Personality Quirks

I knew a middle-aged man who began to have serious teeth problems when he turned forty. In fact, growing up, his mother and father not only failed to stress how important brushing and flossing was, they actually didn’t believe in modern dentistry. Once he became an adult and realized how important brushing was, he was motivated to brush his teeth and floss every day. However, even though he had strong motivation he found himself hardly ever brushing. He had been not brushing his teeth for so many years that he had to take special care and actually set an alarm twice a day for brushing, for an entire month, before he finally was able to make it a habit.

Habitual behaviors make us a slave to them just as much as habitual beliefs and sometimes we have to take drastic steps to break the habit and form a new one that will help us achieve a goal. For example, if your goal is weight loss, but you have never developed the habit of exercise (or to put it more accurately you are a slave to the habit of not exercising) you will find it extremely difficult to do the first few times you do it and you might have to force yourself to exercise for quite a long time before the habit of nonexercise is broken.

Personality Quirks

Another source of low motivation comes in the form of personality quirks. These are things about you personally that aren’t habits or beliefs and can’t really be changed (although they can sometimes be improved) that affect your motivation in various ways. A really great example of this is the person who suffers from a poor memory. This can make it difficult to get motivated