Reigniting Your Motivation in Your Health Journey

In this episode of Isn't She Powerful, we’re talking about something every single person experiences in their health journey at some point: losing motivation.

This episode was inspired by a message from one of my clients inside our group chat who opened up about struggling to stay motivated lately and honestly, it sparked such an important conversation.

Because the truth is: motivation is not something you “find” once and keep forever.

There will be seasons where you feel excited, energized, and ready to give 100%. And there will also be seasons where you feel tired, discouraged, bored, frustrated, or disconnected from your goals. That doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re human.

In this episode, I’m helping you understand why your motivation may have disappeared in the first place, how to stop relying on motivation to stay consistent, and the mindset shifts that actually help you rebuild momentum in a sustainable way.

We talk about the exhaustion that comes from years of yo-yo dieting, how too many food rules can make healthy habits feel miserable, and why not seeing immediate progress can make you want to quit. I also walk you through practical steps to simplify your focus, reconnect with your “why,” and create specific daily goals that help you move forward without falling into all-or-nothing thinking.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, unmotivated, or tempted to give up on your goals, this episode will help you reset your mindset and take your next step forward.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why motivation naturally comes and goes
• Common reasons people lose motivation in their health journey
• The mental exhaustion of yo-yo dieting
• How too many rules can make healthy habits unsustainable
• What to do when you aren’t seeing progress
• Why motivation is just an emotion, not a requirement
• Reflecting on your deeper “why”
• How to identify the habits that actually move the needle
• Creating specific daily goals for consistency
• Letting go of all-or-nothing thinking
• Learning to speak to yourself with more compassion

If this episode resonates with you, share it with a friend who you know would benefit from listening! 

And if you haven’t already, be sure to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode designed to help you build a healthy lifestyle that actually fits your life.

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WORK WITH ME: 

• Seismic Shift: Group Health Coaching (code POWERFUL for 10% off)
• 1:1 Coaching

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💌 Connect With Laura:

1. Website: Health Coach for Teachers & Busy, Working Women
2. Instagram: LAURA B. | Teacher turned Health Coach | Podcaster🎙️ (@laura.b.healthy) • Instagram photos and videos
3. TikTok: Laura B. | Health Coach (@laura.b.healthy) | TikTok

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Topics covered in the episode: motivation, healthy habits, mindset shifts, consistency, yo-yo dieting, all-or-nothing thinking, sustainable weight loss, wellness journey, self discipline, health journey, food rules, healthy lifestyle, habit building, mindset, self compassion

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Isn't She Powerful Podcast. In this episode, we are going to be talking about motivation and how to make your motivation last slash what to do whenever it's gone away, because the reality is you're gonna lose motivation at times. And we're gonna get into all of that. I got the inspiration for this episode from a client conversation. She sent a message into our group chat and she was like, I'm kind of feeling like I've fallen off the wagon and lost my motivation a bit. And so I sent her back a long voice message explaining what's happening, what to do about it. And I want to share just a little bit of that with you guys in this episode. The truth is, your motivation is going to go away. The thing about motivation is it is an emotion. It is not a state of being, it's not a personality trait, it is an emotion, just like happiness and sadness and anger and frustration and every other emotion that you have ever felt, they go away eventually. You feel them, you might feel them really deeply and really strong for a little while, and then they go away. You're gonna feel sad at times, you're gonna feel happy, you're gonna feel all of these emotions, and you might revisit that emotion, but it's not a permanent state of being. And the same thing is true about motivation. It is not a permanent state of being. You're not always going to feel excited about this health journey. You're not always going to feel like you're like a go-getter, and yes, I can't wait to get up and do my workout. Yes, I can't wait to go do my meal prep and eat my healthy foods. Like you're not always going to feel that. And so that is the number one thing that you have to understand whenever it comes to getting motivation in your health journey and maintaining it is understanding that there is no use in trying to maintain it because it's going to go away. And so we need to know what to do whenever it does go away. How do we handle that? How do we navigate getting back on trackslash staying on track whenever that motivation has disappeared? So, with all of that being said, let's get into this episode about motivation. Welcome to the Isn't You Powerful Podcast. I'm your host, Laura B, health coach, educator, and founder of the Be Healthy Lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

I'm here to bring you all of the health education and motivation so that you can sign off each week feeling equipped and empowered to tackle all of your health goals. Come along with me as I teach you the basics of healthy living so that you can keep everyone in your life safe. Isn't she powerful?

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Is understanding why it went away in the first place. Where did it go? Why did you lose the motivation? Was it because you were bored by the process? Maybe your goals aren't challenging you enough. Maybe none of this is exciting. You're eating really boring meals and you're doing boring workouts and you're not doing anything that feels very exciting to you. Maybe you're bored. Maybe you're tired of the yo-yo. You're tired of being all in or all out, and you just want to feel normal. You don't want to constantly be obsessing over food and constantly be thinking about this rule and what you should be doing and how you're you have to be perfect this day, and you can't be perfect, so you might as well give up on it. That is all consuming in your head. And so maybe that's why you've lost the motivation, is because you're tired of being consumed by those thoughts. Maybe it's that the diets that you're following have too many rules. There's too many things that you can't do, too many things that you have to do. It's a lot to keep up with, it feels really overwhelming. None of it feels good to you, and so you're just like, screw it, I'm not going to even try to do this anymore. It's too hard. Or this is the one that I see most commonly. And the reason that I lose motivation at times as well is because you're not seeing progress. You aren't seeing the scale change, you aren't seeing changes in the way that your clothes are fitting. And so you're like, what is the point? Why am I even doing this? And you lose the motivation to continue going. The problem is, is we lose motivation really quickly, especially if you've been on diet after diet after diet, and you maybe have seen progress and then gained it back, seen progress and gained it back. Or maybe you have tried this diet and it didn't work, tried this diet and it didn't work, tried this diet and it didn't work. And every time you start that cycle over again with a new diet that doesn't work, you are speeding up the process to you getting to the point of it not working, of you giving up on it. Because you keep building the belief within yourself that it's not gonna work for you, that it's impossible for you to have this life where you have a healthy relationship with food, you eat healthy consistently, you have healthy habits that you can maintain. It's impossible for you to live that life. That's the story that you build up inside of you every single time you start a diet and then don't follow through on it. And we keep getting to that point faster and faster and faster every single time we start a new diet. And so you losing motivation happens really quickly. You lose motivation within a week. You don't see the scale go down within three days. You're like, why am I starving myself? I might as well give up on this. It's not working. So we are following diets that are kind of ridiculous. They make us feel like we can only eat 900 calories a day or something absolutely insane. And we have these limiting beliefs that keep holding us back and keep us stuck with where we are right now. And so it's really hard for us to not lose that motivation. It has become a part of the process for you. It's become ingrained in who you are. It has become something that it just happens for you naturally because it's happened so many times in the past. It's just a part of the process and the loop and the cycle that you are in when it comes to your healthy lifestyle. So that's the first thing we need to do is we need to understand why we lose the motivation in the first place. What's my root cause of no longer having the motivation to be consistent with this? And that's whenever we can start making plans to move forward. Raise your hand if you're a details person. You need to know every single detail before making a decision because personally I'm that person. I need to know who, what, when, where, and especially why before I make any type of decision. So if you've heard of my group coaching program and you've been thinking, sounds great, but I'm gonna need a little more detail before I can make a decision, then let me break it down for you. The number one thing that I hear as positive feedback for Seismic Shift is that it takes away the guesswork when it comes to health and wellness. Every single week you are given specific goals for nutrition, exercise, and water. The goals come in two versions, starter and advanced, so that they meet you exactly where you are, depending on where you are in your journey, but you don't get overwhelmed or lost. These goals have been designed by me, someone who's certified in habit change, to help you build a new lifestyle. They are intentionally small, realistic, and designed to fit your actual life. Over time, they build into real, lasting change, a healthy lifestyle that you're proud of. Inside of Seismic Shift, you also get access to a library of healthy recipes: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and side dishes. And I've created them as an integrative nutrition health coach to be intentionally well balanced. They have the proper amounts of protein, fat, and fiber so that you don't have to guess or try to figure anything out. They are already well balanced for you. Once again, it takes the guesswork away. On top of all of that, we also have two live components to the program: live group coaching calls with me every single week, where we dive into mindset and nutrition and habit building, plus a daily group chat where you get to share your wins, your frustrations, your struggles, your challenges, every single thing that's coming up for you. You get it solved in the moment rather than having to wait to talk to someone later. So you're not doing this alone and you're not guessing at it anymore, just throwing things against the wall, hoping that it sticks. And if that sounds like exactly what you've been missing in your health and wellness journey, you can join me right now at Behealthyhabits.com slash seismic dash shift, or simply visit the link down in the show notes. Again, that's Behealthyhabits.com slash seismic dash shift, or head down to the link in the show notes and find us there. And podcast listeners get 10% off for life by using the code Powerful. So use the code POWERFUL at checkout to get 10% off for life. I can't wait to see you inside of Seismic Shift. The first thing that I want you to do is fall back onto why you started this journey in the first place. What got you to want to start a health journey, to start losing weight, or start going to the gym, or start eating healthy meals? Why did you want to do that? Was it a specific moment? Was it when you were climbing up the stairs, walking next to one of your friends, and they were just fine and you were breathing heavy and you were embarrassed? So that's why you started this entire journey. Was it the time that your grandkids asked you to get on the floor with them and play and you weren't able to get back up without leaning on the couch and forcing your body back up off the ground and you didn't like that feeling, so you decided you wanted to do something about it? Was it when you were packing for vacation and all of the clothes that you kept putting on, they just didn't feel right? They were stuffy in the arms or stuffy in the belly, they didn't quite button just the way that you wanted them to. Why did you start this journey? What was the moment that led you to say, I want to do something different? I don't want to feel this way anymore. I want you to lean on that exact moment, that particular moment in time, I want you to lean back on that. And if you are having something that's come to mind right now, I encourage you to write it down on a sticky note. Write it down in the notes app of your phone, put it as the background of your phone, why you are doing this. Lean back on that because every single time that you start to be like, this isn't worth it, this is too hard, I don't like this, I don't, I don't want to do this anymore. I want you to come back to that. Revisit why you started this in the first place. That's a strong motivator. It motivated you the first time, it can motivate you again the next time if you remember it and you lean back on it. So remember what your why is. Why did you start this? And I don't want you to say, oh, I'm doing this because I want to see a certain number on the scale. You're probably not that motivated by the number on the scale. If you were, then you probably wouldn't be doing any of this anyway. You wouldn't be stuck with this lack of motivation, motivation, lack of motivation, motivation, this juggling act of always missing the motivation or having so much motivation. It's more than that. I want you to think about why do you want that scale number to go down? What's the deeper reason? Go beyond, like below the surface of that number and make it mean something deeper. Because the scale at the end of the day, you can just be like, you know, I yeah, right now I really want a burger and who cares if the scale is gonna go up tomorrow, I want the burger. The burger feels more important than the number on the scale sometimes. So instead, ask yourself, what is my deeper reason? Because if you say, Well, I really want to be able to go on my vacation and feel so good in my clothes, or I really want to be able to get up off the floor or climb the stairs or whatever it may be without feeling a certain type of way or with feeling a certain type of way, then it's going to be a much stronger motivator for you. Now, the next thing that I want you to do, once you've determined that why, once you've also figured out why this is happening to you, and once you've accepted the fact that motivation will go away, and we have to learn to navigate life without motivation sometimes. The next thing that I want you to do is make a list of the things that you feel like you should be doing. Maybe it be you need to be eating more vegetables, you need to be getting in more protein, drinking more water, going on walks, waking up earlier, whatever those things are that you're like, I feel like these are the things that would help move the needle forward for me in this journey. And let me give a little caveat here. If you're somebody who's like, I have no idea what would be the thing that would help move me along in this journey, that's why people hire me as a coach. It's why you work with me to help you understand what are the things that you should be doing. In my group coaching program, I lay it all out for you. Here's what I want you doing week one, week two, week three. I lay it all out for you so that there is no guesswork. There is no questioning, should I be doing this? Is this actually going to help me? Is this really what's gonna move the needle forward? Because that's also another reason why sometimes we lose motivation, is we feel like I don't even know if this is really gonna work in the end. Why would I waste my time doing it? So we just give up on it altogether. So Seismic Shift is my group coaching program and it really helps you with that. And I also do one-on-one coaching if that is something that more aligns with you. You can go down into the show notes, and all of the information for both my group coaching program and one-on-one coaching is down in the show notes. But I want you to make a list of all of the things that you feel like you should or should not be doing in your health journey. And I want you to put a little asterisk beside the one that you feel like is going to move the needle furthest. What is the most important thing here? Is it that you need to be eating more vegetables or protein? Is it that you need to be getting into the gym and doing some weightlifting? What's the thing that's going to move the needle most for you? And that's where I want you to start. Once you've determined the thing that's going to move the needle most, the next thing I want you to do is set a super specific goal for that thing. So rather than saying, oh, I know I need to be going to the gym more. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna start going to the gym more. I want you to make it more specific than that because what is more? More is just like one time a month right now, right? Like you're not going at all. So if you went one time a month, you'd be going more. But is that really gonna help you achieve your goals in the timeline that you want to achieve your goals? Probably not. So I want you to set super specific goals. I'm going to go to the gym three times a week. I'm gonna go to this class at this time, and that's how I'm going to get to the gym three times a week. I want you to set really specific goals for yourself like that, because the idea here is that you'll be able to lay down your head on your pillow at night and you'll be able to say, Yes, I did this thing. I went to the gym three times this week, mission accomplished. I did what I said I was gonna do, or you'll be able to lay your head on the pillow and say, I didn't go to the gym three times this week. Why not? And rather than beating yourself up about it and approaching yourself from a really judgmental standpoint, I want you to approach yourself from a place of curiosity. Why wasn't I able to stick with this? Why wasn't I able to get to the gym? What were my obstacles? And how can I make a plan for those obstacles next week so that I can get to the gym three times next week? Because at the end of the day, if that is the thing that you feel is gonna move the needle forward for you, you need to keep finding ways to make it work for you to do that thing. And then finally, you have to shift that mindset. You have to get rid of that all or nothing. I'm all in or I'm all out. I'm either perfect or there's no point in doing this. We have to release the all or nothing cycle that so many of us are living in. And again, this is a huge thing that I help my clients do. Through these conversations that I was telling you about, the whole reason why this episode exists is because one of my clients said, Hey, I'm losing the motivation. And so we talked back and forth through it. I added it to our weekly call for the next day. And all of those conversations are helping her release that all or nothing mindset. It's one thing to do it on your own. It's possible to do it on your own. I did it on my own. I didn't have a coach helping me through any of this, but it took me a long time. It literally took me three years to get rid of that all or nothing mindset versus the women that I work with. It takes them three to six months to get rid of that all or nothing mindset. So I encourage you to get help with this part of it. Find somebody that can help you be an accountability partner, help you talk through these things. Hello, I would love to be that person for you. But if it's not me, then find somebody that you can trust that will help you to get rid of this all or nothing mindset. And on that same note is speaking unkind things to yourself. It goes along with what I was just saying. You miss a day at the gym, and instead of beating yourself up about it, you just say, okay, what was the problem? Why couldn't I make it to the gym in the time frame that I said I was gonna get to the gym? So I really want you to practice speaking more kindly to yourself. Practice approaching yourself from a place of curiosity rather than a place of judgment. So, like I said, the truth is motivation is going to go away. You need to have a plan in place for what happens when that motivation is gone. How are you gonna continue showing up for yourself? Through really simple, really specific goals. That is the number one thing that you need to do is make sure that your goals, you know exactly what it is you're trying to achieve. It's really simple things that you can achieve. It doesn't take a lot of extra effort, it doesn't take a lot from you. You just show up and you do this thing and then your mission accomplished. Like my goals for you are not eat this amount of vegetables and this amount of protein and this amount of carbs and go to the gym this amount of times and drink this amount of water. That's a lot. So just keep it super simple. Make it very realistic for yourself. You are going to get motivation primarily from seeing yourself win. When we start to succeed, the motivation happens. The truth is, is motivation is a byproduct of our success, not the other way around. We think we need to be motivated in order to seek success. I need to feel like going to the gym so that I can see the scale go down. I need to feel like getting into the kitchen so that I can see the scale go down. And instead, what it needs to be is I'm going to get into the kitchen so that I can see the scale go down, and then I'll feel like doing it more because I'm seeing the wins. I'm seeing my body change. I'm feeling different in my clothes. I have more energy. I'm feeling really like I can get up and do things way more often than I was able to get up and do things before. Once you start seeing that success, the motivation is a byproduct of that. But we have to move ourselves forward without that motivation first. Live in that state of discomfort so that you can see the wins so that then you feel the motivation to continue going forward. Now, with all of that being said, once again, if you would like help with this, I would love so much to get to work with you through my group coaching program, Seismic Shift, or through my one-on-one coaching program. All of the information for both of those things is down in the show notes below. You can check it out. You can also send me a message on Instagram at any time. I am more than happy to chat with you, make sure it's the right fit for you, and help you understand more about the program if you have any questions. With that being said, I look forward to seeing you again in the next episode. Thank you so much for being here. I love the podcast and I love every single one of you who listens to the show. I cannot wait to see you again next week. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see you again next week. And always remember the more you know, the more you grow.