Episode 57: Dr. Lisa Lewis on the Mechanics of Motivation
"Your most effective instrument for effecting change is your rapport, your relationship with the client."
We'll let that sink in for a moment. This quote, so profound in its succinct expression of truth, is one of the many gems that emerged from our conversation with Dr. Lisa Lewis, Ed.D. CADC-II. As a licensed, practicing psychologist, Dr. Lewis is an expert on motivation and behavior change. And while a portion of her career is dedicated to clinical work with individuals seeking to become healthier, we invited her on Episode 57 to talk about the other portion of her career-- the part focused on helping practitioners help others get healthier.
Dr. Lewis consults with coaches, trainers, nutritionists, physical therapists and other professionals in the health and fitness world who want to improve client outcomes. She helps these professionals tackle issues emerging from what she considers the psychological aspects of their jobs. Meaning, she doesn’t tell coaches and nutritionists and physical therapists what to recommend to clients, she gives them guidance on how to recommend interventions. In other words, Dr. Lewis helps practitioners get clients to comply with their recommendations.
The way that Dr. Lewis empowers these professionals is by giving them insights and strategies derived from extensively researched, evidence-based premises of motivational and behavior theory. These theories hinge on the central tenet that, as Dr. Lewis puts it, "The client has all of the motivation, all the tools, all the drive, all the raw materials they need to make change, and the role of the helper is to facilitate that, is to help them lead themselves." Under this system, the role of the coach or nutritionist or physical therapist is not to force change on their clients, but rather to support clients in making change themselves.
And to do that, practitioners need to understand what will motivate their clients. Dr. Lewis calls upon the self determination theoretical model to delineate different types of motivation for practitioners. From purely external motivation, which relies on direct, tangible rewards and punishments, to purely intrinsic motivation which arises simply from an individual's internal state, this model identifies 5 types of motivation-- 6 if you include amotivation (the existence of no impetus at all)-- that practitioners can "screen" their clients for.
How does this screening work? Through the strategic employment of communication tools like active listening and motivational interviewing. The efficacy of these tools, as Dr. Lewis explains, lies in the practitioners’ understanding that “[clients] are the experts on themselves. Their success is not up to you as the coach. Ownership stays with the client." Having grasped that, the goal of the practitioner becomes identifying the types of motivations clients have for making behavior changes, then playing to those motivations.
Crucially, the only way to receive accurate, actionable information from clients is to cultivate strong relationships with them— relationships built on trust, honesty, and compassion. Fostering such relationships is the prerequisite for successful active listening and motivational interviewing. And successful active listening and motivational interviewing are the prerequisites for facilitating successful behavior changes.
It's important for practitioners to recognize, as Dr. Lewis explains, that clients' motivations can and do change. And that means the communication tools she gives to practitioners are not one-time interventions. They're staples of productive, long term practitioner-client relationships capable of adapting to the constantly shifting realities of life.
And speaking of shifting realities, Dr. Lewis ends this episode by discussing the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on clients' motivation. Finding themselves suddenly confined to their homes and faced with heaps of uncertainty, it's normal and natural for clients to also find themselves lacking the motivation they used to have for engaging in healthy habits.
Now, more than ever, practitioners must be listening to their clients for indications of motivational shifts. Now, more than ever, practitioners must be reinforcing their relationships with their clients. Doing so will not only help their clients develop and maintain healthy habits, it will also support them in deploying positive coping strategies for these unprecedented times.
Dr. Lewis has folded all of her knowledge into an exceptional online course for fitness practitioners entitled, "Psych Skills for Fitness Pros." To learn more about it and Dr. Lewis, you can visit her website, drlewisconsulting.com. You can also follow her on Instagram at: @drlewisconsulting. If you would like to enroll in her course, use the coupon code: PODCAST75 to get $75 off registration.