Flawthentic ME
Flawthentic ME
078: Motivation Myth & Gym Memberships - Your Guide to Consistency
Motivation is the last thing you need for building lasting habits; instead, identity work and environment design are the crucial elements that create genuine change.
• The gym membership example shows how motivation only gets you to sign up, but doesn't help you show up consistently
• Our brain loves automation and efficiency, making willpower an ineffective tool for habit building
• Knowledge without implementation is worthless – reading books or watching videos isn't enough
• Changing your identity to align with your desired habits is more powerful than waiting for motivation
• Environmental design matters more than willpower – make good habits easier and bad habits harder
• Paid programs work better than free resources because they provide accountability and guidance
• Embodiment – taking physical action on what you learn – creates lasting change
• Your mindset must change before your behaviors can transform consistently
Join my new 6-week program, The Flawthentic H.A.B.I.T.S. Lab, starting August 4th. We'll work on identity transformation, finding your why, science backed and guilt free habit building. It includes six months of accountability to ensure your habits stick. Reach out to me on Instagram @Sunny_Lamba to learn more about transforming your habits for good.
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Join the Flawthentic Me community of powerful women who are always there to celebrate you.. Join Group here!
Grab your Free 30-Day Self Love Calendar.
Let's connect:
Website: www.flawthenticme.com
Facebook
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Hello, my beautiful souls. In this episode of Flauthentic Me, I am going to talk about how motivation is not enough to bring change in life. Let's dive in. This is Flauthentic Me, a self-love podcast for South Asian women. A place where we celebrate self-love even when we feel imperfect or flawed. A safe space where you can be raw, real and authentic. And here's your host, self-love and mindset coach, sunny Lamba. This is Authentic Me and I'm your host, sunny Lamba.
Speaker 1:I recently did a workshop called Habits Mastery and one thing that everyone on the workshop said was I am not motivated enough, I am lazy, I'm not disciplined, I'm not consistent. And they kept telling me that it's the same habits that they have been struggling with from last 5 years, 10 years of their life, and everyone seems to believe that motivation is the one thing that they need. But the truth is that motivation is the last thing that you need. Before we get into the science of motivation and why it's the worst thing ever to rely on, I want to talk about my new mini program. It's called the Flauthentic Habits Lab. I'm calling it a lab because we are going to literally take each and every one of you in the program, your habits, and show you how you can experiment with your habits and do what works for you. Unfortunately, we live in a culture of blame and shame and we live in a culture of comparison, where we think that I should be doing everything that the social media influencer or the Instagram influencer I follow is doing. But the truth is, your habits have to be personal. What works for you might not work for them, and what works for them might not work for you. So it's a six weeks program. We start very, very soon, literally a week from today. If you're listening to this podcast later on, then, anyways, the date we start is on Monday, august 4th, in six weeks.
Speaker 1:I'm going to show you not what the whole world talks about when it comes to habits, but I'm going to help you see habits in a new light. I will show you that habits is all about your identity, your self-image, what you believe about yourself. So we're going to do the self-image work, because if you don't believe that you can do this or you are consistent, and if you don't believe that I am, do this or you are consistent. And if you don't believe that I am someone who exercises or I am someone who drinks water, or I am someone who eats healthy, then you're not going to do that. So you have to first change your identity in alignment with what you want to do. So we'll do that identity work and then we will get into finding your why. I'll give you scientific reasons why your habits are not working and then help you rewire that how your brain works. The reason every single one of us struggles with habits is because our brain loves efficiency and automation and we think that we can use sheer willpower to overcome that. And it doesn't work that way. So I'll be giving you tools for that and we will also work on embodiment.
Speaker 1:The best thing about this program is that you get six months of accountability. So once the program is over, it's a six weeks program. After that, for six months we will have a monthly call and you will be in accountability group so you can make those habits very solid and a second nature to you. So that's about the program, and now let's talk about our main topic, which is why motivation is the worst tool that we all rely on. We all wait To be motivated from within. I will do it when I feel motivated. I don't feel motivated enough to exercise right now. I can't wake up in the morning because I'm not motivated and I need to get this motivation from somewhere outside of me. But the truth is that motivation is a temporary feeling. It's never a precursor to long-term change.
Speaker 1:Why I'm saying that? There's a solid example. Let me share this example with you. If you look at the gym memberships, the gym membership skyrocket on January 1st. Why? Because everyone is very motivated. But come January 15th, how many people actually show up? Not even 50%. Probably 25%. Gym people already got the money but you didn't show up. Why? Because motivation was not going to push you through those consistent habits. Motivation only took you to the gym to sign up for membership. That's it. That's all motivation helped you with. But after that, to show up every single day of your life is where motivation is not going to work.
Speaker 1:What if motivation alone could make people consistent with their habits? Well then, we would all be masters of our habits because we can get motivation from all that scrolling that we do on Instagram or Facebook. There's tons of quotes and posts motivational which motivate you for that one second, half a second, until you swipe up and go to the next post. So if motivation alone could make you consistent, you would be a master at it, but what helps in really creating lifetime habits is your identity and your environment. Those are the two main tools. So your identity, that you have to believe that you are someone who can do this, and secondly, your environment. What I mean by environment is that if your phone is in front of you, you are going to pick it up and you are going to start scrolling, no matter how much motivation you have to not go on that doom scrolling. It's not going to work if the phone is right in front of you. Why? Because our brain loves automation, it loves efficiency and it likes to make as less decisions as possible.
Speaker 1:So when the phone is right in front of us, what do we do? The brain is like automatically pick it up, because last time when I was on the phone I had this dopamine hit Dopamine, which is the happy hormone, the reward hormone. I had this dopamine hit Dopamine, which is the happy hormone, the reward hormone. And when we are on the social media apps, we are constantly being hit by dopamine. So our brain remembers that reward. So the next time it sees the phone, you pick it up and you open the app. How many times I have picked my phone to message someone or to do something that is actually needs to be done important, necessary and the moment I unlock my phone, I forget what I was going to do and I by default go and open Instagram and I start looking and then, 20 minutes later I realize this is not what I picked up the phone for.
Speaker 1:So here we are, thinking that motivation and sheer willpower is going to help us overcome this, and we are going to just be masters just because we think that all we need is motivation. If motivation was the only thing, trust me, there would be motivation juices being sold right now. So I was talking to someone and she said that I can't join the Habits Lab program right now because I need to be at a place where I'm motivated enough to do the things that I learned in your free masterclass. So I recently did the free masterclass and she said first, I have to be at that place where I'm motivated enough to at least do those things that you taught me in the free masterclass. If you are not motivated until now, what makes you believe that you can do it all by yourself from here? If you could have done it, you would have done it by now.
Speaker 1:So what happens is we all sign up for these free workshops, these free masterclasses or the tons of resources that are available online, or we learn from Instagram University, and we think that we can implement this. But we can't, because if you would have implemented it just from watching a reel on Instagram or a TikTok video or signing up for a free workshop, you would have done it by now. The reason we don't do it is because when we are watching that free workshop or when we are watching that TikTok video or whatever, or a YouTube video, we are fully motivated at that time. But that motivation only lasts for next 10 seconds. But when you actually pay money for something and enroll into a program, you are coming into that with that your skin in the game. Now you're motivated because you've paid money and you're like, okay, I better show up because I paid money.
Speaker 1:And then, once you're in the program, you have someone who's holding your hand, who is your coach, who is there to help you implement, who's calling you out, who's holding you accountable. And that is what you need. You don't need just motivation, you need a coach who's going to ask you did you do the work that I gave you to do, and that's what I do in my programs. I am there to push you, pull you if needed and drag you. If that's all I have to do, if that's the last resort, I will drag you. I will even carry you if I have to.
Speaker 1:So remember knowledge is not equal to action, because if knowledge was only thing we needed, we would have implemented everything that we have learned from hours and hours of scrolling or from the books that you read. I have a book club and we read personal development books, and one thing I always say in the book club is that reading the book is not enough. Tell me what's the one thing you're going to implement from this chapter? Because otherwise you can read a book and highlight all you want, you're never going to go back and open that book and look at what you highlighted. So you have to embody it. And what does embody mean? Whatever you learn, you actually take action from with your body. You change it into action. That's embodiment, and that's what a program like habits lab would help you do.
Speaker 1:Another thing is that we think that if I go and sign up for gym membership, I will be motivated. The thing is that we all spend money on the how. What does a gym membership do? It gives you the how. It gives the answer to the how. How do I exercise? By joining some gym classes, or by having a space or the resources or access to the dumbbells and the machines and all. So it is the how. When you pay for a yoga class or when you pay for a nutrition program, all these programs teach you the how. What should you eat, how should you measure your foods, how much protein you need, how to do the yoga poses, all that, that is all the how. I'm not saying how is not important. All that, that is all the how. I'm not saying how is not important. But we don't realize that the how will not happen until we actually change our mindset, until we have the right mindset, and the mindset plays a bigger role than the how, because the how is figureoutable. Once you have the right mindset, you can turn on a YouTube video with yoga poses and figure it out how to do the pose.
Speaker 1:The reason we join classes is because we think we will be motivated, because there's other people there. But if you don't even go to the class, if you don't even wake up in the morning, if you don't even get in your car and go, drive yourself to that yoga class. Just having other people in that class is not going to motivate you enough. So you have to remember that it's the mindset that is going to help you get into, or step foot into, that gym, get into that yoga class. It's the mindset that's going to force you or not actually, force is not even the right word it's going to give you that inner motivation which is right inside you, to go and buy the nutritious foods. But if you don't have the mindset, you will never have that motivation. If you don't change your identity of someone who works out, someone who eats healthy, someone who preps their meals, someone who drinks water, someone who loves their body and takes care of their body, you will not do the work.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to building healthy habits or building successful habits, or building habits for wealth and success, we keep wishing that motivation will come and we keep relying on motivation and willpower. We don't realize that motivation or willpower are not the two tools that you need. They're actually the last thing. The first thing is to change your identity, change your mindset. We keep seeing this before and after pictures for fitness programs or nutrition programs and no matter how many before and after pictures you look at, your own before and after picture will come after you change your mindset. There would not be any fitness trainer showing you those before and after picture will come after you change your mindset. There would not be any fitness trainer showing you those before and after pictures if that fitness trainer did not first do their identity work, if they did not first work on their mindset to show up regularly for themselves At the end. What I'm trying to say is that don't rely on motivation, don't rely on just your willpower, because your brain is stronger than that.
Speaker 1:Your brain will make every single excuse possible lying in bed to not get up, because your brain likes the comfort, it likes the current state that you are in. It doesn't realize the long-term benefits. It loves instant gratification. Instant gratification is that this bed is cozy right now. It doesn't realize that you have to push yourself out of that comfort zone. Get out of that bed and do the things that you have to do Meditation, journaling, reading, exercising, eating healthy, going for a walk, any habit, even the habits that are needed for your business growth, for your personal growth, so in your job, the habit of being there on time, showing up, doing the work, doing the work in the right way, not being distracted, or in your business, the habit of reaching out to new people, the habit of posting online, the habit of growing your business, comes from those little, small actions that you take. And those actions don't come from motivation. They come from your identity. They come from a routine which is built based on your identity.
Speaker 1:If you have been struggling with your habits from last one year, five years, 10 years, if it has been the same habits over and over, you keep making resolutions and you keep finding yourself not being able to keep up with those resolutions. If you keep signing up for gym memberships and then wasting money, if you keep joining accountability programs or accountability groups but then you lie in that accountability group that, yes, I did my habit, then the Habits Lab is the program for you. Reach out to me, send me a personal message on Instagram at Sunny underscore Lamba. Even if you're not ready for the Habits program, reach out to me. Let's have a chat and let me show you what's possible for you, how you can make tiny changes in your mindset and in your environment. That would help you be more consistent with your habits. I don't have to tell you how important your habits are, because you already know, because you're already struggling to maintain them and you know why you want to do that. Your habits can create a new version of you a healthier, a more wealthier, a more calm, more peaceful, more joyful version of you. Let me help you do that.
Speaker 1:On that note, this is Sunny signing off. Until next time, keep loving yourself and stay Flauthentic. Podcast. Did you relate to something or had an aha moment? I would love to hear your thoughts. Connect with me on Instagram at Sunny underscore Lamba. You can also sign up for a newsletter so that you can get weekly tips and tools. Until next time, keep loving yourself and stay Flauthentic.