Little White Lies

For the past several years on my birthday, I have managed to do as many push-ups as the age at which I was turning that year. Naturally it’s easier to accomplish a goal like that if I am either in decent shape to begin with, or willing to put in the training beforehand to make it work on July 22nd of whatever year.

Neither of those conditions have been in place thus far this year. I know why I allowed myself to let life get in the way this year. I have had challenges this year that have allowed me to doubt myself to at least a small degree. My self-doubt has been related to being nearly sixty-two years old and wondering why I am still sitting on dreams that have yet to be fulfilled.

 It’s not like I have not been working out at all, but I have been doing the bare minimum in order to gain at least some satisfaction that I can claim I work out three to four times a week. Which is bullshit because if I go to the gym and not give it all I have, well then it’s mostly a waste of time.

 It all boils down to what I tell myself; specifically, the thoughts my brain conjures up when I feel negative emotions either address the issue at hand, avoid the issue completely, or schedule (procrastinate) it for another time. If you ever read Highlights magazine as a kid, you probably remember Goofus and Gallant. The cartoonist always depicted Gallant as being good-natured, morally-driven, and responsible as shit. Conversely, Gallant always played the role of the fuck-up who never got it right and was always seeking the shortcut.

 It was a little more than a few years ago that I became well aware that I had the equivalent of Goofus and Gallant living in my own head and influencing my moves every day. I began referring to those voices as Good Scott and Bad Scott. Good Scott would make sure I took the time to develop good habits and routines that would make myself smarter, stronger, connected, and balanced. Bad Scott, on the other hand, spent a lot of time yapping to me about the beauties of instant gratification and remaining in the comfort zone.

 Fortunately for me, I have learned over the years how to counter the influences of my negative side. When my negative self begins telling his little white lies of justification, procrastination, etc., I figure out where I am emotionally and find the correlation between the feelings and the thoughts. Then, I take a few minutes to remind myself of my goals and why those goals are important to me.

That's what I had to do this year when I considered my annual push-up challenge. This goal is important to me for two basic reasons. First, accomplishing it will give me the satisfaction of doing it not only for health and fitness reasons, but also for accomplishing another leg of a mission that I hope to be doing until I’m at least seventy years old and hopefully longer.

 Secondly, I want to post videos and share my journey toward this goal with others to demonstrate that nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible if one is determined and committed to doing what it takes to get the job done.

So, if you’re interested, keep an eye here because I plan on sharing my struggles and successes here with all of you. Thanks for reading., and here’s to your success!

Resolutions and Intrinsic Motivation

Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions this year? How’s that going?  I ask because most of us who set off to change something about ourselves at the new year fail. In fact, an article from www.statisticbrain.com from January of 2018 states that less than 40% of people in their twenties achieve their resolutions each year, and only 16.3% of people over fifty years old are able to reach their resolution annually. Of course, one has to dig deeper to see where and how Statistic Brain gathers their data, but if these numbers are even close, they say quite a bit about the success, or lack thereof, we have toward truly achieving what we tell ourselves we want.

In my view, the ability to succeed in any endeavor is at least in part dependent on motivation. No one does anything unless they are motivated to do so. You wouldn’t be reading this right now unless you, or someone else, motivated you to do so, and I wouldn’t have written this piece unless I decided at some point that I believe I had important information to share on the topic and that someone besides me might be able to benefit from that information.

Psychologists and others are often fond of categorizing two types of motivation, and it seems that one of the types has a stronger influence on whether you are consistently successful at achieving your goals. The two types of motivation are extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation comes from an external force and is often associated with rewards or punishments. As an example, consider someone who really dislikes his or her job, but gets up and goes to work every day anyway because they know if they don’t show up, they are not going to get paid in a week’s time. In this example, the reward is the paycheck at the end of the pay period.

Another example of someone who is extrinsically motivated is a man who, as a condition of his probation, may be ordered not to drink alcohol. Although that man may want a beer in the worst way, he will avoid imbibing because he knows that if his probation shows up at the wrong time, he will be sent back to jail to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Unlike extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation does not come from an outside source, such as a punishment or a reward. Instead, one who is intrinsically motivated goes to work not because of the anticipated paycheck, but because they see value in their work and they are personally rewarded from it. Similarly, a woman who is determined to give up alcohol because she believes that she can have a fuller life without it is intrinsically motivated.

Which type of motivation do you think is more effective in terms of being able to sustain effective change and reach goals? Research reveals that you are better able to achieve effective results when you are working toward a goal not because of an external reward, or a punishment, or because someone else wants it for you, but because you truly want it for yourself.

Where does intrinsic motivation come from and how does one develop it and, more importantly, sustain it?  Let’s go back and look at New Year’s Resolutions. Towards the end of every year, millions of people tell themselves and others that they are going to quit smoking, be a regular at the gym, spend less time working and more time with their family, etc., and many of them can even talk about why they want to embark on their journeys of change. Inevitably, though, when the journey becomes challenging for whatever reason, many end up reverting back to their old patterns of behavior and give up their resolutions.

The problem is that change is not easy, and here are a few reasons why. The first reason is that a lot of the things we do or don’t do that are not healthy for us in the long run give us comfort. If we typically have a drink after a long day at work, chances are that we do it because it makes us feel good. In other words, the act of having a drink or eating half of an apple pie in one sitting helps us relieve our stress, which helps us reach a state in which we feel better.

The second, and related, reason we often revert to the old habits is that when we give them up, we are often suddenly left with no way to relieve our stress, and thus we are uncomfortable. The simple truth is that most humans are very uncomfortable with being uncomfortable, and that is a topic for future article here. I will wrap this up today by stating what should be obvious at this point: If you are going to make resolutions toward change and want to be successful, your journey will probably not be an easy one. Your mission, therefore, is to think of a plan for success and then implement that plan as you prepare for your journey.

I would invite you to share your thoughts on this topic in the comments section here. Until next time, be well.

My Exercise Routine at Sixty Years Old

I turned sixty a few weeks ago. There’s plenty of scary to think about as one reaches sixty years old, but I’m not dwelling on that drivel because worrying about the future isn’t productive unless one can actually do something about it. I can’t stop the clock. I can’t control whether I will get sick and die a premature death. I can’t prevent some asshole slamming his car into mine on a highway somewhere and taking me out. There are some things that I can control, however, and I want to talk about one of those controllable things today.

I have a lot of control over my physical fitness. I don’t have time to work out every day, and I am not sure if I would even if I had the time. But I do try hard to fit in at least three or four workouts a week. My workouts are not hugely strenuous, but they make me sweat. Basically, each workout involves some push-ups and some pull-ups at the park by the lake, and then I run about a mile or so in my neighborhood. 

A few years ago, I began a ritual of doing as many push-ups as years I have lived on my birthday. The older I get, obviously, the harder that may become. Two years ago, I did fifty-eight mediocre push-ups on my fifty-eighth birthday and then didn’t do another push-up for a month. My heart was in the right place, but I was doing just enough to scoot by.  I mean, I was determined to do whatever amount I had to do and then call that a milestone. I was more motivated my fifty-ninth birthday, but again my desire to maintain that level of exercise waned following the completion of my birthday routine.

I’m approaching it differently this year and my perspective changed after I was doing pushups out by the pool one hot July morning and my girlfriend’s brother came out and said, “No, dude. This is how you do pushups.” Then he got down and did twenty really nice pushups, touching his chest to the ground each time.

Now, this guy is forty-four years old, which is sixteen years younger than me, and he is about as skinny as a flagpole. But I just figured that if I could do sixty half-assed pushups, I could certainly do thirty really good pushups, and I was right. So, these days I am doing at least two sets of twenty or twenty-five pushups each time I work out, and I hope to increase this by a solid thirty pushups by the end of September.

I never had a place to do pull-ups (except the gym) before I moved into this neighborhood. There are monkey bars for kids in the park and I use them now for my pull-ups. I can only do three or four sets of five pull-ups right now, but I just started about two weeks ago and I am focused on being able to do three sets of ten by the end of September. 

And that mile run? I have a goal of extending that distance to three miles by the end of September.  I am not concerned about speed at this point. Instead, I am focused on increasing my endurance on the road.  The speed will come in time.

Now, I realize that I have been blessed with some pretty good genes and I don’t take that gift for granted at all. Though both of my grandfathers died in their sixties, neither man was that health-conscious. My grandmothers, on the other hand, died in their late eighties. Mom lived until age eighty-two and Dad is still kicking at eighty-four.

Dad would tell you that the secret to living a healthy life is to do things in moderation and to stay mentally and physically active as long as you can.  I have some big mountains to climb in the next few weeks but I am committed to continuing my exercise routine as I confront my challenges. 

How Can We Keep Our Fires Burning? The Battle to Sustain Motivation

 We’re rolling along like a freight train toward the holiday season.  In fact, many would say it was already here.  I walked through the mall last week on my way to get a haircut and was mildly surprised to see all of the holiday decorations on display.  What’s your plan for the holidays?  Have you figured out what (and when) you are going to buy for whom?  Most importantly, have you figured out how you are going to keep your stress levels in check as you spend money, fight the crowds, and visit the family?  

Over the last month, I have been discussing motivation with my students.  Rather than discussing how one obtains the motivation to begin a project or conquer a challenge, we have been focusing on how one can actually sustain motivation.  This topic came about because many of my students these days are incarcerated at the Norfolk County House of Correction and have shared their difficulties with being able to remain in recovery from their various addictions despite the best of intentions.  Today, I would like to share with you some of the reasons they gave me for losing their motivation, and then I’ll share some of their thoughts about how to sustain motivation.   

Why Do People Lose Motivation?

Here are some of the psychological motivation killers offered by my students last month:

1)      Stress – This was, by far, the most frequently mentioned motivation murderer in every class session.  Several people agreed that while it was easy to get motivated for change initially, it was difficult to sustain motivation as they were faced with the challenges and pressures of everyday life.  These challenges included finances, employment searches, and relationships, to name a few. 

2)      Energy Levels – Some men shared that they often found that their motivation waned as they experienced fatigue.  It seems that the fatigue could be either psychological or physical and could be caused by erratic sleep patterns, physical exertion, or boredom. 

3)      Other Priorities – Inadequate planning and poor time management were offered up as issues related to challenges with sustaining motivation.  We often have a lot of things we have to accomplish, and sometimes these tasks with the activities we want to do.  Unless we plan accordingly and effectively plan our priorities, our project or endeavor may be pushed to the side in favor of tasks of lesser importance.

4)      Work – Unless we are collecting social security or disability or we are independently wealthy, we are all obligated to work until we reach retirement age or die.  The time we spend at work, and the time we spend commuting to work, can sap us of the time and energy required to accomplish our goals and objectives. 

5)      Relationships – Some of the men that participated in the brainstorming sessions mentioned that women often got in the way of their ability to sustain their motivation, but most agreed that we could broaden that out a bit and include relationships in general.  Dysfunctional relationships can affect our moods, which in turn can affect our ability to sustain our motivation to do what we need to do in order to achieve what we set out to accomplish.

6)      Addictions / Compulsive Behaviors – These can include addictions to drugs or alcohol, or compulsive behaviors that include internet usage, video games, overeating, frequent sex, shopping, or even working.  We often fall back on addictions and compulsive behaviors in order to avoid the hard work of those tasks that can be truly meaningful once we see them through. 

7)      Self-Defeatist Attitude – In my discussions with students, we ended up labeling this obstacle many different names including “cognitive distortions,” “seemingly unimportant decisions (SUDS),” and “stinking thinking,” to name a few.  All of these terms refer to the negative things we say to ourselves that then allow us to push back the things we must do to reach our goals. 

8)      Need for Instant Gratification – Increasingly, we are a society that demands what we want when we want it and we are often unwilling to put in the time and the energy to work for what we desire to achieve.  We become impatient when we do not see results immediately and then we often give up on our goals.

9)      Fear of Failure / Success – Sometimes we fail to maintain our motivation because we fear failure.  We may have failed many times in the past and we doubt our ability to succeed or we may buy into others’ opinions about our chances for success.  Conversely, we may fear success because we may wonder if we will really enjoy attaining our goals or end up longing for our old lifestyle. 

10)   Failure to Plan – Many fail because they have not taken the time to strategically plan to succeed.  Failure to plan, many people have said, is the same thing as planning to fail.  

What Are Strategies We Can Employ to Better Sustain Our Motivation?

1)      Probably the most important strategy is to commit to your goal.  It may not be enough to simply declare it to yourself; many have found it helpful to declare their goal to at least one other person. 

2)      Create a strategic plan and expect it to be dynamic, meaning the plan may have to be adjusted because life is unpredictable and situations may change. 

3)      Write down your goals and objectives.  This will help you to visualize your goal.  The clearer you can see it, the easier it will be to achieve it. 

4)      Create daily reminders and make sure you look at them every day.  This will help you to keep your “eyes on the prize.” 

5)      Be grateful, every day.  Remember that whatever challenges you are facing, you are alive to face them and that’s worth savoring each day we are alive.

6)      Maintain positivity.  You won’t succeed if you don’t believe in your ability to succeed.  Some ways to stay positive include surrounding yourself with other people who have positive attitudes. 

7)      Practice discipline.  Develop a routine that focuses on daily tasks that, with consistency, will lead you toward your goal. 

8)      Establish a daily routine in which you structure your time around taking care of whatever needs to be addressed in order to make things happen.

9)      Learn to prioritize the things you need to do versus the things you want to do.  All too often, we tend to gravitate to those things we like to do when we should be focusing on more productive behaviors.  It’s worth remembering that there is always a sense of accomplishment when we are able to check off an important task off of our “to do” list. 

10)   Seek out support.  Get over your reluctance to asking for assistance when you need it.  There is rarely a need to invent the wheel if it already exists and odds are that there are at least some people out there that have accomplished what you seek to complete.  Build your support system and remember that giving back is just as important as receiving help from others. 

11)   Reward yourself for accomplishing your objectives.  This tip is sort of tricky, because there is a danger of going overboard with your rewards.  While you are celebrating your accomplishments, never lose sight of what still remains to be done in order to complete and sustain your goal.

Obviously, there is a lot more we could add to these lists.  What challenges do you face when you strive to accomplish your goals?  What strategies have worked for you as you have worked to sustain your motivation?  Leave a comment!  Thanks for reading. 

 

This past weekend, a sixty-four year-old woman swam from the shores of Cuba to Key West, Florida without the protection of a shark cage.  It wasn’t her first attempt; in fact, Diana Nyad had tried to accomplish the same swim four times before.  This time, she successfully completed the 110 mile distance in fifty-three hours and she couldn’t be happier. 

There is no way Ms. Nyad could have completed her goal without total dedication to the task.  After all, she had failed her first four attempts.  But something inside this woman would not let her give up.  It probably didn’t hurt that she is an author, journalist, and motivational speaker, because she most certainly realized she could use her experiences as she strives to motivate others to set goals and work to achieve them. 

Her accomplishment was no easy task.  On her first four previous attempts, she had to endure wind shifts, dehydration, jellyfish stings all over her body and even in her mouth, and sheer physical and emotional exhaustion.  She learned much from her first four attempts and planned accordingly for this last swim.  Her plan included assembling a team of thirty-five people who assisted her by checking on weather conditions, feeding her and making sure she was hydrated, monitoring her physical and mental states, and even plucking jellyfish out of the waters ahead of her as she swam. 

I have been talking about Ms. Nyad's historic swim this past week in my class sessions at the jail because her story so closely parallels those who are challenged by goals they strive to achieve. Ms. Nyad failed to complete the swim from Cuba to Key West four times previously, and yet she viewed it important enough to try once more. This time, she took the time to assess the obstacles and plan accordingly. In addition, she thoughtfully assembled a support team that would support her under any conditions. Her success emphasizes that people can accomplish anything they wish as long as they are committed, they have a well-thought out plan, and a strong team of supporters who are willing to help when things get tough. 

All too often, many of us end up throwing in the towel when we fail. Use Diana Nyad's story to inspire you to realize and remember that all is possible as long as we truly want to succeed, we have a plan for success, and we stay connected with those who support us. Now get out there and make things happen! 

What's Your Perception?

It’s been a busy summer.   I took a job as a substance abuse counselor at a county jail here in Massachusetts and it’s been quite a while since I have worked in a correctional facility.  Although the money isn’t great, the job suits me because it allows me to work with men, many of whom lack any knowledge about emotional management.  I have come to believe that most men who find themselves incarcerated are there because they reacted to negative feelings, rather than thinking about the way they feel and taking the time to assess and strategize a response to those feelings.  

I’m fond of telling guys that our perceptions are our realities.  We react to various stimuli that come at us from every direction based upon our assumptions and our past experiences with those stimuli.  Through our experiences, we often develop biases about people, places, things, and events.  For example, I had a bias about correctional officers before I began working at this particular facility, and that bias told me that most correctional officers were cynical and unfriendly people.  I attributed their cynicism to the nature of their jobs, and my opinion was based upon my experiences working at other facilities where I found many correctional employees wearing their negative emotions on their sleeves.  

Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the overwhelming majority of correctional employees here at the facility that currently employs me are not only friendly, but they will go out of their way to help when help is needed.  One young officer even approached me two days ago and introduced himself to me by name, and that was something that I had NEVER experienced in a jail before.   As a result of my new experiences at my new place of employment, I have had to rethink my biases about correctional employees, which has taught me that perhaps some prisons and jails are more pleasant places to work at than others.  

Bias can certainly be a cause of negative thinking, but there are many more.  Buying into labels can be just as damning.  For example, perhaps you have set a goal for yourself in the past and have told others about it, only to be told that you weren’t pretty enough, smart enough, ambitious enough, or strong enough to accomplish that goal.  Or, maybe someone has called you lazy or unmotivated in the past, and you have allowed those labels to sink into your brain and influence the way you see yourself.  I see a lot of that at the jail.  Many inmates have been labeled losers, or junkies, or addicts by their families and their “friends” following their troubles with law enforcement and consequently have learned to see themselves as those labels.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Your perception is your reality.  If you see yourself as a loser, then you most assuredly have the potential to live up to that label.  But what if you refused to buy into the negative labels others have place upon you, or you have placed upon yourself?  

The last thinking error I will discuss today is rationalizing.  When we rationalize, we are basically finding a way to lie to ourselves that in turn allows us to either do something, or not do something.  Rationalizing allows us to break our own rules.  If I tell myself at the beginning of the week that I am not going to spend any money on coffee at the many coffee shops in my hometown, and then two days later I find myself in the drive-thru line at Dunkin Donuts after telling myself I deserve “this one coffee” because I only slept four hours the night before, I have rationalized away my commitment to stay away spending money unnecessarily at coffee shops.  Or, if I tell myself that I am going to go the gym on Monday night after work and then I talk myself out of it by telling myself I would have a better workout the next morning rather than on Monday night, then I have rationalized my not following through on my commitment to myself.  In essence, we end up changing our perceptions of the importance of our goals in order to free ourselves up to not follow through with them.  

Although I am not always successful, I strive to perceive people places, things, and circumstances in a positive manner because looking at them negatively does not help me accomplish my goals.  I’d be the first one to tell you that our perceptions usually do not change overnight, but they are worth considering because the way you look at things, or at yourself, may be holding you back from reaching your true purpose in life.  After all, we only go around once here! 

Pick Up Your Damn Self

So, the news isn’t good.  The American economy is struggling and our government seems to want to spend time focusing on trivial and noncontroversial matters rather than tackle those challenges that are putting every American on edge.  It would be very easy to blame these and other issues for what ails us.  After all, the stuff we hear and read about in the news is damned depressing at times and it’s real easy for some of us to take a victim’s approach and freeze in response to the chaos that resides all around us.  

You need to shake that shit off and here’s why:  there will always be chaos and confusion because that is what life is.  There are always going to be situations or events that have the potential to cause us fear but you need to realize that YOU control your emotions!  Yes, that’s right: you can wallow in the muck of your own self-defeatist attitude or you can tell yourself that life is too damn short to be unhappy or fearful.  There is absolutely no doubt that we as individuals are not in control of everything that happens in our world, but there is equally no doubt that we can control how we respond to those happenings.  Attitude is everything.  The trick is that one’s attitude can be great one day and simply crappy the next day.  The solution is to develop ways to pick up your damn self when your attitude is wavering.  Here are some suggestions:

·         Use Positive Self-Talk – Do you ever listen to the thoughts that go on in your head?  You can control those thoughts, you know.  When you notice the negativity creeping into your cognitive processing, work to replace them with thoughts that will motivate you to push through the negativity.  For example, instead of dreading a particular task that lies in front of you, think about how good you will feel when you complete that task.  

·         Smile – It’s amazing how a simple physical act can change one’s whole perspective.  Next time you are feeling angry, or fearful, or confused, simply smile and notice how your mood changes.  Smile at others when you are out and about and notice how your smile affects them.  After all, whatever you are feeling at any moment is only temporary because situations change, and smiling can connect you to a better emotional state that can carry you through those inevitable rough spots we all encounter in our lives.  

·         Reach out – It is not at all uncommon for people to isolate when they are feeling negative emotions, and that can be beneficial for a while because sometimes we need time by ourselves to figure out how best to move ahead.  But isolation is not good for a long time because you need to surround yourself with people who will support you and encourage you to succeed, no matter what.  In addition to getting support, you will be able to lend support to others, which will only strengthen your own self-worth because helping others makes us feel good.  

·         Move – It takes energy to pick up your damn self.  Sometimes, we can get too comfortable sitting around wallowing in our own trivial tasks we tell ourselves are important, knowing full well that they are not important and the only reason we are doing them is to avoid what truly needs to be done.  Stand up, take inventory, and then figure out the one thing you can do today that will serve to move you toward a solution to at least one of your challenges.  Nothing gets accomplished without action.  So get up, do a couple of jumping jacks to get the blood flowing, and get moving.

·          Be Grateful – Although you have undoubtedly taken a few tumbles along your journey, I would bet that there are people, places, and things in your life that give you pleasure.  As I am sitting here typing this, I am witnessing the end of a day that brought me more than my share of headaches, but I also had a humorous conversation with my brother and I reached out and sent some family photos to people that I love.  Tonight, I will eat two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then watch a bit of the Bruins playoff game against the Penguins.  I still face many challenges this week (and it’s Thursday already!), but I am thankful for the little joys that life brings me every day.  

·         Seek Inspiration – There are sources of inspiration all around you.  Trust me on this.  There are books, websites, and podcasts that are designed specifically to inspire you, and there are many examples in every community that demonstrate how people are living their dreams.    Your mission is to tap into some of the many resources available.  I’d tell you where to look specifically, but you know where to look.  Use Google.  Take a walk down the main drag in your town.  Visit a bookstore, if you can still find one.  

Well, there you have it.  I just picked up my damn self and finished this blog posting and I am feeling darn glad I did.  If I can do it, so can you!