Katy Bowman
speaker
45 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Katy Bowman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
What we tend to do is say, it's really good for you. Well, no, it's really, really good for you. Here's more evidence. It's really, really, really good for you. It being good for you is not enough to motivate. Finding another way in to harness motivation is really key.
Thanks for having me.
it being good for you is not enough to motivate an individual. We all have really complex inner worlds and we are motivated by different things. We all have different values and certainly we all value, our health, but maybe not necessarily more than all the other obligations that keep showing up in our day-to-day living. So finding another way in to harness motivation is really key.
And what we tend to do is just say, it's really good for you. Well, no, it's really, really good for you. Here's more evidence. It's really, really, really good for you. And people aren't still uptaking that prescription. So we need a different way in.
Well, and that is the problem with framing movement, physical activity, exercise as something with future rewards. You're going to live longer. Your health numbers when you go visit the doctor next year are going to be better. It's really hard to orient yourself to something with a payoff that's so far down the line. So we need to change the messaging to,
This is something that makes you feel better today. This is something that gives you a boost of creativity, a boost of joy, more mental clarity. Maybe you value your productivity level at work. Maybe you value connection with your friends or your children.
So to reframe movement as a conduit to those experiences today is gonna be key in why someone can't use that, well, I might be hit by a bus tomorrow reason.
Well, the top derailers are gonna be time, I don't have enough time, a loss of motivation. Discomfort can be a reason that people fall off the movement wagon, so to speak. Um, more and more recently, I would say, environmental factors like I'm addicted to my phone, I, I, you know, I plan to do my morning walk. But now I grab my phone, that alarm goes off, and I start swiping.
And an hour later, I'm still, you know, looking through short form videos. And that was my my walking window, and I missed it. So those are the things that we see again and again.
Yes, and I think the industry also needs to change some of its messaging where our motivation, there are some people who are going to be motivated for aesthetic purposes, and then there's going to be people who are motivated by that boost of energy that they get or mental relaxation that they get, the fact that they feel better in their own skin no matter what it is.
So there's definitely been a shift of messaging around movement to transition from the idea of, the reason you move is for aesthetic purposes versus for all of these other not only health benefits that are not related to how you look, but are just based on how you function in a day to day basis that there's regular inputs in just that.
And you can track that like you can see as soon as you're done exercising, wow, I feel great. You feel great. It does not matter necessarily how you look in nine months from now. Again, those are those farther down the road benefits that we're talking about.
what works for them what what what are the things that actually seem to work to get people started and then continue to exercise figuring out what your values are would be first you we have to use our values our internal values as sort of our north on a compass so that even when we don't feel like it we can muster, essentially.
So, you know, if you're a parent, you value perhaps taking care of your kid, but when the kid wakes up in the middle of the night and they're sick or they need something, you don't really want to do it. You're just like, oh, you know, I'm so exhausted. I'd rather stay here. in bed, but you value that so you get up anyway.
And so how do you recognize the values that you have around not necessarily exercise, but staying, keeping up your physical capacity. And once you identify those, then you can use those to sort of draft behind even when emotionally, you're feeling like you're not up to it. That's how you're going to motivate yourself day after day after day.
I think I would look for... places of moving that are easiest for you so if going i mean going to the gym five days a week from nothing that's a really big goal that you set yourself up for so what if it was something more like i'm going to start taking a walk every morning and then you have to again draft behind those values so maybe it's like i noticed that if i
if you value connection with people in your family, it's like, I'm going to maybe ask my spouse or my child to get up and walk with me for 20 minutes in the morning. Or maybe you're going to walk your
kids to school or maybe you want to walk your dog because that's a high value is to making sure you take care of those animals and then you set up that practice with something that's doable that doesn't have as many physical stumbling blocks that's not so easily derailed and then maybe you're trying to get to the gym once a week so not over promising yourself is a big one and then also
Staying flexible with what you are defining as exercise. So going to the gym five days a week, what is your plan for if your boss is requiring that you stay afterwards? Like, how are you going to adjust your entire schedule around this? spontaneous that thing that comes up.
And then once you tend to miss one, then you're like, are you to the point where you throw your hands up in the air and you're like, well, I can't do any of it because I missed Wednesday. Now, none of it's good. So now I'm not going to go Thursday and Friday. Or do you have a backup plan where, well, if I don't get to the gym, what I will do then is
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