We go to our doctor or health coach or therapist to let them know what goals we have for changing something in our lives. We think we are being honest about what our issues are and what behaviors we want to change. Time passes and our behavior doesn’t change and the frustrated helper we went to for support may say to us that, “we lack motivation,” or “we are non-compliant” or, “we are not ready yet.”
Their observations may be true and yet they may not be. Do we have clarity on what the goal really is? Perhaps there are other reasons why we are stuck and what is on the surface, the goals we stated, is just part of the story. Change is hard and we are naturally ambivalent.
We may wonder what will happen if we do change and what we may have to lose in the process. How hard will the change be or do we have the skills to make it happen? Staying stuck may protect us from going deeper into discovering our hesitancy. Even if we know that the change we envision will be “good for us”, we want to avoid experiencing discomfort and fear. We want to avoid the “what ifs”. We want to avoid failure.
How then do we uncover our deeper meaning behind our procrastination or lack of motivation? Here are a few questions we might want to explore either on our own or with a helping professional.
· How important is this change to you on a scale of 1 to 10?
· Is the stated goal what I really want or need or is it a distraction from something else?
· How confident do I feel that I have the skills to make the change?
· Do I need support to change and if yes, who is most likely to support me in a way that I best respond to?
· What are my values and how does this change support these?
I believe that aligning our values with our stated goals gets us closer to making the changes we say we would like to see.