ENHANCING YOUR BEHAVIORAL TOOLKIT

Building Motivation From Basic Needs

Choose, Accomplish, Connect
by Janet Buckworth, Ph.D., FACSM
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ou may assume that clients who contact you for help to

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achieve fitness goals have overcome their first hurdle,
but making that assumption may place a hurdle in your
path to help foster their behavior change. Motivation to change
can prompt a call to a fitness professional, but sources of this
motivation can influence clients’ initial and long-term success.
If a health care provider tells someone he or she must lose
weight, he or she may begrudgingly contact a fitness professional
but drop out of a fitness program when he or she does not see the
numbers on the scale go down or his or her schedule gets busy.
Let’s explore a practical model for understanding what drives
your client and how you can use this information to implement
strategies to promote adherence to healthy behaviors. More than
30 years ago, Deci and Ryan (1) proposed the Self-Determination
Theory (SDT) as a theory of motivation for intentional behavior. The
SDT frames motivation along a continuum from extrinsic (moti-
vation for a task is determined and regulated by others) to intrinsic
(motivation is determined and regulated by the person engaging
in the behavior). The SDT also is based on several assumptions:
• Human beings are active in controlling their lives,
• We are naturally inclined toward growth and development,
• We have a set of three basic psychological needs that are
universal (competence, autonomy, and relatedness), and
• Motivation results from efforts to meet the three fundamen-
tal human needs.
Basic Human Needs
• Competence: The need to seek mastery. A client schedules an individual
coaching session to improve his or her tennis skills.
• Autonomy: The need to be an agent of one’s own life, that is, the extent
to which a behavior or course of action is endorsed personally and
engaged in with a sense of choice or volition. The customized fitness
class is full while the prescribed program is underenrolled.
• Relatedness: The need to interact, be connected to, and experience
caring for others. You recruit your friends to sign up with you for a
5K training program.
providing group classes, sessions with a personal trainer, time-
limited sport programs, and self-directed workouts. Making sure
that clients have guidance and feedback to improve skills and
fitness components including strength, endurance, flexibility,
and balance will increase a sense of competence. Providing so-
cial connections and support in person or through social media
on a personalized level will help clients feel engaged with others.
Ask yourself when working with a new client how you can give him or her
choices, opportunities to experience improvement, and a sense of
belonging and social engagement.
Identifying where your client is on the motivation continuum
also will help you decide how to customize your strategies. The
SDT has a central and useful framework for distinguishing types
of motivation that is based on the level of autonomy (or self-
determination). Motivation is thus framed by the degree to which
a person regulates or controls his or her behavior, from extrinsic
to intrinsic regulation.
External regulation of behavior typically is what we think of when
we think of extrinsic motivation, or acting based on external
rewards or punishments. External regulation governs behavior
that is prompted by external sources of control, such as
coaches and health care providers. When the external pressure
is removed, so is the reason for the behavior if that is the only
motivation. One useful approach to promote adherence in
someone motivated through external regulation is to help iden-
tify additional reasons for adopting the behavior. If a health care
provider has instructed your new client to lose weight, you can
brainstorm about other personally meaningful reasons to eat a

There is good evidence that behavior will be sustained if the

consequences are pleasurable and enjoyable with positive expe-
riences serving as important motivators (2). Engaging in activities
that help meet the three basic needs will link those activities with
enjoyment and foster intrinsic motivation. There are several strat-
egies a fitness professional can use to help get those needs met (3).
Providing information to help a client make informed choices will
increase a sense of autonomy. Offering options from which to
choose will allow that autonomy to be put into action, such as
Volume 21 | Number 2 www.acsm-healthfitness.org 29

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ENHANCING YOUR BEHAVIORAL TOOLKIT
Types of extrinsic motivation based on different levels
of self-determination
• External regulation means behavior is totally controlled externally, and
the only reason for the behavior is to prevent penalty or gain rewards.
• Introjected regulation is more internally controlled, but the regulation of
the behavior is external to the person and is not self-determined. The
reason for the behavior is to avoid guilt, shame, or anxiety, or to
enhance pride or ego.
• In the case of identified regulation, the importance of the behavior is
recognized, and the value of the behavior is accepted.
• Integrated regulation is the most autonomous motivation among these
four. In this case, the behavior is integrated fully with the organization
of the self.
healthier diet and be more physically active. There may still be some
external regulation of the weight loss behavior, but it will not be
the only reason for your client to take and sustain positive actions.
Motivation to stick with a walking program may be to comply
with your health care provider’s requirement, but also to avoid
feeling guilty from giving up. This introjected regulation is character-
ized by internalized reasons for actions, but is based on self-
imposed pressure. Avoiding guilt can be a powerful motivator,
and introjected regulation can govern adoption and mainte-
nance of behaviors for many people. Someone may attend an
early morning workout to avoid feeling guilty later in the day,
even if he or she doesn’t enjoy the workout.
If the motivation to finish the workout is based on the value
placed on exercise for health, even if it is early in the morning
and not a lot of fun, the motivation is considered self-determined.
Behavior driven by identified regulation is chosen and is highly valued.
You might not like a 5 a.m. spin class, but you know it is good for
you, and staying active is important. Helping your clients under-
stand and accept the personal benefits of healthy behaviors, es-
pecially when linked to something they already value, such as
physically keeping up with children or grandchildren, can go a
long way to foster identified regulation.
The next step on the motivation continuum is self-determined.
Integrated regulation is characterized by engaging in the behavior by
personal choice. Importantly, the behavior is integrated with the
organization of the self, and choices are coherent with other as-
pects of the self. Someone who identifies as a good pet owner
will walk his or her dog on a regular basis, even if it is unpleasant
weather or he or she is tired after a long day at work. One of my
favorite community programs was designed to target overweight
dogs through walking clubs for the owners and the dogs. You
guessed it — the dogs and the owners lost weight — and stuck with it!
Intrinsic motivation is the most autonomous or self-determined
motivation. It embodies enjoyment, engagement, compe-
tency, and choice. Behaviors that meet the three basic needs
will be more likely to be sustained through intrinsic motiva-
tion. Having clients in a cooking class pick healthy recipes to
learn how to prepare and serve to friends and family members
provides autonomy (choosing recipes) and opportunities for mastery
(learning new cooking skills) in a social setting. These strategies will
likely keep clients engaged in preparing and eating a healthy diet.
30 ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal ®
Copyright © 2017 American College of Sports Medicine. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.
Motivation to begin, motivation to take action, and motivation to continue
can be different and can change over time.
How does motivation become more intrinsic? A patient
required to participate in cardiac rehabilitation before be-
ing released from the hospital is motivated extrinsically to partic-
ipate in rehab, and this behavior is regulated by external forces.
There is little or no choice if he or she wants to gain the reward
of leaving the hospital. However, as the patient begins to experi-
ence less fatigue and more independence, this initially externally
regulated behavior becomes more valued and may eventually
become integrated with how he or she sees himself or herself rather
than something he or she has to do. Helping him or her to recognize
improvements and how his or her options expand the more fit he
or she becomes targets the need for competency and autonomy, and
puts him or her on the road to more self-determined motivation.
Using concepts from SDT, your goal is to move clients along
the continuum to develop motivation that is more intrinsic through
identifying how they are motivated now and what you can do to
help them meet the basic needs through healthy behaviors. When
trying to identify their sources of motivation, keep in mind that they
probably have multiple motives that emerge based on the situation.
For example, someone may enjoy playing soccer (intrinsic motiva-
tion), but he or she may be motivated to play harder when there is
someone in the crowd he or she wants to impress (introjected reg-
ulation), and spend extra time practicing because he or she iden-
tifies as an athlete (integrated regulation). He or she has multiple
reasons for playing soccer, which increases the likelihood he or
she will stick with it despite challenges.
Self-Determination Theory is a useful framework for identi-
fying what is driving your clients to seek your help and guidance
and for implementing strategies that will help them become
more intrinsically motivated. Determining which strategies will
be most effective starts with discovering what your clients want
to do and why they want to do it through smart goal setting
and identification of the real drivers of their behavior.
1. Deci EL, Ryan RM. Intrinsic Motivation and Self-determination in Human Behavior.
New York (NY): Plenum Press; 1985. 372 p.
2. Segar ML, Guérin E, Phillips E, Fortier M. From a vital sign to vitality:selling exercise
so patients want to buy it. Curr Sports Med Rep. 2016;15(4):276–81.
3. Teixeira PJ, Carraça EV, Markland D, Silva MN, Ryan RM. Exercise, physical activity,
and self-determination theory: a systematic review. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act.
2012;9:78.
Disclosure: The author declares no conflict of interest and does not have any
financial disclosures.
Janet Buckworth, Ph.D., FACSM, has spent more
than 25 years studying exercise adherence and theory-
based behavior change interventions. She has master’s
degrees in clinical social work and health education
and a Ph.D. in Exercise Psychology, with work expe-
riences in medical and college settings. Dr. Buckworth
is department head in Kinesiology at the University of
Georgia and is a fellow of the American College of
Sports Medicine, serving on the Behavioral Strategies Special Interest Group.
March/April 2017