Are Change and Motivation Really a Merry-Go-Round?

Source: Photo by Samuel Scrimshaw on Unsplash

It’s no secret that change is inherently difficult, complex, and often resisted. Making even necessary changes can be hard. This is because, in human evolution, we have come to view change as a threat to our desire to maintain homeostasis. Change involves disruption–it aligns itself with our fear of all things unknown. Change can be paralyzing, especially for those struggling with addiction or substance use disorder, where an individual can experience physiological struggles related to dependency or withdrawal that further complicate moving towards change.

Then, there’s the issue of motivation. Once a person decides a change is needed, can they stay motivated even when change feels like an uphill battle? While the precursor to change is motivation, it comes in a variety of forms, including intrinsic motivation (an internal determination) and extrinsic motivation (from an outside factor). Both types of motivation can be driven by positive or negative circumstances. For example, getting married is an exciting time for couples and they’re often positively motivated by starting their lives together, whereas getting arrested for a DUI may be the negative kick in the pants someone needs to seek sobriety.

While the initial motivation may be the catalyst for change, how do we maintain motivation long-term?

In a world overflowing with distractions, procrastination, and ebbs and flows, staying motivated can be challenging. Whether you’re trying to kickstart a new routine, tackle a complex project at work, take the first step on the long road to recovery, or simply get out of bed in the morning, finding the motivation to act can be challenging.

The Relationship Between Change and Motivation

The Stages of Change: Porchaska and DiClemente

In 1983, Prochaska and DiClemente introduced the stages of change model as a framework, largely based on the Transtheoretical Model, to describe the five steps through which people progress during behavior change, particularly when it is health related. In this model, the five steps include precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. These steps make up the “wheel of change,” which relies on an individual’s intrinsic motivation.

This model has been widely adopted across the health industry as well as taught in colleges and graduate schools everywhere. It is considered by many to be the backbone of understanding readiness for change. By understanding the stages of change and recognizing that people can be at any stage at any time, it’s hypothesized that treatment providers can address the related characteristics of each phase using the principles of motivational interviewing and motivational enhancement.

What many do not know is that Prochaska and DiClemente originally hypothesized that individuals progress linearly through the stages of change versus cyclically or in a “spiral” pattern. Thus, researchers disagreed with their initial hypothesis, and the merry-go-round or change wheel made history. While there was disagreement about the model, it made sense, considering that not everyone sees the change process through the same lens.

Operant Conditioning: B.F. Skinner

Long before we realized the complexity of change and the intricacies of motivation, behaviorist B.F. Skinner developed the theory of operant conditioning, or what I refer to as “behavior ABCs.” An Antecedent triggers a Behavior that results in a Consequence. Using the example from the beginning of this article, the individual had a number of alcoholic drinks (antecedent), which drove intoxicated (behavior), and they got arrested (consequence). In turn, getting arrested (antecedent) brought about choosing sobriety (behavior), resulting in any number of positive consequences.

What Positive Motivation Looks Like

Positive motivation is when a person wants to pursue a certain outcome to earn a reward. Rewards are positive consequences: they feel good. The brain’s reward system, which is central to learning and motivation, releases dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin, which are experienced throughout the body as pleasure and satisfaction. Have you ever written a task on a sticky note that you already completed so that you could cross it off immediately and feel that sense of accomplishment with one swift flick of the pen? That’s dopamine saying, “You are awesome.” Each experience of positive motivation reinforces a person’s ability to change and meet new goals. This gradually increases self-efficacy and motivation to continue towards long-lasting, even permanent change.

How Change and Motivation Evolve Over Time

Change remains hard at times. Our tendency to think of change as binary can sabotage our efforts to stay the course. We offer choices to our children to help them understand consequential thinking: if you do A (continue to leave your dirty clothes on the floor), you can expect B (no video game time), but if you do C (put your clothes in the hamper when you take them off), then you can expect D (time for video games). There may be a few days when little Johnny forgets to pick up, and no video games is the result. Black or white. One or zero. It is easy for children to learn in this way but as adults, we often continue to treat ourselves in the same way.

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When we slip, lapse, relapse, or cheat, we become discouraged, we say we cannot be successful, cannot change, or even call ourselves failures. This is demotivation at its best. Punishment is entirely ineffective, and punishing ourselves is self-sabotage. Instead, brush yourself off, recognize that there is no such thing as perfection, and get back on the horse. Like any habit, consistency is crucial. We must allow ourselves permission to be less than perfect. Over time, we will find that our ability to motivate ourselves more easily, take action, overlook setbacks, and remain on the journey comes with less hesitation and/or influence from external factors–whether trying to stop an addiction, get healthier, be on time, or any other behavior change.

Getting Started: Choosing Change and Getting Motivated

There’s no better time to make that change you’ve thought about than right now. To get started, I suggest to:

• Start small: Recognize and reward incremental milestones. It is indeed true that Rome was not built in a day.
• Embrace repetition: Repeat achievable actions day after day, week after week.
• Identify healthy rewards for healthy actions.
• Be kind and give yourself grace: Few, if any, get it 100% right on the first try. Perfection is suspect after all.
• Find and stay close to your biggest cheerleaders; those who champion you will champion your successes.

As much as we want to predict exactly how making a change will go, the journey is unpredictable. Not everyone goes through change in a prescribed order, it takes countless forms. The lesson here is that you and I and everyone else will experience change differently–and none of us are wrong. Change ebbs and flows, mirroring our own realities. The relationship between change and motivation is complex. The most significant variable is that we are all unique, so our journey to change will also be unique. But with the right approach and support, we are capable of making lasting change.