Monday, February 2, 2015

Internal vs External Motivation

Why do you work out? Is it for an upcoming event, a new years resolution, that 'thigh gap, or snazzy blazer? All of these things are external motivating factors. In other words, you're not working out for yourself, but rather you're working out for 'something else'. This can be a rather difficult concept to grasp mostly because our world is bombarded with external motivating factors. 

Now, if you are motivated by something 'external', this is not 'bad'. The thing is, once you achieve your goal, or if that factor loses it's importance to you, you will stop working out. 

Luckily for me, my extrinsic motivation is spaced quite a ways apart. See, prior to Christmas, I was working out for my swim suit body for an upcoming trip. Once the trip was over it would have been easy to just make all that hard work go away one fuzzy peach at a time. However, I got engaged over Christmas and I definitely have some body 'things' I'd like to sort out before the Big Day! So now I have 1.5 years to work out 'for' the wedding. :) 


Check out the vacation and engagement video I made...
p.s. its basically the most cute proposal I've ever seen!!




So what's the difference? Basically, if you can see, touch, or attend the thing that motivates you to work out, you are externally motivated. Intrinsic motivation comes from within. Being motivated intrinsically will typically result in changes that are long term. You may hear people say that they only lost weight, or started eating better when they REALLY wanted to change. This 'really' wanting to change is a shift from extrinsic motivation, to internal.  

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