Finding the right motivation

Disclaimer: This isn’t a sob story. This isn’t for anyone to feel bad for me.
I grew up an overweight kid. I’m not sure if I can say, honestly, that I was picked on every single day of my childhood but I could definitely promise it was most days. Whether it was my friends “busting my balls” or my not-so-friends being mean, I was called “fat” on almost a daily basis. It wasn’t just other people though, I am also to blame. I, too, had this ideal body image in my head and I didn’t meet my own standard. I thought I was fat too, and I wanted to change. The problem is I couldn’t organize those feelings into a way that would allow me to change.
Every summer — every summer, I would say to myself, “I’m gonna lose weight and when I get back to school in the fall everyone who calls me fat is going to be shocked!” Anyone else ever feel that way? The “I’ll show them” attitude, right?
Every fall — every fall, I went back to school unchanged. How? I had all the tools. My dad had all the gym equipment I could need in our garage and he was always showing me how to do things. I had motivation.
It’s because losing weight, or, to be more general, changing habits is hard. I’m preaching to the choir with that line. Making a change, especially a behavioral change, is one of the most difficult challenges to overcome. On the flip-side, for me at least, dealing with being “bullied” wasn’t as hard. Sure, I had days that I would cry and wish I could lose weight and not have to get picked on every day, but it was still easier than what it took to actually lose weight. After all, barbells and plates will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Here’s what I think is the problem — Every summer I went home I planned to change for them, not to change for me. A lot of what we do in life that we think we are doing for ourselves is actually done to spite others in our lives. And when it gets difficult, the trade off is easy. It’s almost comfortable because it is the norm, and normal is easy. That’s why I want to say this — don’t ever change for anyone but yourself.
Fast forward to a time when I was at my heaviest. I was at a BMI of 42. The Body Mass Index has long been disputed as somewhat b.s., but let’s just say even if I was being unfairly overestimated by a few points, the truth was I needed to lose weight. I needed to lose a lot of weight. However at this time in my life, I was old enough where not a lot of people were “bullying” me anymore. I had no one to change for anymore but myself.
Yada, yada, yada, I lost over 100lbs and finally changed my life for the better.
It finally worked, the change I needed finally came. I believe it happened because my motivation was drawn from a place I never looked when I was younger. When I was younger I looked for my motivation to come from spite, or to prove something to others; and it never worked. When it did finally work, my motivation came from within.
Look, I believe motivation can come from many different places, and that place doesn’t have to be the same for everyone. But the things that motivate us to do well and push back against external adversity, and overcome external obstacles can sometimes trick us into thinking they work for more internal challenges. Maybe that’s why the pursuit of health and wellness so often ends in failure to follow through. We look for other people to motivate us, or sometimes worse — money, prizes, and/or attention.
When it comes to taking control of our health and our well-being, self-motivation has to take the majority of what you draw upon to mow down your short-term goals and reach the ultimate goal.

