The Peaceful Warrior's Motivation

Let’s talk about motivation. Despite what anyone may think or feel there is no such thing as universal motivation. No one can tell you how to be motivated to do something, that’s something only you can do for yourself. Motivation must come from within.

I became somewhat obsessed with the question of motivation sometime mid last year. I had a few panic attacks and went to 3 urgent cares thinking I was having a heart attack. I wasn’t (I almost wished I was, my ego did not like the fact that I was “only stressed”. Which is dumb, because anxiety had taken over and my body was reacting to a threat that really wasn’t there, and it was causing my heart to race. I lost control, not because I was too weak, but because the brain is all controlling of your body, and anxiety was controlling my brain. I realized then just how powerful anxiety is. My amazing wife convinced me to go to a really good counselor who gave me some very practical advice. You have 5 areas of your life that you can moderately control: sleep, exercise, social interactions, diet (what you put into your body, substances included), and spiritual interactions. If you can even moderately regulate yourself in these areas, health will follow.

This isn’t earth shattering counsel here, but it made a hell of a lot of sense so I took it seriously. I started working out with a lot more regularity (my goal is 6 days a week)*, began intermittent fasting, quit drinking completely (I was a binge drinking alcoholic. Even though I was a very functioning alcoholic I felt like shit most of the time.), and started on a journey that has led me here (wherever here is). The combined effects of this were pretty incredible as I dropped about 50 pounds (from 240 down to 185) and felt so much more physically and mentally relaxed. I made it a priority to see more friends (safely as this was 4th quarter of 2020 and the Vid was in full swing), I started working on meditation, took my sleep seriously**, and began to be honest with myself and God.

I’m going to add two more things before going into motivation (I promise I’ll tie it together…mostly). I was heavily addicted to cocaine in my teenage years and quit it cold turkey (the absolute worst detox I’ve been through. Thankfully I was in and out of consciousness for most of it so I don’t remember all of it). I was heavily addicted to cigarettes and quit that as well. I wake up at 4:45 to workout with my F3 brothers 6 days a week, have lost 50 pounds, and yet still find ways to be unhealthy and undisciplined daily? Why am I still locked in addictions and unhealthy thought patterns?*** Why is it I have motivation for some and not others?

The answer, as it turns out, is that I was using negative motivation (reinforcement) to try to stop the behaviors, rather than seeing the behavior as a way that I was meeting a need. You see, negative motivation does not work long term. You can’t decide to change a behavior by telling yourself to stop the action, it only leads to eventual failure. And all behavior and action stems from a need being met. In order to make a change, you have to find the need, then replace the behavior with something healthier.

People act out of pain and fear and those actions and behaviors can be destructive and unhealthy… but it’s because of the pain and fear, it’s because of the need. I’ll use my life here. I have used porn regularly as a way to meet my need for control. Almost all porn abuse comes out of a need for control. Somewhere in your life you lose control and now you take a modicum of it back by controlling how and when you receive sexual release. The need is for control, the fear is that control will be taken away. I couldn’t tell myself to stop looking at the porn because the need was real and it wasn’t being addressed; and I was trying to stop something rather than replace. If your motivation is to quit something (an action, behavior, or thought pattern) just because it’s the “right thing to do”, it will inevitably fail and you’ll put yourself back into a shame cycle of trying and failing. When I act out unhealthily it’s because I fear losing control so I choose when and where I self destruct. I choose unhealthy behavior because it’s at least something I can control.

I found it helpful to examine how I reacted when I’m stressed or anxious to dig into the need. It turns out, I revert to a cynical douchey teenager that fakes confidence with arrogance and “not giving a shit” when I’m under stress. I’m aggressive and argumentative and like to push people away. This makes a lot of sense, because it was in my teenage years that I decided to numb myself from the pain of rejection and abuse, so I chose to deaden the pain (it was out of this sequence of events that I started my drug adventure). The need is real. I was hurting, even if I couldn’t understand why at the time, so I chose to numb. In those times I used women and drugs to numb, so my inclination is to do the same; to repeat a learned behavior. (It’s interesting what numbing the negative does. To use an example I just heard, it’s like a blast of chemo, it kills the positive and the negative together. Because of this, addictions or “highs” of any kind are used not only to keep numbness but also to feel something… tough ass double edged sword there.)

After finding out what the need is, the next step is to find out how to replace the unhealthy behavior for a healthy one, again positive motivation (reinforcement). For me, I want freedom and fearlessness, so that’s my goal. I want freedom from fear of what others think about me including my own negative thoughts; that’s a huge part of my motivation. Those two overarching words (freedom and fearlessness) are my battle cry. I want fearlessness and freedom and I am willing to do what it takes to make that happen. Instead of telling myself to stop doing something I ask myself if this action or thought leads me closer to fearlessness and freedom or farther away from it.

While I can say I know what my needs are, the journey is exploring those needs through self discovery. I know I need to feel safe. I know I need to feel loved. I know I need to feel like I matter. I know I need to feel accepted; but my journey is finding out when and why I don’t feel these things. As I uncover the why I get to see my wounds more clearly, which lets me start the healing process.

No one can choose the motivation for health for you. I choose to take health more seriously because I want to be a Peaceful Warrior. I choose to understand my wounds and my needs. I choose breathing, mindfulness, forgiveness, understanding, compassion, honesty, and joy instead of unhealth to meet those needs. Motivation is a choice, and only you can make it.

* I’ve been a part of a men’s workout group called F3 for about 3 years now. F3 (F3nation.com) is a free men’s workout group where we meet outside (regardless of weather), have a peer led hiit/calisthenics/crossfit style workout for 45 minutes to an hour, and finish up in a circle of trust (there’s weird names for everything, up to and including having an F3 name…mine is Apollo). F3 stands for Fitness, Fellowship, Faith. The faith is belief in something bigger than yourself, although it is predominantly Christian. I could write multiple blogs on how much F3 has meant to me and all the incredible men I have met through it, but that’s not the point of this blog…so I’ll save that for another rambling session later.

** It’s insane how many Americans don’t get enough sleep. If you workout regularly but don’t get enough sleep it’s like you’ve just wasted 50% of the workout. Do you want to be smarter? Your mind processes about a trillion different things in your sleep, one of them being everything you learned through the day…then stores it in long term memory. You shoot yourself in the foot if you’re dieting and not sleeping enough, and (the most important factor for me) your anxiety and stress will only increase if you are not sleeping enough. It’s so incredibly important, but we like to brag about how much we accomplish, which is almost always at the expense of sleep.

*** To clarify a bit more, I am still addicted to some things, but I’m working hard in those areas; and I also have some very negative thought and behavioral patterns that I am actively working on as well. As vulnerable as I want to be, some things in my life can be actively used against me so I’m careful to whom I confide all my struggles. I’d like to point out that I have many people I do confide in, because it’s next to impossible to walk through this healing while working with an unhealthy mind. It’s necessary to have those people in your life, there’s really nothing (outside the literal divine presence of God) that can replace that.