Motivation To Quit

This week during one of my coaching sessions my client said to me, “how do I keep up my motivation so I don’t keep going back to pornography and how do I choose an important enough why that will keep me motivated?” This question is one that I think a lot of people struggle with, so I wanted to take some time and talk about the differences between the ways that we approach problems and how we might be approaching our struggles with pornography in ways that aren’t helping us ultimately succeed.  I’m going to touch on 4 different concepts, how they might help and how they might keep you from succeeding if you utilize them too heavily without other key elements.  Let’s talk about Motivation, Our Why, Habits, and Who we are.  I’ll start with Motivation.  Which I like to think of as synonymous with willpower.  This is a pretty common way of thinking about a problem.  First, we encounter a problem and then we find some motivation that helps us overcome that problem until it is finally gone.  When it comes to short-term and long-term,  external problems, this is often a really good course of action.  Take school or work for example.  External problems can be broken into a variety of short-term, solvable, puzzles that once they are overcome fade into the distance.  This is why motivation works.  We don’t have to sustain a long-term, near-permanent grasp on the problem.  We simply need to go through the maze of struggle until we get to the exit and then we can move on to the next problem.  This is like setting a goal and when that goal is accomplished we no longer focus on the goal.   I once did a weight loss challenge at work with my co-workers.  I kept telling myself that these were permanent changes that I was making and that I would never look back.  Immediately after winning that challenge I stopped eating healthy and went back to being the same person i was before.  I was no longer focused on a goal, my willpower had run out, and my motivation (the money) had long been spent.    So, it is much easier to have motivation on a short-term project, issue, or goal because we can use willpower and motivation to see it through to the end.  Where we get lost is in thinking that willpower and motivation are enough to overcome an internally motivated feedback loop.  In their book, change anything, the authors describe willpower as a trap.  In their studies of children who were offered tempting items to purhcase after they had just been given cash for going through a series of steps that were presented as the experiment. In reality the experiment was what would the kids do with their money.   they demonstrate that willpower is not the main determining factor in whether the kids buy.   Motivation and willpower are easily manipulated it turns out. Where the kids who succeeded in keeping their earnings was more based on A set of skills learned along the way that the kids could draw on when the temptations arose.  Skill, not willpower or motivation determined whether they bought overpriced trinkets for the thrill of the purchase, or simply said, “i’ll save my money for later.” Many of you have said, after a particularly difficult patch, “this is the last time. I’ll never go back to that.” You found yourself motivated and full of willpower.  A year later or less, without having changed your skill level your willpower has run out and the brightness of your motivation has faded until you give in again.   Let’s take a look at the Why? Simon Senik talks about this a lot with corporations and I do think there are applications in personal life as well.  In his most famous example, Simon talks about the reason we all buy apple products when there are more affordable and often, more functional products out there.  ...