Listen along as Stan and Clarence chat about motivation. Join the conversation at healthchatterpodcast.comBrought to you in support of Hue-MAN, who is Creating Healthy Communities through Innovative Partnerships.More about their work can be found at http://huemanpartnership.org/
Hello, everybody. Welcome to Health Chatter. Today's show is on motivation. Interesting subject. Clarence and I will be chatting about that. We have a great crew that helps us with all our shows. For the listening audience, if you've heard any of our shows, I always give them high praises, but I'm going to do it again today.
So we have Sheridan Nygaard, who is one of our researchers, also helps us with recording and also marketing. Mattie Levine-Wolf, Aaron Collins, Deandra Howard are also great researchers. Matthew Campbell is our production manager, gets all our shows out to you with a little bit of music attached. So it's always nice. Clarence Jones is my trusted friend.
colleague in doing all these shows it's uh we always have great conversations whether we're on the air or off the air so thank you to clarence and then also human partnership for sponsoring all our shows great community initiative you can check them out at humanpartnership.org yeah there you go stan
So today, Clarence and I, we've been thinking that, geez, we've been doing all these shows about health. And how is it that people get motivated to do something about their health, whether it be on the prevention side, whether it be on the intervention side? What is it that gets us motivated? So the listening audience, you can't see, but behind me is my pooch, Murphy.
And I will tell you that he definitely motivates me. Because he'll give you these forlorn eyes as if to say, excuse me, Stan, it's time to go for our walk. And so he motivates me. It's also really interesting, I think, you know, and I've noticed this, that animals somehow or other have this innate motivation in them, okay? They want to do all this stuff.
I'm not so sure that we as humans want to do it all. But anyway... The other thing I think is sometimes we get scared into being motivated.
But anyway, all right, go ahead. I was going to say, I think when Murphy look at you with those soft eyes, he's not saying Stan, he's saying Papa. Papa. I think that's what motivates you to get up and say, oh, God.
That's probably true. So, all right. So let me tell you a quick story here. So I remember, you know, I'll talk about seatbelts for just a moment. All right. God, I think I might have been like 22 or so, 22 or 23 years old. And I got into a car accident. Somebody rear-ended me, and I was pushed into a car in front of me. So the whole car was totaled, the whole nine yards. And everybody was okay.
But, truth be told, I was not wearing my seatbelt. Okay? Okay. Now, from that point on, I was motivated, scared maybe. And from that point on, I've worn my seatbelt, you know, 100% of the time, whenever I'm in a car. I don't care if I'm driving or a passenger or what have you. So notice I was, there was a situation that motivated me. Clarence, what do you got? You got anything similar?
I do. I think one of the reasons why we wanted, first of all, we want our listeners to say thank you because Stan and I are going to be really chatting away today.
You know, we didn't ask Sheridan or anybody else to give us any research about this, but as two more seasoned people, we thought that we would just chatter and talk about it because I think that motivation is important for us to discuss and to share information about because I think that we think about it a lot, but we don't necessarily talk about it a lot.
And so we wanted to just kind of go into that. But anyway, I think many times, for us, and I wanna come at it from a health perspective, okay? I've probably mentioned this before. Growing up, being younger, you feel like you're invincible. You feel like you don't have to worry about that. You see older people who are going through changes,
And you don't think about yourself in the sense of taking care of yourself. And again, I'm just saying from my perspective, as much as you need to. And one day you see something happen to someone that you thought it would never happen to. And then it makes you start to think about it.
For example, you could see somebody who, as you just said, Stan, somebody who was in a car accident and they didn't have their seatbelt on and something drastic happened to them. Maybe not death, but maybe it was just the fact that they lost a limb or they were incapacitated for a long, long time. It really causes you to think about about it.
So fear sometimes, I mean, that, that, that, that's one of the things that, that sometimes motivate us to, to have honest and open conversation is, is the fact about fear. We fear what we don't know. And so we're motivated to try to, to prevent it from happening to us. Right. Right. Meaning that we can. So that's, that's my initial talk.
You know, so, um, Here's a good one. So I remember taking a, at the University of Minnesota, I took a biology course as an undergrad. And in the textbook, can I remember this distinctly? There was a picture of what lung disease looks like from somebody who's been, who died from being a smoker. Okay. So I'm reading about this and looking at it. And my father smoked a pipe. Okay. All right.
So I'll never forget this. I went home and I said, Dad, you have to take a look at this. And it was really interesting because he quit, literally quit. smoking a pipe and he had been smoking a pipe for years. He literally dropped the pipe and said, That's it. I'm done. It was just like that. And it's just like, wow. You know, for a lot of people, you just can't quit.
I mean, you've got to go through, you know, withdrawal and all this other kind of stuff. But for my dad, what he did is he quit. A few years later, I asked him about it. And he said, you know what? It just hit me. It just hit me. And that's what motivated me to just say, that's it.
You know, Santa, as you was talking about that, I thought about two things. I thought, first of all, it was, it could have been fear and it also could have been love. Love. Yeah. You know, I mean, he loved you. Yeah. He loved life. you know, he was motivated to, because you brought that information to him, he was motivated to hear you.
And I think that that's the thing about motivation is that there are a variety of ways in which we become motivated. I mean, fear is a great driver, but I also think that, you know, the incentive, the incentive in that particular case was that, you know, your father may have thought about longer life, you know, more, you know, I mean, so there's a variety of ways in which we, We are motivated.
And one of the things I always say is that when I when I talk to my other colleagues, I always ask them what makes them feel appreciated because everybody doesn't doesn't move the same way. You know, folks are motivated by money. Other folks are motivated by, you know, compliments. Other people like to be out front.
They're people that just they don't want to they don't want they just want to do the work. And what motivates them is the fact that you value them enough to let them do their work without putting them on the spot. I mean, so the issue about motivation, I think, and why this conversation is so important is that many times we don't ask people what motivates them.
You know, we just we just assume based on how we feel about things. That's how everybody feels about things, you know. So it's not about, you know. Yeah. So I mean, so I think that. it's important when we start talking about motivation and we want to motivate somebody, we need to ask them, you know, what, what, what drives you, what guides you, you know?
And, and, and I, that's, that's just my thought, but I don't think we talk about it enough.
You know, you know, I, you know, we've been doing a lot of these shows and some of our shows on health chatter have focused on prevention. Okay. It's like, okay. So wearing your seatbelt is, you know, is one eating diet. properly, okay, getting exercise, you know, we address all the risk factors associated with many of the chronic diseases that we as humans face.
And I'd be curious, you know, from, you know, Aaron or Sheridan, you know, my perspective is that it's it's perhaps harder to think about it in the prevention mode. You know, if you're healthy and you feel great, then, you know, what do you keep telling us that we have to keep doing this stuff? On the other hand, if somebody experiences, for instance, cardiac arrest, okay, or
They're diagnosed with diabetes. I think that that becomes, for many people, the aha moment. And they say to themselves, geez, I better do these things. I'm now motivated. I have to be motivated to do these things. Because if I don't, I might be facing another heart attack. or a diabetic situation might get worse, et cetera.
So I think that there's kind of these nuances between the prevention side of the equation and if you have a disease entity. I don't know, what do you guys think about this?
I guess I have more of a question for you guys to chew on. What do we do when someone is experiencing these negative outcomes like diabetes or heart disease, but they are not motivated to make a change?
Even having a physical ailment that sends you to the hospital, like that doesn't necessarily scare them or someone that's maybe been chronically affected by not doing physical activity enough, like sedentary lifestyles. How do we motivate those people that,
even being scared isn't working like they know their outcomes but it's just not enough yeah you know um go ahead Clarence go yeah you know I think that that that's an excellent question to ask because I we run across people like that all the time and there's certain things in my life that that I'm not I'm not necessarily I'm not necessarily motivated for it either you know I mean it's just like uh you know like I'm gonna take I'm gonna I'm gonna
I'm going to shoot the dice, you know, and, and hopefully that, but I mean, that that's, that's part of being a human being. I mean, it's like that, but I, but I think a lot of times people, when they get to that point where they don't care, they feel hopeless.
You know, I mean, they, whatever, whatever it is in their life, they haven't found that, that, that thing to live for where they just like, you know, I'm, I'm, I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. And it doesn't mean like, you know, they're homeless or anything of that nature.
It's just like sometimes people have experiences in their life that are so overwhelming that they don't know where to go, what to do, how to do it. And there's nobody or support in their life to help them. And so therefore they give up. They survive, but they don't live.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, here's the other thing, too. I think I might have mentioned in a previous show, my mother grew up with a very, very dear friend who smoked like a chimney. I mean, just unbelievable. And I remember asking her, I said, you know, Rita, you have to, you just have to quit smoking. And she turned around to me, and this gets to your point, Aaron. She said, you know what?
I really enjoy smoking. And if you're telling me, Stan, that if I stop, I'll add whatever it is, five years to my life or whatever. She said, look at all the years of enjoyment I've had. And so you know what you say to a person like that? Okay, I understand. I get it. You know, it's just like, God bless.
Go for it. Yeah. But sometimes you love people so hard, you know what I mean? But sometimes you love people more than they love themselves. You know what I mean? Good point. Yeah. I think that's part of the challenge, you know, with us as human beings is that sometimes we care for people more than they care for themselves.
And it hurts us because we realize the value that they bring or the value that they have. but they have not achieved that understanding for themselves to understand their value and how much they mean to us. And it's really hard.
I mean, I think that, you know, motivation, I mean, this conversation is really kind of deep because I think it stems, it's a human condition, you know, that we need to address. And especially in a time like this, We hear so much news and so much disinformation and so much information and stuff like that. People are like, where in the heck do I go with this stuff?
Some people say, I don't even get up. You know, because I just I don't know what to do, how to do it. I'm not motivated to do anything, you know, and what skills or benefits or values that they felt like they had in the past. It's like now they're in a circumstance or a situation where it's like, what do I do?
Yeah. So, you know, it's also interesting, too, of what we deal with to be motivated. So let me give you a for instance. Life insurance. Like, why would I buy life insurance? It's not for me, okay? Because when I die, I'm motivated by the fact that when I die, there'll be something left for, okay? That's what life insurance is about. So the motivation comes from the idea of
making whoever is left happy or more comfortable, et cetera. So there are other things that we deal with in our life that motivates us. Also, our own kids motivate us, okay? We want to do whatever we can so that their lives are better than ours. Okay. We want to take it up a notch. Okay. As best we possibly can.
But sometimes, Stan, I want to stop right there. But sometimes our motivation is guided by guilt.
That's interesting. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, you talk about the fact about, you know, like with our kids. Well, I don't want you to have the same kind of lifestyle I had when I was growing up. Yeah. Yeah. We played outside when it was 20 below weather and we walked five miles to school. Right. Right. Right. My neck.
You know, we don't, we want you to, we want, we want to drive you to school, which is only two blocks away, you know, because we don't want you to experience all the stuff that I did. So it's so much exercise, right? So I'm motivated, I'm motivated by guilt or what we perceive as guilt. And, and, and sometimes what we, what we're motivating for is not healthy, you know?
And I think that that part, part of, part of, part of what we talk about or what we try and talk about is, you know, what motivates you? Why are you motivated by that? Is it because, you know, you feel guilty? Is it because you, you know, what is behind our motivation? Because a lot of times when it comes to motivation, we're stuck on autopilot. You know, all right, here's a simple one.
You get on a scale to weigh yourself. Okay, so it provides you with, information. And then are you motivated? Are you motivated to, you know, geez, you know, I weighed, you know, you know, five more pounds than I did last week. Whoa. Or you say, okay, whatever, you know, you know, for some people, you know, it does motivate them to change.
Or the same thing, same thing with, you know, Clarence, you and I have been involved with, you know, helping people take their blood pressure. Okay, for some people, you know, if they get their blood pressure and it's, you know, it's 200 over 100, you know, it could be a wake-up call. For other people that say, okay, it's 200 over 100 today. I'll measure it tomorrow and it'll be down.
And, you know, yeah, that for me is that whole thing about, you know, about self-motivation. I mean, you look at scale, you know, and your five-pound overboard. Some people will look at scale and they say, oh, it's in the right place. You know what I'm saying? Five pounds. So then they're motivated to get 10 pounds. You know what I'm saying? Then it becomes too much, okay?
But I think that you're right. I think that when we talk about motivation, you really have to figure out, you know, Why am I doing what I'm doing? Is it because I really care? And I think a lot like I want to go back to this whole thing around around guilt. Sometimes people are nice to people because they feel guilty. And I mean, they do things not out of the right, not out of the right intention.
And therefore, when you do stuff like that, you're not satisfied. You just do it to be doing it. And I think that part of what I work hard for is to say, why do I do what I do? Do I do it because I feel guilty or ashamed or do I do it because I really want to? And so I try to work with that whole point about I'll never do you a favor. I talk to people that will do me a favor.
I'll never do you a favor because I never want you to do me a favor. If whatever you do for me, do it because you want to do it. If you don't want to do it, don't do it for me.
Right. You know, it's just like you put a piece of apple pie in front of you. Do you feel guilty? Yeah. Do you feel guilty? Yeah. If somebody is going to ask me, the answer is no, you know, because I enjoy a piece of apple pie every once in a while. And you know what? I don't want my enjoyment to be affected by guilt. You know, I mean, there's a balance. You know, it's okay.
You know, have a piece of apple pie every once in a while. It's nothing going to end the world. You know, so sharing it. Okay. So, you know, Clarence and I always call ourselves kind of the old farts. But, you know, and thankfully we have a crew that's younger so we can get the perspective or help us to remember. So I'm going to ask you a simple question. What motivates you about your health?
That's a really good question. So it kind of depends on what aspect of health we're talking about. For physical activity, that's something very important to me. I'm also very motivated to cook my own meals every night with my fiance. We spend every night cooking a meal together. It's really good quality time.
But then we're also ensuring that all of the ingredients that we use are fresh and healthy. We know exactly what we're eating every day. One big reason that I'm really motivated for both physical activity and this healthy eating lifestyle is I had a grandma who was not motivated to do these things. She was motivated by a 12 pack of Dr. Pepper and like candy and sweets.
And then she had a very sedentary lifestyle and she had heart disease at the end of her life, actually started pretty early on. And then when she got COVID, she had no chance of fighting COVID off. So she passed away of COVID, mostly due to the underlying heart disease condition.
And I just saw the way that her lifespan, the way that her life turned out in the end, I was highly motivated to make sure that I wasn't stuck in a chair, only watching TV. I know that maybe me having healthier habits now might not make me necessarily live longer, but I'll have more time. help in my later years, I will be able to fully enjoy those later years.
It might not save me time, but it might make that time more enjoyable. So I'm just motivated to be able to live my life to the fullest extent. If I want to go hiking up a mountain, I want to know that my body can take me there. If I want to go walk in Italy for six hours, I want to know that I am in a physical place to be able to do that. So I'm more motivated by life experiences.
I know that other people might be more motivated by like money or like they might be motivated by family or all of these things I think can motivate you in little ways. But I think each of us have one thing that really puts us in that position of I'm actually going to do this every day or I'm going to do this every other day.
And that's that kind of epiphany in your life where those things come together. It's like, yeah, this is where I'm at. I do know that... A lot of our motivation sometimes is biological. You know, it's just that, you know, sometimes it's social. And then, you know, your personal motivation. And I think that part of what I believe is you have to self-identify what those things are.
But, you know, to really get to motivation, you really have to do some real self-reflection.
Absolutely.
I mean, I think, again, a lot of people are just stuck on automatic pilot. They just they just feel like life is just going to happen. And, you know, and it's just going to happen, you know, and that, you know, it happens by osmosis. And in many cases it does. But there are a lot of choices that we make that we have consequences for.
And so we have to be motivated to decide, you know, where and which way we want to go. At least that's my thinking.
You know, it's interesting when you talk to patients. So I talk to, you know, orthopedic patients. And it's interesting. I'll ask them from time to time, what are you hoping for? One patient will tell me to be pain free. Okay. Actually, that's frankly a pretty common response. Another patient will say to be able to play pickleball. Or go hiking.
Yeah, I think that's exactly what we need to frame it as, is what do you want? Yeah, what do you hope for?
Yeah. And by the way, I don't follow up the answer for being pain-free with another question, okay? Maybe I should, but their mind isn't there yet. They just want to be pain-free first and foremost. Then I'll worry about what I can do. All right. after where other people are, are assuming that they'll be pain free and are taking it that one step further already.
So they're, they're motivated by that being able to climb a mountain or, you know, go water skiing or whatever it is that they, they, they want to do. So it really is a different, and by the way, it's also different as you get older.
Yeah. You know, as you were talking, I think about this all the time is that when we a lot of times when we ask people, you know, what what what do they want? What do they need? What is their motivation? Sometimes we can be judgmental. Because their motivation is not what we think it should be. You know what I mean?
But you just said, when they make that question, you back up and just say, hey, you know, because it may not be the same. So people's motivation may not be the same as yours. And so this is where I think it takes a little bit of maturity to understand that everybody doesn't do things the same kind of way.
Everybody is not, you know, you might have a common goal, but you have a different lane in which to get there.
Correct. And there's probably as many lanes as there are people on earth, you know, when you really get down to it. Let's talk about a little bit about cultural motivation. Okay. So, and, you know, Clarence, you and I can certainly probably share it too. We could talk about, you know, we're brought up in certain cultures or certain religions or what have you.
And we eat, for instance, a certain way. All right. We're motivated by cultural meals, I guess. Does that ring true that we are motivated by that?
I think sometimes we do go down that pathway. It was funny that you said that because when you said that we talk about cultural motivations, I think about food. I think about body shape.
um i think about how people define the activities that they do uh as this is part of my culture and if you don't do it like this you know then that you know that people have the tendency to just say well you're not doing it right you know those kinds i mean we get into all those kinds of things and so you're absolutely correct and you have to this is why i i that's why i like um
I like thinking about the work that I do as just being a human. There are just some human things that are just that we that we have to do that many times are impacted by a culture. But there are some other things that are common to all people. And so you cannot assume that because somebody does that, that doesn't make them part of that culture. I mean, so.
Yeah. You know, it's, you know, I, you know, I think you mean holidays. Okay. So, you know, Thanksgiving is coming up. Okay. You know, there's almost a, you know, a given that everybody's going to eat differently than they do, you know, throughout the rest of the year. Okay. There's going to be this big meal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah.
They got to have turkey. No, they don't have to. I didn't say turkey.
No, no, no.
I know. I know. But I'm saying turkey. They got to have turkey. Yeah, I know. But some people don't, you know. And there's almost a thing in my head that, okay, Stan, just watch it a little bit. Everything in moderation here. That's what motivates me on that type of thing. Let's talk about... religion oriented motivation. Okay.
You know, people, people have a want, not everybody, but a lot of people are motivated by spirituality, no matter what religion you, you, you practice. They're motivated by that. What motivates people in that arena? What is it? I mean, I can kind of.
Right. Well, I think people are motivated by, by, by, by social, connection by family connection, those kinds of things. And so I think that part of it is their own personal experiences. And I'm one of those kind of people that says that, you know, even though people, there are social, there are social pressures.
I mean, when it comes to religion, there are a lot of social pressures that are placed on people and family pressures that are placed on people. And so people are motivated to go along with it just because.
Yeah, right, right.
And I'm one of those kind of people where I just believe very, very clearly. And you're not talking about this. I am a Christian. I'm non-negotiable. I'm a Christian. But at the same time, I recognize the fact that there are other people that are not. And so I am motivated to connect with them wherever I can, which is on the human perspective.
Yeah, commonality.
Commonality. Right. I mean, you and I have had some conversations about this. I mean, we just accept people for who they are. I'm motivated to work with you because I like you and we have a lot in common and we have differences. But, you know, I have differences with my wife. And she motivates you, right? Yeah. No, I'm not kidding. I love her. No, I love her. Okay. Just so you know that.
Yeah. So here's the other things. Like some people are motivated to travel.
Sure.
Okay. Go traveling. All right. And other people, you know, and I have some friends that they like to be here. They don't like, you know, they don't like to deal with all the airport stuff. And they don't want to go overseas because of what situations are happening in the world. And it's just like, oh, God, what if you miss your flight? And they don't want to deal with that kind of stress.
They perceive that as stressful. What they'd rather do is, if they happen to be working, is just stop working and do other things around here as opposed to going abroad.
somewhere and experiencing something else yeah out of their normal environment is that wrong no yeah yeah so stay saying i want to i want to ask sheridan a uh a generational question okay uh you know uh from a generational perspective what are what are what are real motivators for younger people. I'm going to just put it like that.
You know, I think for us, we, you know, Santa grew up in the fifties where, you know, the house with the picket fence, you know, the, you know, those kinds of things, those were, and so you worked hard, you, you, you strove hard to make sure that those things happen, you know, and in many cases it didn't happen like that, you know, but, but those were the things that were in your mind.
What are, what are the motivators for younger, younger people now?
I don't know if I can speak for every young person, but I think that there was a shift for a lot of us from that motivated by work to work and make money and then reinvest in your family and all of that. I think that me, I am less motivated to work. I do not have a dream job. I do not dream of work. I dream of life. I am motivated by life experiences.
And that can be, I mean, traveling, like we talked about, which I do think there is a difference between traveling and vacationing. I think vacationing is sitting on a beach somewhere. And I think people are more excited to...
People that are worried about the stress don't necessarily want to travel because that can be overwhelming to visit several countries or whatever versus just going to Florida and sitting on a beach is maybe a little bit easier.
But I'm more motivated to travel and have those life experiences outside of my own because that's what I really feels like makes up the meat and potatoes of life is learning about other people, trying new foods, being immersed in other cultures. And then also when I come home, it makes me feel more in touch with the culture and the things that we have to offer here in the US.
Each individual state, I think, has some really beautiful, crazy things to offer if you really give it some time. I am motivated to work in a field that I feel passionate about. So public health really lights my soul on fire. I don't think I would be as good at any of the work that I do if I didn't care about what I do.
And so I'm really motivated to not waste any minute of my life doing something I don't want to be doing if I don't have to, unless I really see some value out of it. And I think that might play into motivation in general is,
What are the barriers that people perceive to being motivated like is, is the time commitment, a barrier and maybe this isn't why you're as motivated or does it seem too hard like you said earlier, Stan, or does it, and I think that might have to do. with people's values and perceptions in general. So it is a really deeply personal thing. But I do think that there is a generational difference.
I don't think we're as motivated for the white picket fence. I think we're more motivated by those life experiences, spending time with family, spending time with friends, like hiking, doing those things that you won't get to do when you're 70 plus. I think that I'm really motivated to do that now. Even if it means I can't save up as much to buy a house, I'd rather do that now.
That's interesting. Hey, I think that's an excellent response to what I was going to ask. I think that there are there are just different ways in which we have to now accept the fact that people, that there are different things that we thought would motivate people.
You know, just like, you know, we thought at one time, you know, being in a career and working at a place for 20 to 30 years was going to be motivating. You know, the fact that your organization was safe for 30 years, but, you know, they're changing jobs every one or two years now. I mean, it's different. And so you have to find, different ways of being motivated?
You know, I have, for those of us who have been in the health field, either have been or still are, I believe that we are, for the positions that we've been in, I think we're motivated by the idea of encouragement. We like to be able to encourage people people to be healthier through a variety of different ways.
Or we care about people so that they can lead the type of life, for instance, Sheridan, that you're talking about for younger people. And if by chance, a medical condition compromises that. So let's just say, God forbid, Sheridan, today you found out that you have something, cancer, diabetes, whatever, okay? Or even people at your age having like a stroke.
How does that compromise what you just said, what you really want to be able to do in life and how is it that we as healthcare professionals, hopefully if you're able to live through the particular condition, how is it that we can encourage you to assume that, that you can get that even though you have this so-called monkey on your shoulder, okay?
That's part of what I believe the health profession is about. I'm not sure if the word for us is to motivate people. I think it's really more to encourage them, okay, or guide them, assist them, work with them. And whether it be at an individual level or at a community level that you've been involved with, for sure, Clarence.
Yeah. You know, I want to say this, Stan. I think one of the philosophies of my life is this. is that I'm not trying to run your life because I can hardly run my own life. You know what I mean? And so I think that part of the wonderness of our work really is the fact that we know that. And you're right. We do encourage people.
And we hope that the motivation that we, the encouragement that we give self-motivates them.
Correct. Correct.
Yeah. Yeah. to make a choice about how they want to live. We're in that space of understanding what our real place is. I just think it's important to understand that you can't make nobody do nothing. To think that what you're saying to somebody is going to cause them to do something, it's not. At least in my mind. If they do it, it's only because they don't want you fussing at them.
You know, there are certain things that are out of our control. Like, you know, we all faced COVID, for instance. And boy, did that affect our motivation? Think about that. It's just like, how is it that any one individual was motivated I mean, we did as best we could in the health care field to encourage people, for instance, to get vaccinated.
But what is it that actually motivated people to get vaccinated? What happened to being motivated when all of a sudden there's a stop sign that's put in front of all of us where you can't travel or it's very difficult to travel? Your lifestyles have been changed. things were closed down, et cetera. So there are things that are out of our control.
But I will say this, that when things get better, like I'm hoping they are now, those of us who are motivated pick up where we left off as best we can, okay? And that I think is part of human nature for sure.
So, you know, I think that I think the COVID vaccine, COVID or the pandemic was it was a great example of motivation. OK, because the question was, as you just said, you know, when when when when information came out about about the the COVID, about the vaccine, people were motivated to do to do it through fear. Yes.
They were motivated to do it because they wanted to make sure that they were safe and their family was safe. They were talking about the common good of people. There was a there was a lot of motivation to not do it. Because they didn't want to believe it, and therefore they wanted to believe something different.
I think whenever we come into these to these situations that we need to understand, why do we do what we do?
Yeah, yeah.
And I think so many times it's so easy for people to think like, well, when I get into this situation, I'm going to have an easy answer. But there's some things that you need to be. Some things that would be it would be wise.
I'll tell you what you need to do, but it would be wise to consider what are the consequences, what are the long term consequences of my behavior now and how will it impact me later?
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, okay. So I think for everybody out there in the listening world, I'm hoping that our conversation today gets you thinking about how it is that you're motivated, what motivates you, what type of encouragement do you need in order to assume the things that you want to do?
And I believe it also links Clarence with working with trusted partners, whether that's your healthcare providers, your family, friends, et cetera, that can help you assume the things that you want to do and be motivated to do. Does that all make sense? Makes sense to me. Sharon, any thoughts?
I think it'll be interesting to maybe see other people's perspectives on what motivates them, maybe what keeps them from being motivated. Like I think we talked about the scale earlier and you see that five pounds. I think that might be a short term motivation versus what is going to long term motivate you to keep those five pounds off. Because you might do that.
You might work out for a week and say that's enough of that. So I think it's interesting to think about like so many different levels of motivation in so many different contexts, what it can mean for different people. And especially in healthcare with the interventions that we cook up and we think about,
I think that we maybe need to think about are people even motivated to partake in these interventions? Are people even motivated to follow through with the protocol? That kind of thing. And I think that it's just something to keep in the back of our minds because public health is really about people.
It's really about motivating people to care about the things that we all care about in public health. So I think it's a really important topic, but it's just, it's really hard to put a your finger on the pulse of exactly what motivates people because it's so specific to what your individual values are. So motivating a population is just really a task.
Yeah.
That's what we do here. I know.
Absolutely. All right.
Last thoughts from you, Clarence. I just want our listeners to know we thank you for listening to our chattering today. Because all we did, we didn't come up with any specific research. We just started chatting about motivation. And hopefully it'll spark some thoughts in your mind about, you know, why do you do what you do? So I'm finished. Absolutely. Thank you for listening.
You know, our next show will be on long term. COVID, and one of the questions I'm going to have for our guests next week will be, it's one thing long COVID and the medical or health-related things that have happened because of that, but also there's the psychological aspects of long COVID. For instance, we aren't working together, okay, like in an office space anymore or very little.
And so what effect might that have on people's interactions going forward? So I think there's a long COVID effect with that as well. So that will be our next show after this. In the meantime, everybody keep motivated to listening to Health Chatter and keep health chatting away.