We may wonder how do we achieve our biggest goals in life.

Hard work, learning new skills, and staying focused are definitely important things, but one of the most important things we need is motivation.

Losing motivation can stop us in our tracks. It can make us procrastinate, doubt our skills and abilities, and take us off the path to success. In the worst cases, a lack of motivation can destroy our goals and kill our dreams.

But where does motivation come from?

It starts with thoughts and chemicals in the reward systems in our brains. It continues to develop in our brains and is further shaped by our behaviors.

Dopamine is a chemical that the brain uses to create a sense of reward after someone completes a task or achieves a goal and we can use this reward system in our brains so we can stay motivated to achieve our biggest goals.

The trick is to build yourself a healthy behavior “Reward Pathway”.

Many people wonder how to find the illusive motivation to live a more energetic and healthier lifestyle. To be able to exercise and eat healthy without any internal struggle.

Reward Pathway – 

What and where is this special motivation thing you need to get yourself out of bed and out the door to your workouts?

If we sit and wait for that burst of motivation, when someday we will wake up and finally feel the desire to exercise, we may be disappointed. The fact is it’s something we create for ourselves, something we build and strengthen not something we wait for.

The good news is that within just 10 minutes of starting an exercise session your brain chemistry changes in a positive way. This unique chemical transaction means dopamine is secreted making you feel fantastic, strong and accomplished.

This dopamine release is called a “reward pathway” which means the more you do something to release this feel-good chemical the more you desire to do that thing.

Rewarding yourself with that little surge of dopamine is an important part of a positive “self-perpetuating feedback loop”. When you feel good it can be a highly motivating factor when cementing healthy behaviours permanently in your life.

You could think of this concept like receiving compound interest on a deposit in the bank. Around it goes – the better you feel, the more you want to feel better. And the better you feel, the better choices you also make with your activity levels, your food choices, the better you sleep and the better you cope with stress and so on.

The cycle continues with one thing supporting and strengthening the other creating a positive upward spiral which leads to the best possible life.

Research shows that regular exercise boosts mood, reduces anxiety and depression and provides all sorts of emotional, spiritual and biochemical benefits that make us feel, think and perform better in our daily lives.

This mental or emotional rejuvenation makes us more comfortable in our body and leads to greater peace of mind.

Positive Feedback Loop – 

The quickest and easiest way to succeed at health improvement is to create for yourself a positive feedback loop which includes experiencing enough results to continue to motivate you to keep going.

So in itself, your exercise/healthy eating plan becomes its own reward.

This model is the same as a business that must become profitable to survive. You must create this self-perpetuating feedback loop to stick to a healthy lifestyle. There is no substitute.

If you have previously struggled with maintaining a fitness regimen or healthy eating plan, it doesn’t mean that you are unmotivated or weak-willed. It simply means that the self-perpetuating loop was not in place or there was a breakdown somewhere in its creation.

The perceived outlay of effort, time or money for exercising or eating right was too high, not enough rewards accumulated, or progress wasn’t measured. Both life satisfaction and health and fitness satisfaction are made up of hundreds of small individual steps each one building on the others. It’s never just one set of instant happy outcomes.

Each time you exercise, you confirm that you are making your personal health and fitness a priority. Sure, looking great is a terrific bonus for active people. But for many, fitness satisfaction and success is not defined by one’s physical appearance.

It’s not uncommon for those who initially choose to get started simply to look better or lose weight to discover that the real key to satisfaction lies in how they feel about themselves and their fitness regime.

Try it and see for yourself how this strategy works a treat for “effortless” motivation.

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