8 Scientifically Proven Ways To Stay Motivated BEFORE You Get Off Track (When Things Get Tough)

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0:49I'm Radhi Dvlukia and I'm the host of a Really Good Cry podcast and I have the opportunity to talk to Logan Uri. If you're out there trying to date right now, being ghosted on Hinge, or want to create a dating profile that gives you a solid chance of matching with someone you actually want to go on a date with, then this episode with Hinge's Director of Relationship Science, Logan Ury, is definitely for you. Relationships do require work. The best relationships are people who really work on them together. Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:19The most important thing is how you feel after you do something. We overvalue what we feel before something and we undervalue what we feel after something. If I don't feel like working out before a workout, I will overvalue that and listen to it. But if I feel good after a workout, I will undervalue that and just move on. The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I am so grateful that you're back to listen, learn and grow. And it has been an incredible year so far. We've had Dan Buettner, the expert behind the Blue Zones.

2:07If you didn't catch the Netflix documentary, make sure you listen to the episode. If you did watch the documentary, listen to the episode as well. It will blow your mind as to how people in the blue zones live till over 100. The habits, the practices, the diets. It is really, really fantastic information. We've also had the one and only Michelle Obama on the podcast. Thank you for all the love, all the reviews, all the posts and stories about that episode. And I'm so glad that you loved my goal setting method as my weekly workshop. Today's weekly workshop is for all of you who already know that it's going to be hard to maintain motivation this year.

2:50Maybe you've already slipped up. Maybe you've already tripped up. Maybe you haven't, but you've got close and you know that feeling. You've started to recognize that there is always a challenge, that there's always something, some resistance that you're trying to make sure it doesn't get the better of you. How many of you have already been challenged? How many of you have been pushed? How many of you have been under pressure to break your goal, to move away, to lose motivation? Now here's the thing. This episode is for you. Whether you've stayed on track so far or whether you've fallen off, this episode is for you.

3:27If you want to stay on track, this is going to give you the scientifically proven methods to boost your motivation and stay motivated. and if you're someone who's fallen off or scared you're about to, this is going to be the episode that's going to get you back up there, back on track. This year is all about making sure that we have you on track, on purpose for as long as you want to be, however you want to be, at the same time as giving you the space to rest, recover and rejuvenate. Now I'm going to be giving you a lot of great tips today So make sure that you take screenshots, make sure that you take notes if you are able to.

4:10If you're walking or you're at the gym or you're cooking, thank you so much for choosing on purpose if you're driving to. So step number one, to stay motivated, especially when it feels like you're running out, something known as cognitive restructuring. This is a technique that's often used in both coaching and therapy and there are four stages of cognitive restructuring. You have awareness, reappraisal, adoption and evaluation. I'll repeat those. The four stages of cognitive restructuring are awareness, reappraisal, adoption and evaluation. Now let me walk you through when you would use this.

4:58Imagine you started the year saying, I'm going to go to the gym five days a week. Or maybe you've promised yourself that you won't be eating sugary treats in the evening. Whatever commitment, whatever goal that you've made for yourself, whatever resolution that you've set. Now let's say it's been a stressful week. Work piled up. Maybe you had a slight conflict with your partner. Maybe you and your friends aren't seeing eye to eye right now, right? There's some stress that's happened. And maybe there's some family thing going on right now. Right now you're nodding along going, Jay, how do you know?

5:31Well, it's happening to all of us. You're not alone, right? So something like that's come in. And all of a sudden you're sitting there and you're thinking to yourself, I don't know if I can be bothered to go to the gym tomorrow. You know what? I just feel like I need to have a tub of ice cream right now. Whatever it may be for you, you go and grab that tub of ice cream. You wake up the next morning. You miss going to the gym. you press snooze on the alarm clock you miss the time that you were meant to get up you're running late to work what's the thought that goes through your head i messed up i wish i didn't eat ice cream i wish i didn't miss my workout i've fallen off that's it it's all over i've already messed it up i failed i'm gonna have to wait till next month i'm gonna have to wait till next year right We have all these really irrational thoughts, and I'm sure you've had some of these before, or maybe you're having them right now where you're saying, it's only the second week and I've already fallen off.

6:33I've already found it difficult. I've already broken my promise to myself. This is where cognitive restructuring comes in. So what usually happens to us is that idea perpetuates, that idea persists, and then that idea becomes our reality. I messed up, there's no point anymore, I've fallen off, I've broken it, and then we start that new pattern, eating ice cream, missing your workout, missing the alarm. For example, in cognitive restructuring, we first become aware of that dialogue and how that dialogue has changed. We do a reappraisal, we look at it, we evaluate it. we try and understand where it's coming from and we actually decide and say to ourselves actually I'm going to choose a different thought process I needed that ice cream that night I needed to miss a workout I needed some time for recovery I'm going to be so excited and enthusiastic to get back on tomorrow because I had a well-deserved break you're not telling yourself that you made the right decision, everything's perfect, everything's wonderful.

7:42What you're saying is you're trying to frame or reframe the situation that you went through in a way that makes it a healthier belief. Believing that you have messed up and failed is not going to get you back on track. But restructuring and reframing it as a recognition of, hey, I was stressed. I recognized that because I was stressed, I needed different things. But now I'm really excited to get back on. And I often say this to people that you have to program your mind the night before, right? You set your alarm the night before so that it rings the next morning. We have to code our brain. We have to reframe our cognitive structure the night before so that we wake up with that code.

8:36It's literally like coding. You're coding your mind to say, I will wake up tomorrow morning feeling refreshed, calm, and energized. Coding our mind, saying I will be excited to work out, to choose healthy foods, whatever it is for you, right? So I want you to give that a go. And the best way to do this is by journaling. Now you can voice journal, audio journal, or write journal, whichever one works for you. But it's so powerful. Try it out. Now, the second principle, second step that I want to share with you is less of a science one, but more of a psychological one. Follow all the right accounts linked to your goal and like all their posts.

9:26I want you to come up with a list of 10 accounts to do with what you're trying to build. Are you trying to build a stronger mindset? Are you trying to build a stronger body? Are you trying to build a stronger emotional connection? I want you to find the top 10 social media pages. Now, a lot of people will say, don't use social media, get off social media. Now, we all know, A, that's really hard. B, it can be extremely challenging to live your year like that. But here's a way we can actually use social media to our advantage. Find those pages on TikTok or Instagram, whatever you use, turning it on its head.

10:03And I want you to like the most recent posts. And I want you to comment on the recent posts. Here's what that's going to do. That's going to tell the algorithm to show more of those posts to you. Now, every time you're on social media, you're going to get more mindset advice. You're going to get more health and wellness advice. You're going to get more advice on whatever it is that you're trying to build. Maybe it's creativity. I do this all the time. And I find then that whenever I go onto social media, even if I go onto scroll, or if I'm going to see your comments and reply or whatever it may be, I start to see the things I really want to see.

10:43But it It takes the act of saying, what are the 10 accounts? What are the last three posts? Let me like and comment on them as well, right? So 10 accounts, three posts to like and comment on. If you do that simple act, you will start to see the algorithm show you more of that type of content. And this is really important because we've heard that famous saying so many times that you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And I would argue you become the average of the five accounts you spend the most time on. And so our lives have expanded away from individual people to the accounts, the pages that we follow.

11:30And so I want you to do that consciously because chances are, unless you've promised yourself to be off social media, which is amazing if you have. But if you're still using social media, this is a great way of actually using it to your advantage. Now, number three is something that a lot of you may do, but some of us don't appreciate just how powerful it can actually be. When you're trying to do something three times a week, five days a week, maybe you're doing something seven days a week. Maybe you've seen this in the movies. Maybe you've seen your friend do it. It is so important to tick off the day.

12:09Some people cross it off. I say tick it off. Crosses make you feel like something's bad, right? We've been programmed to believe that a cross is negative, right? When you get a cross on a test, it's the wrong answer. Put a tick every single day. It sounds like a really small, minor thing, but the simple act of putting a tick on a day when you've completed something, it gives you that sense. Now, we've been programmed like this, right? When you were young, you'd get a gold star. We don't have that anymore. So if we just say, yeah, I went to the gym today, cool. It doesn't give us that sense of completion.

12:48Completion is a really important metric to be measured. See, we only measure success, right? We only measure the result. But completion is so, so valuable to recognize. And the only person that knows you completed it is you. like someone may see a difference in your appearance someone may notice a difference in how you're living your life but you know when you completed something and it's what you completed that leads to the result that you deeply desire so i really want you to keep a calendar and physically tick it off not on your phone i want you to have the physical calendar where you when you've been to the gym three times a week that day you finish it put a tick on that day put a tick on the next day and keep it in front of you because every time you see more and more ticks on that day, guess what?

13:37It will motivate you. Even if you missed one and you have two ticks that week, that's still going to motivate you the next time. The more you put crosses, the more you don't have this visible. You start going, oh, I missed the last two days, so it doesn't matter about today. Whereas when you look at it and you went, oh my gosh, two days ago, I actually went. And guess what? I went three days in a row before that. That's motivating, right that's why we do it this isn't about accounting right it's not just keeping in keeping account it's actually psychologically proven that that feeling of I've done it you know looking at the month and saying wow this month I actually went 15 times rather than oh this month I think I missed a lot of sessions right notice that difference in cognitive restructuring.

14:25The most healthiest, wealthiest and wisest people are looking at the other side. This isn't just half glass full. It's actually taking a moment to acknowledge and recognize the number of days you've completed. If you look at all the apps you use, they all use this as gamification. It will tell you that you've worked out three days in a row. It will tell you that you have completed this mindfulness practice seven days in a row, whatever it may because we know, or the apps know, that psychologically you feel more motivated. Please, please, please do this physically. Get out a calendar, print it out for the month, buy one of your favorite ones, right?

15:03And put a tick, a green, a big green tick on each one. You deserve it. This is about valuing yourself, valuing the commitment you've made and valuing the completion and the process as much as you value the result. because otherwise if we keep waiting for the result to value ourselves we'll stop the process and that's what happens to 99 % of people we're waiting so much for the result that we lose faith in the process right we're yearning so badly for the result that we lose faith in the process parking shouldn't slow you down park whiz gives every driver a shortcut book ahead save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block.

15:48Park smarter, park faster, park whiz. Download the park whiz app today and save every time you park. I'm Radhi Dvlukia and I'm the host of a really good cry podcast and I have the opportunity to talk to Logan Uri. Logan is a dating expert, a behavioral scientist, a best-selling author and someone who is seriously changing the way we think about love and dating. In our conversation we talk all things dating that Logan has studied and tested from what to put in your dating profile, the pictures you should and shouldn't be using to the conversation starters that actually work. And the huge no-nos that people probably do not realize are reducing their chances of success on apps.

16:25Whether you're single, dating, or just trying to be more intentional in love, Logan offers the kind of clarity we all need. Relationships do require work and the best relationships are people who really work on them together. They're so focused on if I find the perfect person, then I'll have the perfect relationship instead of understanding really that they can choose someone great and then build that relationship together. They don't need to keep searching for perfection. Listen to a really good cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, number four, this is the biggest one that has made a huge difference in my life.

17:03Every time you lose motivation, here are the three people you need in your life. You need one person to call when you fall off. That's the person you complain to, you vent to, you share your struggle with. You need one person to call who helps you get back on. You need that one person who's going to push you and challenge you. The first one person might be caring, the second one's going to challenge you. And then the third person you need is the person you do it with. Because guess what? When we want motivation, we have to make motivation social. If your motivation is only based on your own mind, it may let you down.

17:49But when your motivation is based on it being more social, competitive or collaborative, amazing things are possible. I have a friend where we defined our three values of our friendship as being fitness, fun and friendship, right? We wanted everything we did all year round to be based on fitness and fun. So we found being competitive and collaborative was a huge way of staying motivated towards our goals. So one person to call when you fall off, one person to call who gets you back on, and then one person to actually do the activity with. These are the three most important people in your motivation circle.

18:29Think about it right now. Who's the person that you call when things are not going right? Who's the person that you call that you know is going to tell you the truth, even if you don't want to hear it? That person's really important. Often we think the person that's important is just the person who's going to tell us what we want to hear. The person who tells you what you need to hear is as important, if not more important, than the person who tells you what you want to hear. And then the person who doesn't just hear you out, but actually says, yeah, let's do it. Let's get on with it. Let's build.

19:04Those are the three key people. Remember, if you're losing motivation, make it more social, make it more competitive, or make it more collaborative. Competition and collaboration are brilliant ways to get motivated. Gamify it, right? Set a number. If you and your friends are collaborating about how many workouts can we go to together this week, that's where you grab motivation. A lot of us try and solve motivation as an individual thing. Motivation is so much more of a collective thing, I promise you. Tip number five. This actually transformed my life. Listen to this carefully. The most important thing is how you feel after you do something.

19:51We overvalue what we feel before something and we undervalue what we feel after something. I'll give you an example. If I don't feel like working out before a workout, I will overvalue that and listen to it. But if I feel good after a workout, I will undervalue that and just move on. We have to shift that narrative. When something goes well, when you complete something, not only do you want that green tick, you want to write about it, you want to talk about it, you want to share it, right? Make a big deal about it. Be louder about your wins. Because we've all experienced this. When we lose, we cry for a month.

20:35But when we win, we celebrate for a day. Right? How many times have you realized this? Right? Let me say that again. When we lose, we cry for a month. Right? If something goes wrong, we'll complain for a month. We'll, you know, criticize for a month. We'll compare for a month. But when something goes right, we go, Ah, yeah, I went to the gym three times this week. No big deal. Right? We keep saying no big deal, but it is a big deal. Make a big deal out of it. I'll tell you why. This isn't about ego. This isn't about pride. The reason to make a big deal about your wins and completion is you are convincing your brain of this new narrative that I really like this.

21:14This is really good for me. It makes me feel good. And in our modesty or our false humility, we make it out like it's no big deal, which means our brain goes, yeah, well, working out, no big deal. But guess what? Eating that type of ice cream feels really, really good. So reward yourself. Find a way to reward yourself. And one of the best ways of rewarding yourself is telling someone who cares about you this amazing achievement you made this week. A reward isn't a physical thing. It's not a food. It's actually sharing how you won, what you did expressing how you broke through it because that gives you more motivation.

21:54In fact a recent study found that immediate rewards you give yourself especially in the first stages of changing your behavior while it's becoming a habit can boost intrinsic motivation more than delayed rewards. In the study when people were asked to complete a task there was a 20 % increase in motivation amongst those participants who received an immediate bonus compared to those who receive nothing. And that is why it's so important that as soon as you finish an activity that you're proud of, something you were struggling to do, call someone up, tell them about it. It's not about ego. It's not about showing off.

22:29It's not about pride. It's about convincing and reframing your cognitive ability to see it as a positive, to see it as powerful. Step number six. One of the ways for me, one of the reasons why I lose motivation sometimes is because I feel like I'm not achieving anything. It's almost like I did the laundry, I did the groceries, I did the dishes, I got lots of stuff done, but I didn't do the one thing I wanted to do. I uncovered this a few years ago and it totally, totally transformed my life. I call it effective versus efficient days. Certain days in my life are efficient. It means I got lots of stuff done, lots of small things, the groceries, the dishes, my accounting, right, whatever it is, all the stuff, all the efficiency stuff.

23:19And then there are some days that are effective, where I maybe only got one thing done, or an effective week, where I only achieve one thing, but it's really big for me. And sometimes what I find is we end up filling our life with lots of efficient days, but we don't have many effective weeks or months. And it's the effective weeks that make us feel motivated, right? You have a big breakthrough. You have a creative outburst. You have an expression that brings you to life. I want you to plan to have an effective day or an effective week where you're focused on the hardest thing, the most important thing, the thing that you keep putting off, right?

23:56I have a friend who's always putting off the hard stuff and keeps focusing on the easy stuff, but it's the hard stuff that's going to bring motivation. And in order to do this, you have to sign a contract with yourself. Signing a contract with yourself is a brilliant way to make yourself feel committed, right? It's the act of commitment, the act of intention. In Sanskrit, it's called sankalpa, S-A-N-K-A-L-P-A, that there has to be a contract, a commitment with oneself, an intention with oneself. When we're serious about something, we have a contract. When we're not serious about something, we don't have a contract.

24:38Keeping a contract to yourself, a commitment to yourself is a really powerful step. Now this next one's huge because I find that a lot of our wellness habits are connected to this one. So if you had working out, changing your food patterns connected to what you want to stay motivated around. I was looking at the top five New Year's resolutions, improving fitness, improving finances, improving mental health, losing weight, and improving diet. I'm going to share with you one that affects all of those. There's one habit that affects every single one of those. Can you guess what it is? Sleep. A recent study shows that a reduction in sleep of 33 % led to increased hunger and food cravings the next day in study participants.

25:33The researchers suggested that sleep deprivation activates food-related reward regions in the brain, leading to more hunger. Lack of sleep can cause an increase in the production of the hunger hormone and a decrease in the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin. So, so much of our fitness and our wellness is based on the quality of our sleep. So if you're trying to say, Jay, you know, I'm struggling with motivation. I don't know how to find it again. Where do I start? Start with your sleep. Getting quality sleep will naturally, positively impact every other habit. Your workouts, you'll have more energy.

26:11Your foods, you'll have the right amount of craving. Your mental health, of course, will greatly improve through quality sleep. Sleep is the one to start with. If you've been struggling for motivation, start with changing your sleep. A lot of us are trying to change everything else, right? We're trying to change all the harder stuff, which if sleep doesn't shift as a foundation, it's much harder. I'm not saying it's not possible. It can just be a lot harder. And I wanna end with this last scientifically proven method to boost your motivation, especially when it's hard, is a lot of us feel like we have to work out for an hour a day.

26:46We have to meditate for 20 minutes twice a day. We have to journal for half an hour a day. And all of a sudden, you're looking at a morning routine of three hours. Now, majority of us can't do that, right? That's just not realistic. It's not possible for most of us. So I want to give you a 20-minute routine. 10-7-3. 10-minute workout, 7-minute meditation, 3-minutes journaling. 10-7-3. 10 minutes workout, 7 minute meditation, 3 minutes of journaling. Studies show, and I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Jay, a 10 minute workout is going to do nothing. What am I going to achieve in a 10 minute workout, 7 minute meditation, 3 minutes journal?

27:29Well, listen to this. Studies show that exercising for just 10 minutes can boost your physical fitness, energy, and mood. In fact, there's a lot of research to suggest short workouts. A recent study found that taking an 11-minute daily walk can reduce your risk of disease and early death. Another recent study showed that exercise snacks, short bouts of exercise, not things you can eat by the way, exercise snacks as in a break or a snack of an exercise, can be an effective way to boost your fitness level. One study showed that a 10-minute burst of activity can boost your brain power, and another study found that those who exercise for 10 minutes with one minute of high-intensity intervals saw the same improvement in insulin sensitivity and other markers of cardiometabolic health as those who exercised at a moderate pace for 45 minutes straight.