When it comes to making changes to your lifestyle for the sake of your health and wellbeing, it is common for people to confuse motivation with willpower. If you are attempting to achieve your goals through the latter, you may find that you fail time and time again but can’t seem to determine exactly why.

Motivation vs willpower

Motivation is defined as, “a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way.” It often involves a deeper purpose, powered by positive belief systems and driving desires.

In contrast, willpower is defined as, “control exerted to do something or restrain impulses.”

Willpower on its own won’t lead to sustainable changes as it is limiting and easily disrupted, particularly if a foundation of purpose isn’t built. At times, it can even lead to destructive emotions, thoughts and behaviours towards oneself.

Make sure you know your motivation

Motivation can fluctuate depending on your thoughts and emotions during certain external influencer situations, around certain people, or within certain environments. In order to create your motivation, you must learn to identify which internal belief systems are holding you back, and work to transform these into more expansive ones that allow positive growth and change to happen.

Motivation in practise

Rather than focusing on the end goal, it is important to remember which internal influences are driving you to achieve this. This is your motivation. These might be things like:

• Having a greater purpose
• Inner determination or drive
• Self-responsibility
• Positive self-talk.

The importance of positive self-talk

One of the largest influences over your progress is the way that you talk to yourself about the changes that you are making. It is important to remember to be kind to yourself, encourage yourself, and speak positively within your own mind to achieve best results.

The most important words that you will ever hear in your life are the ones that you say to yourself. Coincidentally, these are also the words that you have control over, so reframing any negative thoughts in a positive light is always a good start.