Michelle, over at the For the Life of Me blog, recently wrote a post about motivation as one of the key factors to success in incorporating healthy diet and exercise into our lives.

I agree with Michelle 100%, and I really like her take on the issue in her post.  Motivation is a key issue in having a healthy lifestyle.  But why is motivation so difficult?  What’s behind our motivations to do (or not do) certain things?

I think the source of the issue go straight to nature, or, what’s natural in general.  The law of inertia applies to everything that exists, and says that a body at rest will tend to stay at rest, and a body in motion will tend to stay in motion.  This is also “habit” – we tend to keep doing the things we’re used to doing, and not to do new or different things.

There’s also a law among living things demanding them to be as efficient as possible – to expend energy only when necessary.  For instance, one of the first things they’ll tell you in a survival school is to stay warm (conserve energy), and move around as little as necessary (conserve energy).  Building a log cabin is something a person does who already knows for a fact where they’re going to get their calories for the next year.

You can see this behavior in still-existing aboriginal/native cultures.  They don’t run around any more than necessary.  They spend a lot of time hanging out talking.  They do what is needed, and then rest.

So, what’s going on with us, in our culture?

First, we have a steady, stable, and reliable supply of calories (not always from the best sources).

Second, we don’t have any difficult physical demands in our lives, especially no demands that are necessary for our survival.  We have crafted environments that don’t demand any activity at all (going to the grocery store is a lot different from going out on a hunt, or even digging for your vegetables in a garden, or a natural setting).  Our “work” isn’t physical (building huts versus building websites, tending to crops or herds versus tending to your computer).

Third, we’ve created environments that trigger our stress response frequently.  Stressful work situations (with no physical outlet) lead to a constant release of adrenaline, and a buildup of cortisol, which leads to malfunction in the body.

Fourth, we’ve created an isolationist society – how many of your neighbors do you know and trust?  In an aboriginal culture, you know all of your neighbors (maybe up to 100), and you trust them all equally.

Fifth, and I think worst of all, we’ve created a culture of rules-based thinking, instead of creative-based thinking.  Everything we’re taught from an early age is designed to get us to follow rules.  Hence, when we get older, we do what everyone else is doing.  We think that it’s crazy to go off and follow our dreams – because there are no rules about that, and no one else is doing it (except the odd-ball cousin or friend-of-a-friend that you hear of on some occasion).