Not a Guru

Ep.43 Motivation, how much do you actually need?

• Rachel Hunter • Episode 43

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Have you ever felt like your motivation for health and fitness was hanging by a thread? I'm here with a lifeline, sharing my own battles and breakthroughs, to show you're not alone. Today's episode is a rallying cry for anyone looking to ignite a genuine spark for their wellness journey. We kick things off with a heart-to-heart about the struggles of staying driven, and then I open up about the Hunter Health Project's coaching applications. There's a lot of noise out there in the world of health advice, but I'm cutting through it with an evidence-based approach and support from industry experts.

Let's get real about the hurdles high-achieving women and marginalized communities face when it comes to motivation and discipline. I dismantle the harmful myths that suggest a lack of success is due to a lack of desire. Instead, we shine a light on internal motivation, the power of autonomy, and why personalized coaching can rewrite the narrative of health and fitness. You'll discover why fostering relatedness, competence, and autonomy isn't just jargon – it's a transformative approach to creating lasting habits that resonate with who you are and what you value.

Wrapping up the conversation, I peel back the industry curtain to share how integrating self-compassion has revolutionized my coaching practice. Plus, I offer a sneak peek into our next discussion on the symbiotic relationship between motivation and goal setting. Whether you're looking for a partner on your health journey or just curious about how to make meaningful changes on your own, this episode is packed with insights and strategies to fuel your fitness voyage. Let's embark on this path together and redefine what it means to be motivated.




Speaker 1:

Welcome back to Not Nutrition Gurus. I'm your host, rachel Hunter, where we are firmly planted in the unsexy, nuanced middle ground of the health and fitness industry. Please keep your arms, hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times and remember no gurus allowed. Bonjour, mon petit poids. How are we today? I hope that you are extremely well. I hope that you are thriving and not just surviving.

Speaker 1:

I have to be honest, for me personally, that has not been the case for the last few weeks. That has not been the case for the last few weeks, and the thing that's annoying is like there's no like tangible reason for it, other than like I had a really hard time last year. And there's a point where it's like, okay, but am I going to feel like this forever? And the answer is no, but I think, equally surrendering to the fact that you know, deeply painful things are like very deep wounds and they just take a long time to sort of wade through, you know. So if you are just surviving and not thriving, I hear you, I see you, we just got to keep chipping away at it. You know, there's no, there's no magic pill. Sometimes things are just shit and that's how. That's how it goes, um, and if you ever want to reach out my dms, do it at hunter health project, um or email me, rachel at hunterhealthprojectcom. I love to chat and tell you that you're not alone, because you're not. That's the positive vibes out of the gate, getting those out of the way early. No, just kidding, we're going to be fueled by positive vibes today, except when I feel the wrath of fury inside of me talking about motivation and all the stupid ways in which the internet lets us down, because there are aplenty. So I am going to try my absolute fucking darndest to keep this as efficient and practical as possible.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing that I'm going to say is number one applications, coaching applications for Hunter Health Project are now open and I have included the link in the show notes. I have included the link in the show notes and if you're unsure if you and I are a good fit, fear not. The process for becoming a client is purposefully not long, but it's purposefully like, well thought out. So if you apply, that does not mean that you are automatically a client. Then I have a pre-consultation form for you to fill out and that just goes into a lot more detail about you know, if I see your application and I think I can help. Then I'll send you the pre-consultation form and it just goes through in a lot more detail what it is you're actually looking to help for.

Speaker 1:

It also screens for things like eating disorders, disordered eating, body image and stuff like that. And the reason why I do that is because that also helps me paint a really good picture of what we need to focus on when you start working with me. And I would say, like, quite typically the clients that I work with, like they are looking to improve their body image and just generally feel more healthy, but they just don't really know how to go about it because the advice all over the internet is fucking wild. So, which is fair enough, because that's why it's my job to help root through the absolute chaos of not necessarily of the internet, because, like I don't actually go to the internet for a lot of my information. I go to very specific and evidence-based education hubs as well as the research itself. But being able to interpret nutrition research is not for the faint of heart. I've gotten pretty good at it, but even even then I seek help on it from people who are actually like PhDs in the industry, because it's not easy out there, friends, so don't feel bad.

Speaker 1:

If you are confused and you feel like you just need a helping hand in like navigating your health and fitness goals, that is, quite literally, my job. That is what I'm here for. So if coaching sounds like it might be for you, go ahead and click the apply button in the show notes, and if you're not doing that at the moment, please stick around. For this podcast, I'm going to talk you through in the best possible way that I know how, how to increase your motivation and feel more jazzed up and excited and moving towards your goals in a way that you want to, that feels sustainable, for free. So I have also included in the show notes a link for buy me a coffee.

Speaker 1:

So if you're like I'm going to stick with the free shit for now, but I like what you're doing, you go ahead and buy me a coffee, because, let's be real, these podcasts are fully fueled on ice, coffee and caffeine and not a lot else, and I really don't want to be in a position where I'm ever having you guys listen to ads, because that kind of shit just annoys me. Um, even though obviously, like those capitalist queens out there, they are making their money, they're securing the bag, so good for them. But also because free resources. I think that are important because not everybody can afford one-on-one coaching, and that's fair enough. So this is my contribution to hopefully good and useful free content. Let's get the fuck into it, shall we?

Speaker 1:

So motivation and discipline just seems to be two things that are in like incessantly thrown around on the internet and like. Thank you, david Goggins, for that, and, like you know, I guess I'll help you carry the boats if it comes up, but if not, like I really can't be asked, and not because I don't like doing hard things, but because you're annoying. The common theme that I hear from personal trainers and like rhetoric online is you just don't want it bad enough, and that's just most of the time. Most of the clients that I work with that's just not true. Now I am going to be speaking about this from the lens of the clients that I typically work with, so let me quickly just whip through the clients that I usually work with. The people that I usually work with are often women, so the girls, the gays, the, they, thems. I have yet to work with a member of the trans community, but I'm certainly not opposed to it.

Speaker 1:

So marginalized groups seems to be my niche and they're often very high achieving and they really strive for excellence and or they will sometimes describe themselves as like type a or perfectionists all right. So they really fucking like to do things well and properly and are thought out and you know, whatever they set their mind to. You could not pay me enough to stay in between them and their goals Like no chance. And nutrition just seems to be like nutrition and habits just seems to be something that they want to improve upon, don't really know how to go about it and know that a lot of the stuff like they logically know a lot of the stuff online is gimmicky and like quick fixes. They're not interested in quick fixes anymore. They want to sort their shit out and it's sort of like the last thing on their self-development bingo card is like nutrition and lifestyle habits. Often my clients have also been through some sort of capital T trauma, right, and usually they have gone to therapy or are currently seeking therapy. That's not actually something that I screen for, but it just seems to keep happening, you know, because, let's just be real, living in a Western society and late stage capitalism at the moment is sort of like lower, lowercase T trauma that we all experience. And then most of my clients do have some sort of varying capital T or lowercase T trauma that they have subsequently worked through with therapists at one point or another or currently are working through the therapist.

Speaker 1:

Now you're going to tell me that these, like I'm just using women as a reference point, but it you know I don't just work with women, I like typically do, though. So these women are successful in their family life, their partnership, their businesses, their careers. They're well educated, they are you know, someone somewhere at some point has called them a boss bitch or a boss babe or a girl boss right, someone has used those words to describe them. So you're telling me these highly intelligent, very driven, determined women who take full responsibility for their own shit. You're telling me those women don't want it badly enough. What the fuck are you talking about? What are you talking about? It's just not true.

Speaker 1:

And from you know, if I'm gonna sit in the peanut gallery and be an armchair observer watching these other coaches online, I'm like you're kind of missing the point. You're missing the point because the first thing you're doing is judging your client instead of being curious and being like okay, like, what's actually coming up for you? What stopped you in the past? What's different now? So, instead of you leveling with them and getting to understand them more, you're coming straight out of the gate and being like something is wrong with you. What little motivation they had, right?

Speaker 1:

So if we're, in this instance, using motivation to like, eat your veggies, go to the gym, go for a, get a good night's sleep, so lifestyle habits and nutrition habits what motivation they had. You just fucking squandered it by reconfirming what they probably already have in their head of being highly self-critical. That does seem to also be something that consistently comes up with my clients Having a high levels of not necessarily high as in like clinical levels of self-criticism. But they have an inner critic that is very well practiced, very well versed and very good at that at stopping them from doing the things that they want to do. And you're gonna sit there and tell them they don't want it. Badly enough. You're a fucking moron, okay.

Speaker 1:

So we do seem to have this like cultural hangover from puritanism of like doing things and eating well and exercising is all like. It's so driven and it's so tainted by morality that it's almost unrecognizable as something that, like you, can actually increase the quality of your motivation. You can actually become quote-unquote disciplined, which, by the way, is not actually a real thing in psychology research it's. There's no testable model for discipline, so the closest thing that we can get to is just acknowledging that discipline as a word and a verb is highly, highly, highly intrinsic, intrinsically, as in internally motivated people. Okay, so the people who get up and go for a run at 5 am they are highly intrinsically motivated to do the things that they are doing. You too can grow your motivation. You too can cultivate internal motivation. Does that mean that it looks like you're getting up and going for a run at 5am? No, you don't have to do what other people are doing. A huge part of what motivation is and we're going to get to this is autonomy. So if your ideal self does not involve waking up and running a marathon at five in the morning, you don't fucking have to do that. I feel like I also in coaching. I spend a lot of time giving people permission not to do certain things, as well as to eat certain foods without labeling that sense of morality on it. So the other, the other side of the like you don't want it badly enough. Coin. You're not disciplined enough. Coin is.

Speaker 1:

We first must acknowledge the fact that there are many, many coaches who get into coaching for the wrong reason. They get into coaching because they lifted some weights, they grew a bicep, they got an ab, they grew a glute muscle, someone hit on them, they got just the right amount of external validation that they're like oh my god, I feel so good about myself. You should to do what I did, okay. So circling back to what I just briefly touched on, motivation, the huge pillar of motivation is autonomy. You telling me what I should do because it worked for you has nothing to do with my autonomous motivation, my autonomous drivers, right? So again, it's sort of like the coaches who become coaches because it made them feel good about themselves have, in my humble opinion, completely fucked the essence of what it actually means to be a coach.

Speaker 1:

Being a coach is not to be in the spotlight. Being a coach is to make you feel good about yourself, to help you get out of your own way. I gently call my clients out on their bullshit and I also spend a lot of time reminding them of all of the ways in which they are extremely capable, smart driven people, reminding them of all of the ways in which they are extremely capable smart driven people. Okay, so my business although I run my business and I take probably to a fault a painstaking level of care to make sure that I am offering the most exceptional service that I possibly can offer by making sure that I am as up to scratch on education and coaching skills and communication skills as I can possibly cram into the, you know, limited amount of hours waking hours that we have during the day my business is still not about me. I have to run it. I have to be good at coaching.

Speaker 1:

It's not about me, it's about you. How can I help you? How can I make sure that you are living your best life, that you are going out there and thriving and you know, causing trouble, being a jokester, whatever. Your version of a well-lived life is where you are not constantly in your own head about your body or saying yes to a certain food, or going out to dinner with friends or thinking about what you're going to look like in pictures. My job is to make sure that you live the most wonderful, flourishing life that you can, looking after yourself the best that you possibly can. My business is not about me.

Speaker 1:

I got into it because I enjoy this stuff. I like helping people. I find it so interesting. I love chatting to people, like I get a lot out of my job and my business and yet it is still not about me. So please just bear that in mind.

Speaker 1:

When you see people getting shouty on the internet and shouty on Instagram and shouty on TikTok, is that, if they're using a lot of I statements, this worked for me. I did this and this is the result that I got. What is that actually telling you? Because they might be using themselves as an example Cool, as a one-off, or is it their entire marketing structure? Because I would question their ability of like the skills that they have to coach you to where you want to be. They just know what worked for them and they're going to copy and paste it to you and if it doesn't work, they're going to be like well, you don't want it. Badly enough. Sound familiar.

Speaker 1:

So do you see why the one line once you kind of understand what to look for that one line really paints a picture of how someone goes about coaching their clients and how it's unhelpful to have a coaching business that's centered around yourself and that if you center your clients in the middle of your business, that then you know you're probably going to have a lot more success with those coaches, because they actually understand what motivation is. They actually are concerned with how they're communicating with you, with reducing your resistance that you have, with helping you with your internal critic, your self-criticism. They're going to help you with your food anxiety and with your body and help you create a more flexible body image for you. Right, because that's not going to look the same for everybody. It looks similar, there's a lot of patterns, but it's not the same and it's not copy and pasted, but it's not the same and it's not copy and pasted. So by grossly oversimplifying what motivation is, you can actually give advice from that place by just pointing a finger and being like you're bad, you don't want it badly enough. That's like okay, now what? So I just lay down and wait to see when I die, like, what do I do with that information? All that does is increase the like internal critical monologue that I have going right, and it just keeps me stuck.

Speaker 1:

Let's then go ahead and break down what motivation actually is. All right, so motivation versus discipline. I kind of already touched on this briefly, but discipline, discipline is not actually in the like, it is not a testable model. It is not a scalable, testable model in psychology research or motivation research or self-determination theory or anything like that. All right, so the closest that we can get to being like what discipline actually is is understanding the cultural sort of connotation of discipline, which is it's somebody who just like, goes and does stuff, right, like, and even if it's, even if it's raining, even if you know, even if David Goggins isn't shouting in your ears to carry the boats, like I still went and carry the boats.

Speaker 1:

That is sort of like this picture that when we hear like, oh my god, you're so disciplined, that's kind of the picture that we paint. Is it someone who goes and does stuff, even if the environment or the feeling that they have about it or the time of day is less than desirable, and they just sort of like push the quote feelings down and move on with their lives? So you can also kind of allude to the fact that somebody who is highly intrinsically motivated, who is internally driven, they are the most disciplined people, right, like. Those are somewhat interchangeable phrases. So do you need to be exceptionally disciplined. No, but the good news is is that you can cultivate motivation, you can grow motivation, you can increase the different types of motivations that drive you.

Speaker 1:

So the closest that we've kind of gotten to a workable theory especially in and around like health and fitness and lifestyle habits and things is self determination theory. Self determination theory is a testable, scalable model right Of six different mini working theories. And what self determination theory basically has come down to is the fact that there is on one end of the scale there's something called a motivation. So there's absolutely no regulation whatsoever, there's nothing you have no intention of, even you know nothing. You feel apathy, you're going through the motions like there's absolutely no regulation whatsoever. And then the complete other end of the scale is intrinsic motivation, someone who's intrinsically regulated. They find challenge and enjoyment in the things that they do, they are interested in them, they're curious and they are sort of like a very, very self-sustaining individual. And then in the middle of these two opposite ends of the spectrum, there's a few different types of motivation in the middle, moving from externally regulated okay, so that sits further down on the scale of external motivation it's closer to being a motivated, not regular, not, not regular, not regulated, uh, all the way up to integrated regulation um, which sits closer to being fully intrinsically regulated as a person. All right.

Speaker 1:

So most of my clients sit somewhere in the middle when they start working with me, because if you're taking no action, you're not talking to me. You're not talking to me, you're not following me on Instagram, you're not sliding into my DMs, you don't want a damn thing to do with me. You probably don't even know if I exist, right. And then, if you have what is again a little bit further up the scale, if you have introjected regulation, you know that you want something different. You know you want to change your behavior, but you might not. You might be like testing different things. It might not be sticking and you're just a little bit sort of like I know I want something different. I'm trying out this stuff. None of it's sticking.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I have to work really hard to like gee myself up to do the thing. Or you know, my doctor told me I needed to lose weight, or I signed up for this fitness challenge, so I need to do X amount of stuff before the deadline, or I'm going to win the money or the trip or whatever it is. So you still drivers pushing you to do things and most of my clients like start here, right, and then usually by the time my clients leave me, they are taking action that is aligned with their values. They are, there's some level of intrinsic motivation going and there is integrated regulation in the things that they do. Right, it's okay.

Speaker 1:

What are the minimums of my non-negotiables this week? What is the optimal? Am I being realistic with how much I can accomplish? Um, you know, is this moving me closer to the person that I want to be? Is this moving me closer to what I value in life and all of these things? Okay, so when a client starts with me, it's my job to help you move down the scale so that you do have lifelong, lasting habits that are going to suit you to be the person that you want to be for forever. If you've never seen Sandlot, that reference means nothing to you, and if you have seen Sandlot, you are my people. I love you.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, the you know and it's also appreciating that there are different types of motivation and you might have a little collection of external motivators as well as intrinsic motivators. Okay, so we're going to come to that we're going to get there. But first I'm actually going to complete my thought on self-determination theory. Okay, so this scale of external to completely being internally regulated you're just like a little Energizer bunny that never needs his batteries changed, right, there are basic psychological needs that have to be met in order for you to have intrinsic motivation be met. In order for you to have intrinsic motivation, okay, and these three pillars can be broken down into relatedness, competence and autonomy. So I already talked about autonomy before.

Speaker 1:

So my job as a coach is to help you create an environment where you feel understood, you feel safe, you feel respected and cared for. You also feel competent okay, so you feel an optimal level of challenge. You are getting, you know positive performance feedback and you feel like you're moving just far outside of your comfort zone. Enough that you're moving to who you want to be and you know further down the line from what you've been doing for the past like 10, 15, 20, 25 years but you still feel capable. It's the right level of chaos and order, right that yin and yang. You're moving to where you want to be, but you don't feel overwhelmed and crushed and like you're having the like just stuffing beaten out of you. And then autonomy is you have a choice in what it is that you do. You understand that it, you know, you acknowledge your feelings and you can explain exactly why it is that you want to do something. And it's your choice. It's something that you are choosing to take part in, right? So that's what my job is. So to sit there and be like you don't want it badly enough, it's like, or you're bad at your job, because that's your job as a coach is to help your clients move down the line and feel as though they are secure enough to tell you things that they're struggling with, that they are feeling optimally challenged, that they're still moving towards where they want to be and they also feel autonomy, that it's something that they are completely capable of by their themselves and it's, you know, a choice that they're making to do these things. So you know this is a. This is a great example.

Speaker 1:

My one of my friends at softball we're like walking to the practice field that he's like oh Rach, have you seen that TikTok reel? Like TikTok, a reel going around about like middle-aged women will do anything not to lift weights? And I was like, okay, sure, but why is that? Do they feel like they belong in the weight room? Do they feel confident in what they're doing? Do they feel that they can do these things by themselves? What barriers are they facing?

Speaker 1:

Because, like, society tells women to be as small as possible, just eat like fucking church wafers until the day you die and like, reduce yourself down to nothing. Women are seen and not heard. So then to get in the weight room with a bunch of dudes who are like, don't lift too much muscle, you might get bulky, again, reinforcing that, like, women should be as small as fucking possible to exist in a way that is societally acceptable Newsflash we are never societally acceptable. There is no beauty standard that is actually attainable. So in some ways, I think that that's a great thing, because then you can just do whatever the fuck you want, right? We can figure out what works for you and you can go do that and live your very, very best fucking life, anyway. So my friend was like wow, yeah, I thought that was like funny when I saw it and now I actually just feel bad and I was like good, you're learning. And I was like good, you're learning. So we have one more ally ladies in the quest for women doing things for their health and not to appease society.

Speaker 1:

I just, you know, that is something that I'm really passionate about, to be fair, is people, and especially women, making a decision to look after themselves well and sort of like, shed the weight of societal pressure for them to do certain things? Because you know and I'm gonna get to this in a second where being so focused and so driven by your appearance can actually lead to some not so great things and some not so great feelings. So this is where I was going with the. You can have multiple forms of motivation and sometimes we have to work to cultivate the internal motivators, we have to grow them, we have to evoke them. You know, we plant the seeds and we cultivated it.

Speaker 1:

Eventually, a lot of my clients do start with the motivation to work on their appearance. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, okay. But again this is circling back to what my job actually is. My job is to know that the research does not actually lend itself to being to having positive associations with solely having appearance-based goals. So appearance-based goals are associated with high levels of body dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, heightened appearance anxiety, decreased psychological well-being and binge eating behaviors. So it's my job, to know that I am not leaving you better off than how I found you by just being like okay, you want to like look better, cool, let's just do that. I'm not going to ask any further questions. That's not me doing my job. That's not me doing my due diligence as a coach. That's not me actually helping you.

Speaker 1:

So you're allowed to have appearance-based goals, but on the little road trip of who it is you want to be and who you want to end up as your most ideal self, appearance has to sit in the backseat. Appearance is not driving, appearance is not navigating. Maybe they can choose a playlist, I'll allow it, right, but like, so if we say that that is the case, right, like you're allowed to take your appearance based desires with you, but they are not driving the car and they are not navigating, they are not running the GPS. You know, maybe we can let them choose what accent Siri has, but that's it. That's all the control that they get. What accent Siri has, but that's it. That's all the control that they get, because then one level down from that is what in so many weight loss interventions specifically right.

Speaker 1:

So first of all, let's acknowledge that I am not anti-diet and I am not pro-dieting is always a good idea for everybody, because it's not, and we know that. Okay, so, actively trying to lose weight is not completely devoid of harm. It can be harmful in certain circumstances. So I think we just have to be honest with ourselves about that. And then how do we proceed? Like, how we proceed is dependent on the person in front of me.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's start with the fact that by acknowledging and kind of drawing out more internal motivations for you, talking about what you value, who's your most ideal self? What is your most ideal self? What does your most ideal life look like? What does your ideal week look like? Who are like? What is that most ideal version of yourself doing when they wake up in the morning? Are they waking up at half six? Are they waking up at 8.05? Are they waking up at 11? You know being really really descriptive about you know being really really descriptive about who it is that you want to end up being and what values that person is driven by, can really help draw out your internal motivations, your intrinsic drivers. And by doing that, we are protecting you against being driven solely by appearance-based goals, because, again, you can have both. You can have them. All right, but by increasing the quality of motivation that you have and the internal drivers that you have, I am protecting you against low self-esteem, heightened anxiety, decreased psychological well-being, binge eating behaviors and high body dissatisfaction. So we're like it's like sticking on a helmet. Okay, and that's really important to long-term habits, long-term behavior change, long-term positive outcomes.

Speaker 1:

And there's a very interesting study that you know. They I think it was an it was an online weight loss intervention and it showed. But what they did is they basically discovered, or they asked enough the right questions to determine from the women who were in these studies. In this particular study, they determined what motivations they had for starting the study. Okay, so what reasons did they want to, uh, lose weight? For one of them was solely appearance-based goals, like one group was completely appearance-based goals. One was to gain social currency, which I thought that was really interesting. I was like I don't know if I ever thought to ask that, but I guess that that makes a lot of sense. And then there was another group of women who were all there for, like, improving their health. Right, because excess. Right, because excess adiposity, specifically around your stomach can and you know it can work against you for your overall health. But if we sit here and go well, I'm only going to focus on my appearance. The group of women that were motivated solely by appearance-based goals they, after 30 months after the trial ended yeah, it was 30 months they gained weight. At the 30-month check-in, where those who were motivated for reasons regarding their health, they achieved clinically significant weight loss. So the outcomes were completely different.

Speaker 1:

And by centering yourself around your health right, you are protecting your overall well-being, both your bodily as well as your psychological well-being. So this is why it's not as simple as just saying you don't want it badly enough. And this is also why me sitting here as a coach and being like well are your? You know, what are you? What do you value? Who do you want to be? What's your ideal self? That's not woo-woo, it's proven in studies. As much as you know, a research paper and a body of evidence can prove anything, because the idea behind science is not for anything to be definitive one way or the other. We are looking for a direction of effect. We are not looking for definitive anything. So like oh, this research study showed this for sure. And it's like okay, what was it? Gravity, like. We knew that. So with these things, we want to be looking at big trends.

Speaker 1:

The trend with motivation is that it really matters when you're looking at behavior and you know fat loss interventions. It really matters what quality of motivation you have. It doesn't matter how much motivation you have. I really, really desperately want to lose weight, to change how I look. The outcomes do not show that you're going to have a great success unless you can also cultivate some intrinsic and internal drivers to get you from point A to point B. So again, there's a lot. I'm just I'm gonna drive it home one more time. Dieting can be harmful. Dieting is not always harmful and it is also not always helpful to get you to where you want to go. Okay, so those are just two really important points of nuance when we're talking about motivation. Okay, and the reason why I'm talking about fat loss so much is because that is the thing that I'm asked for the most and it doesn't really see in terms of like well, do you help with fat loss? And the other like, and what I want you to know is that that almost has nothing to do with the actual size of the person that I'm speaking to, because I have helped.

Speaker 1:

Clients who are really struggling with you know changes in their AB1C marker. So they're pre-diabetes or they're trending towards pre-diabetic and they need help sorting out their nutrition and getting those numbers a little bit more under control. Clients who struggled with high blood pressure and high cholesterol and getting those numbers under control One of my past clients was my favorite. She like my favorite thing that she ever said to me was she was like my husband got his cholesterol checked last year at our annual checkup and his cholesterol is down too. So like two birds one stone go team. But all of these things are you know.

Speaker 1:

We know that weight can be related to these factors and these risk factors. But telling, like even your doctor telling you to lose weight, is not a quality form of motivation. You still might need a little bit of help cultivating something a little bit more internally driven, a little bit more meaningful to you, and you know moving towards who it is that you want to be, while taking the shoulding out of it, shoulding yourself to death, is not going to help. Oh, I should do this, I should do that, I should lose weight. I know enough. Knowing is not a feeling, so you know. That's where we come to the phrase and like that old saying of the map is not the terrain, we can know something, and it doesn't mean that we're going to do it. We have to again, we have to look at multiple different types of motivation and increase the quality of your motivation in order to get you to where you want to go. I want you to get where you want to go, but we need to be realistic about what the research is telling us instead of what Instagram is telling us.

Speaker 1:

And I am I. This is the hill that I will die on. And I am I. This is the hill that I will die on. You are not broken. You are not a failure.

Speaker 1:

You probably know enough, and it makes an awful lot of sense why you're struggling so much, because a lot of the advice out there is categorically unhelpful. It is unhelpful for someone to say this is what worked for me, so you should try that. Okay, but what the fuck? Does you doing anything have to do with what drives me internally? Nothing, it has, sweet fuck, all to do with what drives me internally. And then what that does is that just like that inner critic just rears her ugly fucking head and she's like I told you you're not disciplined enough. I told you that you're a lazy piece of shit. I told you that you're never going to get reach those goals. Okay, so one of the things that completely undermines relatedness.

Speaker 1:

So, again, circling back to one of the main pillars of how we move down the scale of intrinsic motivation, one thing that massively undermines relatedness is criticism and self-criticism. So you know it's failure to launch. At that point we haven't even left the starting gate and like the horse lay down and it's like fuck. So there is nothing wrong with you. You just might need better help. You might need help cultivating better motivations, more quality forms of motivations, increasing the different types of motivations that you're aiming towards, so that you can get where you want to go. You might need someone who's going to treat you with respect and make you feel safe and come to you with a sense of curiosity instead of judgment. Okay, so again, and I cannot stress this enough, you are not broken. You have not done anything wrong.

Speaker 1:

There is a lot of bad advice out there that takes coaches who are, you know, undereducated, unsophisticated. They are in it for the complete wrong reasons and they want to make it your fault why you're not getting results instead of them being like, well, shit, could I be doing my job better Because they probably could be right. Like, because they probably could be right, like they probably could be. So the more that I recently have been like completely rejigging my coaching process and my business and all these things that is something that, like working for myself versus working for somebody else has really given me the freedom to appreciate is like I was like, oh shit, that means I can coach however I want. Okay, well, how do I want to coach? Then and I was like, uh, okay, well, I want to be the best possible coach that I can be. How do I do that? And I have, you know, I've spent the last like few months being head, like diving headfirst into body image research, motivation research.

Speaker 1:

You know, how do we evoke long-term motivation and commitment from clients? Why do some clients stop and some clients, like, keep going forever? How do we improve relationship with food? So all of these things? You know, how do I screen clients properly so that the people that I'm working with I can help, because you can want to improve your nutrition, you can want to improve your body image, and it's still not, it still might not be the right time for you to do coaching. Some clients, like some people who apply I have to refer to eating disorder charities and some people also the right thing for them to do their first bus stop is to go to therapy. Okay, because my job as a coach is to.

Speaker 1:

You know, we can acknowledge that the past influences the present, but I can't unpack that with you. That's out of my scope of practice. I'm not a qualified therapist but I can be like okay, so the past influences the present. How do we want to? What do we want this to look like? Going forward? How do we want to change our behavior? How can we draw out those internal drivers from you and get you to where it is that you want to go? How can I help you get out of your own way and watch you absolutely fucking thrive and crush it and lead a flourishing life where you are not absolutely and completely handicapped by you know, haunting body dissatisfaction and haunting food anxiety? How can I let you live your most wonderful, thriving life doing whatever debaucherous things your little heart desires?

Speaker 1:

And also I appreciate that, like a lot of my listeners, are from the UK, so when I say handicapped, I am thinking in like golf or like horse racing or that's like sporting handicap. And now I'm panicking because I don't know if that's the still the correct word for it or not. Um, that was a huge cultural shock for me is like the language that is used in the US is so stigmatizing, just like generally speaking. I remember if it was the UK and like the horrified looks I used to get, I was like, oh my god, that's like I, can I. I can now see it that everybody is looking at me with this horrified look on their face, that what I just said was really inappropriate, but like no one would have batted an eyelash in the US. So that was a big learning curve. And now I'm panicking. That like handicap, even in a sporting sense, is really messed up. So I'm sorry in advance. Two last things. To cover 48 minutes, that's not as fast as I wanted it to be, but I'm trying my hardest. So two last things.

Speaker 1:

I will use a personal example of myself. Even though I talked about uh and I ranted for many minutes about how coaches who do this are wrong. I don't mean in the sense that you copy what I'm doing, more from the perspective of the coaching processes that I use. I also have used on myself lately and I just want to talk about how that has massively helped me.

Speaker 1:

So I have stopped lifting weights to bodybuild. I don't give a oh, tractor is going by, go on, huh, go on with your bad self. I don't give a fuck about increasing the size of my shoulders or glutes or biceps or anything. I do not care, I do not care. So that is why I think that for so many years I found it so hard to stick with a weightlifting program because it didn't actually really suit my anything that I valued. I don't greatly value my appearance. There are things that I value so much more than that. So I fucking love playing softball, and I have for many, many years. I love getting out and going for long walks, I love horseback riding, I love hiking, I love softball.

Speaker 1:

So swapping in the last like six months, swapping to a lifting program that is more performance-based, has completely changed how I see the gym. I enjoy going to the gym. Now. Lifting weights is still hard and I still get sweaty and I don't always love it, but I love how much easier it is to run around. I love that. I feel like I have an athletic base going into the softball season and I am not shitting a brick about injuring myself again. And then, if I do injure myself again, I know that I have the weights and the sort of like consistency behind me. Knock on wood, worst case scenario were that to happen. Right?

Speaker 1:

So there's so much there in terms of internal drivers, of motivation and why, like for me and this is as a coach, right? So, like we aren't actually taught this stuff when we get qualified, you have to go and find it yourself. And you know, I am so glad that I was like I really want a mentor to help me make sure that, like I have a third party looking over my shoulder, making sure that I'm looking at the right things and I'm making the right decisions to have the best possible service. And you know, not only did I completely change why I'm lifting and how I'm lifting so that I can support activities that I really really love to do, where, you know, I do feel a sense of relatedness and competence and autonomy and also a sense of mastery. I'm never going to be as good of a softball player as I want to be, but I like trying. It's fun to be challenged and lifting weights three times a week supports that right.

Speaker 1:

And also engaging in self-compassion, because my inner critic is a bitch. She is so horrible and I can also acknowledge that my inner critic for a long, long time protected me from a lot of things. So engaging in self-compassion, moving from a place of judgment to non-judgment, has been exceptionally helpful in me getting to like to be consistent and do the things that I love to do. And I don't have to use a lot of mental energy to get myself to the gym hardly any anymore, right? Whereas like that, when I was just lifting for bodybuilding, it's like, oh, I know, I should be lifting weights. Bodybuilding it's like, oh, I know, I should be lifting weights, guess what, you should be lifting weights as an external form of motivation.

Speaker 1:

So how do we create a structure, how do we create a system that supports who it is that you want to be and where you want to go, that is completely centered around you? What do you value, what do you want out of life? Because if I just sit here and say, well, I started living for performance and I really like playing softball, so you should too, you're not going to want to do that unless you are someone listening who I play softball with, right Like the. It just doesn't make any sense to sit there and say I did this. Therefore you should too, when what we're trying to increase for you to be quote-unquote disciplined is increase your internal motivation. So we have to look inward and trying to should yourself to death is just a complete non-starter, false start. You do not pass go, you do not collect $200. Just lay down and die, not actually. Please, don't do any of those things.

Speaker 1:

But you see, like you get my very hyperbolic point. There is that having someone be shouty and in your face, you should, should, should, do this, do that. You know it's good for your health. Well, that's not going to make you want to get up and get up out of bed in the morning and do sweet, fuck all Because it has there's no internal drive there. Internal motivation is like a set it and forget it. You do things with few mental like. You don't have to gee yourself up to brush your teeth. You just do it Because you like how it makes you feel. You like that people don't have to gee yourself up to brush your teeth. You just do it because you like how it makes you feel you like that, people don't have to stand a meter away from you because you have rancid breath, right? So, like you know, it's a sense of autonomy. You're competent at it. Same idea for your health and fitness goals, but we just need to create a structure that works for you and what you want to do. It's all about you, baby. This is your time to shine, okay.

Speaker 1:

So my very, very brief, practical tips for this podcast, because this is the only free resource that you're using to try and help better yourself, then I want it to actually try and be helpful. So, number one unfollow every coach who starts all of their advice with I did and just mute them if you feel bad. But you shouldn't feel bad because their advice is not good. Sorry, not sorry. Challenge your self-critical thoughts. Okay, because someone else put those there. Who does your inner critic sound like? Because I would bet you money that it doesn't actually sound like you. Mine sounds like my dad. It just does, and if being critical won you awards or got you further in life, my dad would be in the back of all of your money. All right, but it doesn't.

Speaker 1:

Compassion actually like self-compassion actually gets you where you want to go, because operating from a place of non-judgment, moves you closer and actually allows you to take action, where self-criticism just kind of lets you sit and stew and spiral and you don't actually do anything in that space. Okay, so challenge your self-critical thoughts. What am I protecting myself? Protecting myself from what? And you know, who does this voice actually belong to? Because it's not me. And if you want to try and like do self-guided self-compassion work, I recommend the book the artist's way by julia cameron. It's old now I think it's like 20 or 30 years old now, but it's like she's very helpful. It's a little bit woo-woo but it's, you know, it's a lot cheaper than coaching. So if you're sort of like that would be my recommendation.

Speaker 1:

If you want to sort of DIY it, then start thinking about your ideal self. What is a typical week like in your most ideal world? What do you value? You can do. You can Google values clarification. You can like have a website, basically walk you through the process of picking your top three or four values, and that could be a really helpful way to be like oh yeah, no, I do value this and my actions aren't aligning with that. So what actions do align with my values and most ideal self.

Speaker 1:

And then the final step is you have to be so fucking realistic with yourself, okay. And realism being realistic does not mean giving up on yourself. It does not mean being easy with yourself. Again, we're operating from a place of non-judgment and compassion but that just means that you can then create a structure. You can create something that suits your life and your time limitations and you don't tip over the edge of overwhelm and kind of cut that feeling of competence and motivation right in the bud. You're letting it grow, okay.

Speaker 1:

So if your ideal self works out six days a week and for the past three years you've worked out zero days a week maybe next week it's joining the gym and going and sitting on a bike one time for 10 minutes. Maybe that is your level of difficulty that you currently have time for. That currently suits your. You know your time limitations, your lifestyle etc. And there is nothing wrong with that. Again, if we're operating from a place of non-judgment, it's like, well, I went one more time than I have in the last three years, that's a win. There is nothing wrong with starting small. You kind of have to start small and a bit shit to gain some traction and gain some momentum so that you can get where you want to go. All right, so that is my like quick and dirty.

Speaker 1:

If you're going to DIY increasing motivation and increasing types of quality motivation, that is probably as good as I'm going to be able to get to you over a podcast. Again, if you're looking for potentially signing up for coaching, please apply in the show notes. I'm here to help. If you have any questions at Hunter Health Project, dm me on Instagram, shoot me an email. I will answer as many questions as I possibly can for free.

Speaker 1:

You know I want to be helpful. I am not interested in hearing the sound of my own voice, despite the fact that I just sat and listened to the sound of my own voice for an hour. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and get out of here, because you guys have better things to do with your life, and next week I'm going to record a podcast on how to set better goals, because I think that these two topics go together quite nicely. And again, if you're kind of DIYing um, your health and fitness goals and your journey and creating better habits that work for you, I want you to have a free resource that is actually helpful. So I hope you little magical muffins have a wonderful rest of your day, and I hope to speak to you all very, very soon. Okay, bye.

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Rachel Hunter

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