Health is complex and multifaceted; it goes beyond the physical and crosses into other dimensions of our lives, such as emotional, social and even spiritual well-being. The majority of the health and fitness space appears to disagree with this multi-dimensional model of health; however, as demonstrated by their obsession with abs.
Despite all of this, in my opinion, health itself is not a value to lead our lives by. I'd even go so far as to say that this single perspective shift can be one of the most empowering things we do to change how we see health and how we engage in it.
Before proceeding, it's critically important to discuss some of the wider context, mapping the current health landscape and exploring the constraints, in which someone must attempt to make these health-seeking choices.
Without this mapping, it becomes easy to over-trivialise how hard the process of making any kind of health-seeking change genuinely is, and we also run the risk of over-emphasising the amount of control someone has over their health.
There's enough of that online; I don't wish to contribute to it.
A Very Brief Politics of Health
Health is a political issue; it's not often seen through this lens, but it is. After all, it is policy that impacts access to health care and housing, not forgetting that poverty is a huge contributor to overall mortality risk.
The systemic factors that prevent someone from engaging in health-seeking behaviours are very real, pervasive and often overlooked, especially by those in positions of power.
Shock horror.
It's easier, more convenient and far more profitable to blame the individual.
This usually happens under the guise of 'take responsibility' for your health. There is no denying that taking responsibility is important, but the underlying expectation that someone must take responsibility for things that are not theirs to own and have no control of, is short-sighted.
This can be seen most clearly through the narrative that obesity is solely driven by choice. "You are 'choosing' to be unhealthy", which misses the complexity of obesity and also completely ignores this same environment in which people are forced to make choices.
People are merely trying to survive under the weight of the pressure which arises from our modern way of life and our current financial climate.
They have to decide whether they eat or their kids do.
They are working multiple jobs just to get by.
They work jobs that are increasingly sedentary, chained to their desk or risk being fired, working longer hours, all whilst a constant and lingering fear of becoming homeless sits on their shoulders.
This isn't to say change isn't possible; it is. However, we must also be willing to acknowledge that all behaviours make sense in the wider context in which they occur. To ignore this is the same as reading one page of a book and thinking you know all of what it has to say.
So how do we begin to make change at an individual level?
A Model of Behaviour Change for the Individual
The COM-B model of behaviour can be nicely introduced at this point, to both reinforce the above political aspect, explore the individual aspects of making a change, and further expand upon the idea that health is, in fact, not a value.
This model can be broken into three main categories: Capability, Opportunity and Motivation. If all of these categories are satisfied, a person is more likely to make a behavioural change, which, from a health and well-being perspective, is one of the prime movers.
The capability category is primarily in reference to the individual's competence, ability or skill set. It's hard to engage in a behaviour, for example, resistance training, if we don't have the foggiest what to actually do.
This goes beyond simply physical ability and also includes psychological skills, such as acceptance, flexibility and compassion, things that are improved or enhanced by intentional practice, as well as memory, attention and our ability to regulate our behaviours.
Motivation in this instance references more the strength and quality of the individual's motivation, but also identity, beliefs, responsibilities, goals and the level of optimism one is able to hold.
If I were to use a word which has been drained of its life, proliferated and leveraged as a way to sell you something, I might say this motivation category could be wrapped in the world's mindset.
Yes, I just gave myself the heebie jeebies.
The final category is opportunity. This is focused around the environment, access to resources and the systemic factors previously mentioned, but it also includes social environment, peer pressure, cultural norms and comparisons too.
Therefore, the environment can become a genuine barrier to making health-seeking change and engaging in the behaviours required to do that.
One of the major problems we face is this: we do not have full control over our environments; they can be influenced to a degree, yes, but not fully controlled.
In an ideal world, we would introduce policy after policy to ensure people could be more health-seeking and remove as many of the environmental obstacles as possible. Alas, that is highly unlikely, and even if that did happen, wider health-seeking change would still not be guaranteed.
This isn't to say we don't need systemic change; that would be preposterous. We do, but we need both wider change and individual change, too. This conundrum that even if systemic change did happen, not everyone's health would improve, sets the scene for the requirement for the perspective shifted I alluded to at the start.
A new way to see health, which makes the behaviours required, more likely to happen.
'Just grind bro'
Motivation is spoken about a lot within the health and fitness space, but it's done so through the very myopic fitness space lens, which, in most cases, is incorrect and not remotely evidence-supported.
This is demonstrated most easily by the trite statements such as "Motivation comes after action", something that is repeated by every wannabe David Goggins or aspiring gym bro and also award winning authors.
Except we have bodies of evidence around motivation, specifically when it comes to behaviour change, and it doesn't sound like any of the above; instead, it acknowledges that without motivation, we wouldn't take action at all.
These people are positioning motivation as an emotion, even the most simple of google searches to leading psychology websites, shows this to be incorrect, it is the driver of behaviours.
Self Determination Theory brings together motivation, personality and human performance and says that our human motivations drive us towards three needs: competence, autonomy and relatedness.
Notice now competence, or one's abilities and skills, which could also be called the pursuit of mastery, appears here and in the previously mentioned COM-B model.
Autonomy refers to how in control someone feels of their own life. A sense of helplessness and hopelessness often appears when we feel as though we have no way to change our circumstances.
Relatedness refers to the human need for connection, both to other people and to ourselves is the final of the 3 human needs. These together are one way of understanding human motivation.
SDT also posits a spectrum of different 'types' of motivation, with one end being 'a-motivation', effectively, the person has a lack of control, and because drivers are impersonal, very little happens. Someone who has no idea how the behaviour they are being asked to engage in impacts them will not do so.
Next comes extrinsic, which can be further broken down into four different types before arriving at intrinsic motivation, which sits at the other end of the spectrum.
Extrinsic motivators are heavily driven by external factors, with compliance, rewards and punishments being the weakest forms of motivation. Whilst A-motivation, the consequences were completely unknown; here, there is at least an understanding of what will happen.
This could be demonstrated by someone who is forced to do something they don't want to do for fear of being punished, drill sergeant fitness instructor, cough, cough.
As you move through the various types of motivation, the level of importance or value the person places on the activities or outcome increases.
The drivers move away from punishment and towards alignment and congruence with self and with this, the level of awareness the person has around the behaviours also increases.
To summarise, albeit also at the risk of over-simplifying, the closer we can move our source of motivation along the spectrum, towards intrinsic, the more likely the behaviours are to happen.
This doesn't mean extrinsic motivation is 'bad', at many times we have to work with what we have, and as humans are enormously messy and complex, so too will be our sources of motivation.
Being 'intrinsically motivated' for everything would be enormously unrealistic and not possible anyway, but with intentional and strategic application of this theory, we have the potential to increase the quality of motivation, thus assisting us in changing behaviour.
Health as a facilitator, not a value.
If we stop seeing health as a value to live by and instead see health as the facilitator of our values, we make any health-seeking behaviour have dramatically more value, thus moving it up the spectrum of motivation.
Here's why...
If a person values family, their children or grandchildren, seeing health-seeking behaviours as a way to more wholly live that value, adds conscious value to the behaviour and also makes that same behaviour more congruent with their sense of self.
I'd even go as far as to say that the act of improving our health in any domain, irrespective of how small those changes are, becomes a positive step towards allowing us to live more wholly in alignment with what matters most to us.
Again, to use the family value example, spending time intentionally building emotional awareness and the skills required for emotional regulation allows us to pause and respond, instead of reacting.
How would being able to pause and actively choose a response change how you showed up with your kids?
To go another step, every time someone makes a conscious choice to respond or to make a health-seeking decision, it becomes an act of empowerment, a way to live a life of meaning, on their terms.
This in turn changes the perspective, it's no longer "how do I live the most 'healthy' life?" but instead it becomes, "How does health add to and empower me to live a life of meaning?".
We help transition behaviours that often feel like obligations or chores, to acts of self-care and ways to nourish ourselves, and in turn, the rewards from these same behaviours become powerful emotions such as joy, instead of fear or shame.
With this lens, health becomes a vehicle for something more, not something we chase or pursue, but something that can act as a catalyst for a life we desire. It lays the fertile soil and creates the hermetic container for even deeper transformation.
But How?
We can think about these things until the cows come home, but unless we can practically apply them, they are mere musings. Insight and action do have a bi-directional relationship, of course, where improvement in one can lead to improvement in the other, but still, I wanted rubber to meet the road.
Understanding our values and what matters to us is a key step in this process; however, contrary to popular belief, values are not simply about picking words off a page.
Values are things we have already been living our lives by, albeit subconsciously in some circumstances, so reflecting on past experiences can give us an insight into what we value the most.
Step 1 - Values
Consider the following prompts:
- What achievements are you most proud of?
- What do you spend your time doing?
- What excites you the most? What do you look forward to?
- At times of big decisions in the past, what helped you choose?
Try to flesh each out in great depth, giving as many examples as possible or at least ones that feel the most true to you.
Next, answer these:
- Where are the patterns or similarities across these examples?
- What stands out as a connecting thread?
- What themes do you notice?
This may be where the sheet of values comes in handy.
Finally, once you have 3 words that feel both true to you and also align with the above patterns and themes, write a personalised sentence about each one.
These prompts may help:
- What do they mean to you?
- What is your personal interpretation of them?
With this in hand, now it's time to embrace the perspective shift I have mentioned throughout.
Step 2 - Leverage
Think of the health behaviours you feel would be beneficial for you, the ones you are currently trying to engage in and consider how these behaviours could help you more wholly live these values.
Write down as many ways as possible that improving health could add to living a more meaningful and fulfilling life.
Here's a personal example:
My 3 values and some guiding statements, as well as how I live by them.
Curiosity - To develop a deeper understanding of the world and the way in which it works.
As demonstrated by my love of learning and the times when I can spend 15 minutes simply watching a spider weave a web.
Adventure - To travel and embrace new experiences and cultures.
I currently live in Vietnam, have been travelling South-East Asia for the past 9 months and previously lived in Gibraltar and New Zealand.
Contribution - To have a positive impact on those around me, to be able to add input into a bigger picture.
Coaching is my jam, and I am obsessed with the art form that is coaching.
Next, let's consider how health benefits me and lets me live more wholly.
Curiosity
- Brain function
- Focus, attention, memory and concentration
- Explore my potential through curious and compassionate inquiry.
- Energy, mobility and capacity.
Adventure
- Continue travelling into old age
- Hike, climb, swim, snorkel and try new and exciting activities
- Reduced injury risk.
- Meet new and interesting people.
Contribution
- Presence and intentional space creation for those I work with.
- Self-development, building of emotional awareness and self-understanding.
- Brain space to come up with new ideas, concepts, and to synthesise ideas.
Of course this is my example, it's important you find your own, but this gives you an idea of how health, the complete version of health that includes other types of health beyond physical, think emotional, social, mental and even spiritual, impacts our wider lives.
Health, The Container and The Catalyst
With this subtle perspective shift that moves health from being a chore or an obligation to something that can empower us to live a life of personal meaning and value, irrespective of our current circumstances or situation, we can also dramatically change the way people approach it.
Of course, there are several other factors that influence our personal perceptions and experience of health; it's not solely limited to our perspectives. I fully intend to explore some more components of this in future pieces.
One of the biggest obstacles to engaging in health on the whole, especially the kind spoken about more commonly, is that it doesn't have any immediate rewards. All preventative changes, such as disease prevention, are for a version of ourselves that exists years in the future.
These same versions of us can feel like strangers, as we are unable to connect with them.
This perspective helps bridge that gap by also highlighting the changes that someone can experience in the short and midterm, as well as the more traditional and well-known changes over the longer term.
Thanks for reading.
Peace out ✌️