What motivates us for change?
Have you ever wondered what REALLY motives us for change? How is it that people decide to make changes in their lives? Over the years, I’ve worked with many clients, and everyone comes to therapy for different reasons. Here are the ones I’ve noticed in my practice:
Inspiration
“You know what would be great? Going to therapy to heal my childhood trauma. That sounds fun; I think I’d really like to do that.” Said no one, ever.
I’m going to talk about this first because I want to dispel a lot of myths. This is not the primary reason that initially motivates folks for change. In fact, it’s the most infrequent initial motivator for change I see in my work with folks. Popular psychology and media make it sound like doing our own personal growth and healing work is magical and inspiring, and frankly, it’s just not. It’s really hard work. You know that saying about Pandora's box? There’s some validity to that. We often don’t know what it is we are getting into until we are in it. That causes a lot of people some hesitation. There’s a whole bunch of excellent reasons why we might put off doing our own healing work, and I’m not judging a single one of them. Often the beginning of our healing journey looks a lot like just acknowledging something is a problem before we’re actually willing to do something about it, and that’s okay.
However, if you are a person who feels inspired to start their healing journey, good for you! You’ve probably already done a lot of preparatory work to get to this place, and that means that once you start your journey, we can hit the ground running. Research shows that internal motivation is the best predictor of positive outcomes for treatment, so if you’re in this boat, you’re in a pretty good spot.
2. Obligation
“I really don’t want to do this, but my (mom, partner, school, job, etc…) is forcing me to do it. I’ll just do it to make them happy, and just long enough to get them off my back, then I’ll go back to what I was doing before.” Sound familiar?
I see a lot of folks in my practice motivated by feelings of obligation. They feel like they have to do something (going to therapy, going to treatment, staying sober, taking mental health medications, etc) for someone or something else other than themselves. This is known as a form of external motivation. Although this is a decent motivator, it usually doesn’t last. Sometimes when we are motivated by obligation initially during a change process, it can change to inspiration later on down the road. Research shows that best treatment outcomes for those in substance use treatment come when there is a combination of external and internal factors.
If you feel obligated to come to therapy or treatment (or have in the past), don’t fret! There’s nothing wrong with you, and having external motivation isn’t a bad thing. It’s good to be aware of what is motivating you, even if it’s external. Sometimes we can come to realize that although we are motivated externally, we care a lot about relationships with certain people, and having good relationships can be an internal motivator for change. Research also shows that being motivated externally can have good short term outcomes as well.
3. Desperation
“This is intolerable. I can’t keep doing this any longer. I’m sick of feeling this way.”
This is the motivating factor I see most often in my practice. For folks struggling with substances, it typically sounds like, “I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.” For other folks, it sounds like, “I’ve reached my breaking point, and I can’t keep living like this.” This doesn’t have to just apply to mental health or substance use. Maybe you’re sick of your job. Maybe your friend group sucks and isn’t very supportive. Maybe you just realized you have been silent in your marriage for way too long. Whatever the thing (or things–usually it’s more than one) is that’s pushing you to do something different, it usually takes feeling pretty dang uncomfortable before we’re willing to do something about it.
As a species, we like things to be the same over and over again. That’s because the brain loves trying to find ways to work less (work smarter not harder, right?). If you keep doing the same thing, it can condense neural connections and can put things on autopilot. Learning new things requires building neural connections, and that takes time and precious energy. The brain will always try to be as efficient as possible unless it has good reason otherwise. This is where discomfort comes in. As part of our survival instinct, humans tend to avoid discomfort. Hence, discomfort becomes the motivating factor for change.
Everyone’s threshold for discomfort is different. Some of us have a really low pain/discomfort tolerance (physical pain or psychological) while others can really hang in the shit for a long time before we get sick of it. Wherever you are in your journey, just know that it’s serving you in some way. Most of us are learning something in the process of living through challenges and discomfort. Whether you are learning something about yourself, a friend, family member or partner, or the kind of life you want to live, those lessons are valuable and not to be taken for granted.
Are you struggling to find motivation for change? Or have you finally found some motivation and are finally ready to take the leap? Reach out to me, I’d love to hear from you!
Warmly,
Amanda
