
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Begin to think, "Why should I be doing all the suffering?'' |
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Become jealous of the people in the support system because they are not taking extreme measures to change their own lifestyle. |
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Begin to feel obligated to pursue the change just to satisfy others. |
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Feel anger at the others, thinking, "They want this more than I do.'' |
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Feel guilty for not accomplishing the change which others wanted for you. |
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Begin to blame the others for wanting this change. |
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Believe that personal self-esteem is dependent on making the change and maintaining it. |
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Begin to distort the motives, desires, and best wishes of the others. |
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Feel a sense of coercion, force, or ultimatum which inhibits your freedom to participate in the process of change. |
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Begin to feel worthless for not changing fast enough, for having relapses or for not sticking to the time frame or the guidelines. |
How to sustain healthy self-motivation
In order to sustain healthy self-motivation, you need to:
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Love yourself enough to believe you deserve to accomplish change in your life. |
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Set realistic goals. |
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Visualize successful change. |
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Be committed to personal health and self-satisfaction to attain and sustain change. |
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Devote energy, effort, sustained vigilance, and personal sacrifice. |
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Accept personal responsibility for problem behavior. |
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Believe that only through personal efforts can a problem behavior be changed. |
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Reinforce self success, no matter how small. |
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Be able to break a large goal into small increments, which are obtainable, reasonable, and measurable, and to reward yourself for the attainment of these sub-goals without regret over the remaining steps still needing to be accomplished or satisfied. |
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Accept that change of old habits is a lifelong process. |
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Realize that the efforts to change do not end once initial cessation of old behaviors is attained. |
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Believe that a work-oriented recovery lifestyle model is a lifelong process. |
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Sustain the change in problem behaviors. |
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Commit to a lifelong contract of behavior change. |
Irrational thinking contributing to a lack of motivation
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Unless I am able to achieve my goal quickly and with little effort, it isn't worth pursuing. |
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Everybody else is relying on me to change; this is enough to keep me going in my need to change my lifestyle. |
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There is only a need to lose weight, stop smoking, stop drinking, stop gambling, stop using my credit card, stop using crack, etc., in order to change my life. |
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There is no reason for me to change my entire lifestyle in order to change my problem behaviors. |
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It should be easy to change my behaviors. |
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The professionals who preach lifestyle change don't know what they are talking about. |
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My problem behavior is not addictive; I am in control at all times; why all the fuss! |
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Change should be simple and easy to achieve; why am I having so much trouble? There must be something wrong with me. |
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My friends are all wrong in encouraging me to change. It appears that I mean nothing to them unless I change. |
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The effort it takes to sustain change is too much; therefore, I will only work on attaining the change and leave sustaining change to time to take care of. |
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I should enjoy the adventure of change; it should come easy and be pleasant. |
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If someone makes fun of or criticizes my efforts, I'll get angry enough to give up. |
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For me to be successful it is important for everyone to understand me and my need to change. |
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When my family and friends don't make accommodations for my changed lifestyle, I should give up. I can't stand to change alone. |
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People should realize how hard it is for me to change; they should be more sympathetic. |
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Unless everyone supports me, I'll never succeed in changing. |
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I must have warmth, understanding, and caring from others in order to change. |
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This need to change my lifestyle is being perpetrated by professionals who have a financial interest in it. |
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Why are they making this seem so difficult? Are they using scare tactics to make me change? |
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This "change thing'' is beginning to look like a plot hatched by the professionals and my support system. They're never satisfied. |
NOTE: For more information on gaining control and responsibility over your own life, read Tools for Handling Control Issues and Accepting Personal Responsibility and Handling Pride in Tools for Personal Growth
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