5 Ways to Shift a Habit from a “Should” to a “Want To”

Episode 9. Today's episode is all about how to shift a habit from a "should" to a "want to." Free Resources Mentioned in this Episode: 23 Positive Things to do Besides Eating: A list of 23 quick ideas, with links, most 100% free! Back on Track Pep Talk: Struggling to regain control of your eating without dieting? Grab this audio guide to walk you through the steps. Autonomy is the Jam As someone who worked for years trying to help people lose weight, the stats are simply not inspiring. The cool thing is, we do understand a lot about what TYPE of motivation facilitates long-term behavior change and even weight loss maintenance. When women participating in a health program had autonomous motivation for exercise, they continued to exercise and maintained their weight loss 3 years later (Silva et al., 2011). So, there is actual data that making this shift translates into behavior change over quite a long period of time. If that doesn't encourage you to gain this type of motivation for yourself, I don't know what would. What is Autonomous Motivation Really? Do You Always Have to Love What You Are Doing? A common misconception when I talk about internal/autonomous motivation is that it means you always love everything you are doing all day every day. Intrinsic motivation does mean that you get inherent satisfaction from the behavior. But there are other essentially important types of Internal or Autonomous motivation too. These include Integrated and Identified motivation. Essentially, these types boil down to choosing a behavior because it's consistent with your values and the person you want to be. 5 Ways to Shift from "Should" to "Want To" (or "Choose To") Ok Shawn, great. How do I get more autonomous motivation for a habit I want to shift? I'm so glad you asked. Here are some strategies to help with this. The good news? Sometimes it only takes one! 1. Reflect on How Its Helpful to You (Well, first make sure it is helpful, then reflect on this): If you want to get