Unleashing the Power Within

Hi, fellow fitness enthusiasts! Get ready to explore a world where every step you take leads to a stronger, healthier version of yourself. As we pursue a fitter and more fabulous lifestyle, we encounter two powerful allies: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation.

This blog post is a guide to understanding the distinctions between these two approaches, and illustrates how choosing the appropriate one can enhance your fitness journey.

What exactly is motivation and why is it important?

Motivation is a complex psychological concept that serves as the driving force behind an individual’s actions, desires, and behaviour. It can be an internal or external stimuli that prompt specific actions or pursuit of goals and tasks. Motivation plays a crucial role in initiating, sustaining, and directing efforts towards achieving various objectives, whether they are short-term tasks or long-term aspirations.

Motivation is not just mental, it’s physical too

So clearly there’s more to it than we realise. Motivation is not just a reason or ‘thinking’ behind an action, it actually involves chemical reactions within the body, psychological conditioning from past experiences and external factors such as environment. In fact, Dopamine is your achievement hormone. It’s often referred to as the brain’s “feel-good” chemical because it’s associated with feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and reinforcement. Higher 

the dopamine levels in your body, higher is your alertness, focus, creativity, long-term memory and concentration. The relationship between dopamine and motivation is intertwined. Dopamineacts as a sort of “reward signal” in the brain. When you achieve a goal, experience something pleasurable, or engage in rewarding activities, your brain releases dopamine. This release of dopamine creates a positive feeling, which in turn reinforces the behavior or activity that led to its release. This reinforcement mechanism is what drives motivation – the desire to repeat actions that result in pleasurable outcomes.

The two types of motivation

Extrinsic motivation

So, we know a little more about how motivation occurs, but now to look into what type of motivation we use for ourselves.

Extrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is driven by external rewards. These rewards can be tangible, such as money or grades, or intangible, such as praise or fame. Extrinsically motivated individuals will persist in performing certain actions, even if the tasks themselves lack inherent enjoyment or reward. For instance, they might engage in work-related activities that they do not naturally find fulfilling, solely to earn a wage. Being externally motivated involves operant conditioning, which is when someone or something is conditioned to behave a certain way due to a reward or consequence. Think about your motivation for exercising. Are you working out to look good or win a trophy? For instance, a weightlifting example, if you are lifting weights so that you can look better at the beach, you are externally motivated. Rewarding yourself with a vacation for achieving the 10kg weight loss goal would be considered extrinsic motivation as well.

Intrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation can be defined as when one is driven by internal rewards. In essence, intrinsic motivation stems from the individual, driven by their natural satisfaction with the behavior. Again,  consider the weightlifting example, if you lift weights because you enjoy the feeling of your muscles pumping or if you enjoy the process of getting stronger you would be intrinsically motivated. Activities can generate such feelings when they give people a sense of meaning like participating in volunteer or church events. It provides a sense of progress when your efforts yield positive results or when you acquire new skills and expertise.

Which type of motivation is more effective?

A common question asked by customers is ‘ What motivation should I use when trying to lose weight?’ 

Some people may find extrinsic motivation more effective than others in certain situations. For example, dropping ten pounds or having others notice your weight loss progress can all be incredibly motivating. Weight loss requires a lot of positive reinforcement. However, the value of the reward can decrease if the reward is given too much e.g being over complemented so it stops meaning anything or you can now fit into all your jeans so the motivation comes to a halt.  This is referred to as the over-justification effect. – The over-justification effect happens when an activity you already enjoy is rewarded so often that you lose interest. 

Therefore, as mentioned previously, those who are intrinsically motivated find satisfaction from the mental and physical benefits of weight loss (for example, improvements in their mood, energy, and self-esteem) rather than merely looking better or appeasing others. Additionally it encourages cohesive interaction and a higher degree of effort and long-term performance (Pinder 2011). Both types of motivation are crucial in weight loss, but intrinsic motivation is more effective at forming lasting habits.Therefore, for a more realistic and enjoyable weight-loss journey one should be intrinsically motivated for long-term benefits. 

To maintain weight loss motivation, set achievable and measurable goals, track your food intake with a diary, and enlist a friend for accountability. The most important way to stay motivated to lose weight is to be willing to forgive yourself when you make a mistake or slip-up.

What’s YOUR motivation?

‘What’s your motivation?,’ It seems such an ambiguous question right? I mean after all .. it’s about you and who knows you better? Nevertheless, you need the details, you need to know context.. Motivation in life? Or relationships.. Or sports perhaps?

Indeed a complicated and simple question all in one. When it comes to motivation and performance, it’s important for the long-haul to recognise what is fuelling you from within. Knowing this can help you identify behavioral patterns that need adjustment to unlock your true potential.

Feeling lost for workout ideas? Explore our blog for motivation and health journey tips. Also, follow our Instagram pages BodyBase_reformer and BodyBase_Studios for weekly fitness hacks and trends!