What's Your Motivation?

I put my laptop down and clicked on Edwin's name.  "Did she prick your finger already?"  I asked him.  He nodded in response.

"Well," I said.  "Let's see...  Awesome!  Your A1C test dropped three points since your last visit here.  That's great.  Wow!  Your weight is down twelve pounds, too."

Edwin nodded again.  "When you told me I had sugar last time, I remembered how my uncle Harry had to have his leg cut off because of it and I decided to get things under control."

"You've done well," I told him.  "A drop of three percent in your A1C is the same as dropping your average sugar by 90 points.  But I have to warn you:  right now you are motivated by fear.  In my experience, fear is a really bad long-term motivator.  You need something better to get you to watch your diet than thinking about your Uncle Harry's stump."

A year later, Edwin was back in the same chair, but this time it wasn't such a happy visit.  He had gained back his twelve lost pounds -- and five more and his A1C test was up two percent."

"What happened, Ed?" I asked him.

"You were right, Dr. John," he told me.

"About what?"  I asked, not remembering our conversation.

"About fear not motivating me.  I found out I could cheat a little bit here and there and it didn't seem to effect how I felt.  Gradually, I fell right back into my old ways of eating.  I'm just a lost cause," Edwin finished dejectedly.

"No, you're not," I told him.  "You are just going to have to start doing today what you should have done a year ago."

It is difficult to become self-motivated.  When we are childen, we get up, go to school, and do our homework in response to scolding and often, the threat of punishment.  Later on, we may develop other motivators, but they are often based on the same childhood themes -- fear and guilt.

I am convinced that fear and guilt motivate people to do the minimum they believe is necessary to get by.  This is true not just in health, but also, in all aspects of life -- even the way we follow in Jesus' footsteps.

Somehow we must get to the place where we are motivated by a desire to be healthy, rather than because of a fear of disease. 

Rather than acting like Christ because we are afraid of hell, we must be motivated by a love for God and for our fellow humans.

For, these are motivations that will not burn out with time.