de-influencing your motivation

Winter sun magic

A few weeks back I was sitting at our little beachside café, chatting with my friend who’s training for a marathon.

We’d just been for a run with our group and were enjoying a post-exercise caffeine hit.

As the winter sun rose over the Pacific, my friend was telling me about what a slog her training has been, battling blisters, colds, and boredom.

I nodded in sympathy – marathon training is no joke - then asked her out of curiosity -

What made you want to run a marathon?

And the first thing she said was – I’ve got a friend who ran one. And I thought if she can do it with young kids, then I can too.

Now, I’m all for doing hard things. I’m all for taking on challenges that stretch your comfort zones.

And I get the power of social support for behaviour change. Having supportive people in your corner – or a role model who inspires you - can be a gamechanger.

But I’m also all about the reasons why.

And if behaviour change is motivated by a sense of ‘if you can then I can’, then it makes me wonder how sustainable it’s going to be.

Now, my friend is not alone in pursuing a goal because someone else is doing it. I suspect that the running explosion over recent years is because of friendly peer pressure.

And I’ve definitely done this myself.

When Jon and I met our freakishly fit and fabulously happy Farm Gym friends on our lap of Aussie a couple of years ago, I was hit with a massive dose of inferiority that motivated me to get fit again. Watching my friend bust out sets of five pull-ups spurred me into pursuing my own pull-up goal: back then I couldn’t do a single pull-up and I can now do five in a row.

So yes, a bit of ‘I’ll have what she’s having’ can be a powerful driver because it can motivate you to lift your game.

But when it comes to long-term change, having control over your choices, and acting in line with your own values, is key.

This conversation made me wonder -

How many of us are pursuing someone else’s goals?

So many midlife women I coach tell me they’re either all-in or off track when it comes to healthy habits.

And when I dig deeper — it’s usually because their motivation is hooked onto external things:

An event.

A deadline.

A challenge someone else made up.

And social media only adds fuel to the fire.

We’re constantly being influenced by what other people are doing. My feed is full of women running ultramarathons, breaking world records, doing impossible things that make my own little goal to run a sub-20-minute 5k look like a cakewalk.

It’s easy to lose touch with what’s actually important to you.

And it’s easy to dismiss your own growth when you see others running rings around your achievements.

All this creates a perfect storm for a boom-and-bust motivation cycle.

(Which is ideal for the marketers and influencers pushing their products and courses.)

That’s why I love the idea of de-influencing your motivation.

This is when you filter out the noise from your socials… reconnect with your own values… and build habits that align with the life you actually want to live.

Not what you think you should be doing.

Start by asking yourself:

What’s important to me about my future? 

And what’s an action I can take that honours that?

Because setting – and pursuing – goals that align with your values is how you achieve long-term change.