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This video features a great question from Julie Masci from New Life Nutrition – give their page a like http://bit.ly/2nEDe4P 😀

TT#25 – Can I ever be effortlessly slim?: http://bit.ly/2mkFStk
TT#9 – Dieting Couples: http://bit.ly/2mWycwP

SHOW NOTES

• Question from dietitian Julie about staying motivated. [1:03]
• Why regular sessions help long-term success. [2:56]
• The power of simple motivational reminders. [4:36]
• How social support can make or break you. [8:14]
• Parting thoughts on motivation. [10:47]

TRANSCRIPT

Hey everyone, it’s Glenn Mackintosh, the weight psych, and the question we’re answering today is about staying motivated. Hey everyone, welcome to Thursday Therapy 26, today we’re answering a really great question it comes from Julie from New Life nutrition. Julie and I actually share a few clients, she’s a Brisbane dietician with a team of dieticians and one of the good guys and she’s got an awesome question, so let’s see what it is, “The question I have is one around motivation; how clients say that they leave our consultations enthusiastic and motivated to achieve their every strategy with a really positive mind-set but the problem is after a few days or a week or a stumbling-block they lose it and they lose that direction so they come into their consultations a few weeks later and we need to re-inject, re-enthuse, re-motivate. So, my question here is how do I help my clients to stay motivated? I feel that if they could stay motivated they’d be able to achieve their strategies and see that their goals are being satisfied in a more timely matter. I always joke with my clients that if I could bottle motivation they would be so much happier and I would be cartwheeling, so Glenn my question here is what is the recipe for bottling motivation? Help me to help my clients and no doubt so many other health professionals to help theirs to stay motivated so that they can achieve their every goal and to be so successful in their healthy lifestyle change, thanks, Glenn.” Great question, Julie. If we could bottle this motivation we would all be doing cartwheels. In our last Thursday Therapy, we answered the question, can I ever be effortlessly slim? I think that’s like our clients Holy Grail and the question, how do I bottle motivation? is like our Holy Grail. So, if we could answer that we’ll be doing a lot of favours to you a whole bunch of dietitians, a whole bunch of psychologists, really, a whole bunch of health professionals and of course all of the clients that we’re seeing, so I really do have a few good ideas on this, so let me give you my thoughts. So, the thing to help you stay motivated is actually really simple. I think sometimes we forget the basics but the regularity of your sessions with your health professional is really, really important. I did my research in motivation for weight loss and unfortunately motivation is a really unstable factor, it kind of goes up and down and most people after their health professional session, whether it’s a dietician or your psychologist or your other health professional, have got about a week in them before you know the tires start to get let down again, so I think one of the most important things is to have as regular sessions as you possibly. I know that that’s not always doable due to sort of time reasons or financial reasons but I think if you’re going to make a really good go of this you want to see people as regularly as you can. I’m a big fan these days of really telling people what they need to get the real results, it’s better to do it all in and give yourself the best chance than to sort of half do it and not get great results and not give yourself the best opportunity. So, what I’d say there is get regular sessions knowing that motivation actually isn’t a stable factor and it will go up and it will go down till you get that regular boost and I have clients for whatever reason that we can’t meet that regularly, so we just make a little bit of room for the first week, week and a half, two weeks, there they’re going to go well and then they’re going to struggle for a little bit, we just kind of make room for that as part of the natural ebbs and flows of making the process of change. The second thing to help you stay motivated, what I call motivational reminders, I think that a lot of us we think that motivation is kind of this mystical force that just comes upon us and we’re like, oh yes, I’m motivated. I might not even really know why and then at some stage we kind of wake up and go, oh where did our motivation go? but I want you to know that motivation is something that you can nurture, it’s something that you can develop, it’s something that you can grow and I really want you to think of your motivation as just a bunch of positive thoughts. If you think of things that you’ve been really motivated, you’ve had that burning desire to do in the past, you think about it a lot, you plan for it, you talk about it with your friends to the point where it annoys all of them, you’re just that constant repetitive, positive thought, it really builds up your motivation, so I’m going to give you a few ideas on some simple motivational reminders and I think of that like when you’re creating a burning desire the motivational reminders just kind of fan the fire of your desire. A great motivational reminder that I love is to put up your motivation on your computer screensaver. So, I did this with my car which I’ve had for about 12 years now and absolutely loved it. I did that with this apartment that I’m in now, I’ve got pictures of realestate.com.au and put them up as my computer screensaver. I did them for our online programs because I really wanted to get them going and now that I think about it I’m going to have to do them for something else, maybe a holiday like a nice trip on the beach or something like that. So, that’s a really good motivational reminder. Another great reminder is to put your motivation in your phone or your computer as your password, so we’ve got someone for example that’s working with us this year and she wants to be fit enough to go on a trek and when she enters that password it’s just Trek 2017, so every time she’s entering that 5, 10, 15 times a day it’s just sinking into her subconscious and reminding her important goal. Here’s a great example of a dream board, ladies. I think dream boards were a bit corny and a bit cheesy but you know what we think in words and we think in pictures and it’s a really powerful motivator for a lot of people, so if you want to don’t see it as a chore, see there’s something exciting we can really think about, that thing that you’re working towards and put it in words and pictures and have it there so it kind of permeates your conscious mind every day. Here’s an example of a simple reminder from one of our TMT participants. I really love this one because it is so simple, she’s just taken an envelope and written her reminder on it. She was having a problem like a lot of people do kind of veering towards the takeaway on the way home and it was just a simple reminder to keep driving and do what she really knew that she wanted to do. So, guys here is to you developing your own motivational reminder. They are so simple but believe me they’re really, really powerful and it’s almost this kind of circular definition. What is a motivational reminder? It’s just anything that reminds you of what you’re trying to do, how you’re going to get there, any positive thoughts about the direction you’re moving and so I’d really encourage you to spend 10-15 minutes today and develop your own reminder. It’ll be well worth your while. The third thing that I want to talk about that will really help you stay motivated is actually looking at your social support. So, I did my research in psychological and social factors and weight management and it turns out that the people around us can have up to 30% impact on our success or otherwise. So, the people around us are really important, we tend to think of motivation as just an internal thing but of course we can all think of examples of where people have just taken the wind out of our sails really quickly or when we’ve been down and people have lifted us up so when you’re thinking about motivation don’t only think from within, think about getting the right type of support and of course that involves professional support so you can continue to see your dietician or your psychologist or your personal trainer and I really think that weight management is a team sport. So, the best-case scenario is to get all of your professionals’ kind of working together and talking to each other. So, you know when you go to see the next one, they’ll of had a quick chat and you’re all kind of moving in that same direction and that can be good kind of cost wise too, I find it good to sort of dovetail a psychologist session one week with a dietitian session the other week and then go that way so you’re sort of seeing that someone every week and getting that boost or if you know time or finances don’t allow you ,can kind of stretch that out a little bit and keep a PT in there for some regular session, so I’d really encourage you to think about that. Of course, I’d encourage you to think about the support that you’re getting from your friends and family and we’ll put a link to a previous Thursday Therapy where we talk about working with people close to you and that can really help them kind of get in the way less and reduce your motivation less but also boost your motivation up more because of course that has to be done in a way that’s right for you and the other thing is I’ll invite you to our psychology of eating movement weight and body image support group. There’s over 1,700 of us now and it’s just people who are you know posting great posts asking for help and just sharing great support and that is something that is open to health professionals as well as just general people. The only thing it’s not open to is selling, so please don’t use it for any promotional purposes but it is a really, really great group, so here’s to you guys staying motivated with regular sessions, your own motivational reminder and getting the right social support in a way that’s right for you. Thank You, Julie from new life nutrition for your awesome question. So, big shout out to you, like I said Julie and I do share a few clients and it’s so nice for me in sessions to be saying something to one of our shared clients and hear the response back, oh yeah Julie said that or one of the other dieticians from new life said that you think this is fantastic. I don’t think as health professionals we all need to be on the same page all the time but we need to be in the same book and of course that’s what motivation is all about, it’s about energy moving in a certain direction. So, thank you, Julie for your question and as always thank you for being a part of Thursday Therapy. If you like this please subscribe to our YouTube channel and of course if you think anyone else would benefit including if you’re a health professional and you think your dietitian colleagues or your psychologist colleagues or your doctor colleagues could benefit, please share the video with them. Alright guys, you have a motivated couple of weeks and I will see you at next Thursday Therapy.