Now that you have your eyes on a goal, let’s build motivation to get to that goal. Motivation is what inspires people to give their best effort to satisfy a need, a desire, a wish, and drives them to do what needs to be done. Building motivation is considered one of the best tools to achieve a goal. Motivation is helped by reward.

Earlier in the process, you have identified helpers and obstacles to reaching your goal. Helpers are a great source of motivation. You should use them to your advantage. You also identified things that may hinder your progress towards a healthy lifestyle. One of the best ways to get through these barriers is to get motivated and come up with a plan to overcome these obstacles.

Get Motivated

To get motivated, you will need to have or build the three following components:

  • INTEREST: This relates to the importance that you give to the activity you want to start. This website should help you to focus on your interests or develop new ones. Doing interesting things helps you “flow” which builds positive energy that you could later invest in other things.
  • ENERGY: This is the investment you have to put in to accomplish an activity. Consciously or unconsciously, you weigh the costs against the benefits you expect. You hope it will be worth the effort. Some activities have proven evidence that they are indeed worth the energy investment and these are highlighted throughout this website in Research Evidence Boxes. Read these carefully for a wise investment.
  • GOALS: A goal is something you want to achieve. They are essential parts of making wise and useful choices and following through on those choices. Goals also play an important role in getting you motivated. Click here to check more about how to set SMART goals.

When interest, energy investment and goals are present, it is easier to imagine that the activity will be enjoyable. This is part of the motivation. Motivation gets the job done, which in itself is satisfying and helps you keep up the activity. When the goal is to adopt healthy behaviour, the process may be difficult as the reward or enjoyment is not immediate and often a long time is needed before it is seen. That is why you need to set both short- and long-term SMART goals, so that, bit by bit, you gain satisfaction.

Let’s start getting motivated!

HOW AM I DOING?

Ask yourself whether you are a motivated person. Try to think of activities you feel highly motivated to do, and others you don’t. What is the difference?

There are 7 types of motivations. Here they are with examples of how they may apply to kidney transplant recipients trying to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Think about which ones may work for you.

Achievement Motivation

Steve has always been a slow walker. His daughter is organizing a 5km walk fundraiser for the school and he really wants to take part in it. He has six weeks to prepare for it. He fixed himself specific goals for every week to make sure he will be capable of doing it. Every time he reaches a weekly goal, he feels closer to his big final goal.

  • Work for me?

  • A lot
  • A little bit
  • Not at all

Affiliation Motivation

Since she started going to social support group meetings, Carole found out almost everyone in her group is doing more than she is, even people who were older. A lot of the discussion at the meeting is about physical activity. Carole decided to start going to the gym to develop more strength and endurance and also to be part of the conversation.

  • Work for me?

  • A lot
  • A little bit
  • Not at all

Competence Motivation

Jim enjoys learning new skills and being the best he can. Since he was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, he has become more interested in how to improve his eating habits to adapt to his new reality. He started reading books and specific nutrition materials for people with chronic kidney disease and exchanging recipes with other patients and dietitians.

  • Work for me?

  • A lot
  • A little bit
  • Not at all

Power Motivation

Peter is in law school and really wants to work in a high-class law firm later. He focuses on his studies now and never misses a class or an assignment.

  • Work for me?

  • A lot
  • A little bit
  • Not at all

Attitude Motivation

On days he eats well and does exercise, Adam feels better about himself. Now he is motivated to do this more often.

  • Work for me?

  • A lot
  • A little bit
  • Not at all

Incentive Motivation

Rita wants to stop smoking. To support her, her husband offered to take her out to her favorite restaurant every Friday night provided she had not smoked at all that week.

  • Work for me?

  • A lot
  • A little bit
  • Not at all

Fear Motivation

Sandra underwent hemodialysis for years until the day she received the news of her transplant. During all this time and also after the transplant she was informed several times about the possibility of rejection. She feared losing her new kidney, so she decided to do everything she could to take care of her new organ. She knew that taking the medication correctly was very important, so she started setting the alarm on her phone to remind her to take the medications. She also made an agenda with all medications she needed to take and fixed it on the fridge.

  • Work for me?

  • A lot
  • A little bit
  • Not at all

Make a motivation plan!

Now that you know more about ways to get motivated, take note of the strategies you would like to try for yourself. Make a motivation plan!

Show me the money!

Most people are rewarded by incentives. The most powerful incentive is money, so why not pay yourself. Here is how Samantha and Robert decided to reward themselves for all their hard work.

Samantha set a goal to improve her eating habits and increase her daily physical activity. So, her aim was to substitute a fruit or a vegetable for chips and cookies. To motivate herself, she decided to put $1 into her reward jar every time she chose a healthy snack over an empty snack. She also made an exercise calendar (check this topic here), and every day that she completed the activity that was planned, she also put a dollar into her reward jar.

After a week of her reward system, she found that she became more motivated/active and wanted to see how much money she could “earn” by doing things that ultimately were good for her anyway. She plans to reward herself and her twins with ballet tickets. She estimates that fifteen weeks will give her and a friend tickets to watch the ballet section. Samantha has now done five weeks of changing eating habits and being active, and she has accumulated forty-six dollars and she is hopeful about meeting his target.

Robert decided to improve his physical fitness and used the “Goals setting section” to achieve his goal. Robert heard about the Canadian Transplant Games from a friend and decided to take part in it to celebrate his second chance at life and improve his fitness. He set a goal to practice for the Games. He decided that he wanted to participate by playing tennis. He invited his brother Steve to play with him 3 times a week. They started with a 30-min game and slowly progressed to 1 hour until the week before the Games. Every week he achieved his goal he felt closer to his big final goal (to compete as tennis player at the Canadian Transplant Games).

Research evidence shows

In two recent studies, individuals with chronic kidney disease told researchers that what motivated them for exercise were family support, goal setting, tailored exercise programs, educational support from healthcare professionals and the accessibility of local facilities. Helpers are a great source of motivation. Check more about it on “Helpers and obstacles”.