Motivation is a tricky resource. You need a bit of get-up-and-go if you are to chase your dreams to their full potential, but it is not as simple as having limitless enthusiasm. In fact, motivation is a delicate mixture of having exciting ideas, summoning the energy to pursue them, and maintaining the stamina to see them through.
Research from CashNetUSA has shown that Coloradans are the most driven, enthused and overall, most motivated people in America. But how do you describe motivation?
They looked into the matter: cross-referencing the ideas above with data from Gallup, County Health Rankings, and Kauffman, they’ve figured out which American states are best at eating their five-a-day, which ones give up after a day of exercise, which ones are populated by self-identified ‘active and productive’ people, and several other metrics.
The three major components of motivation are activation (the decision to initiate a behavior), persistence (the continued effort towards a goal), and intensity (the concentration that goes into pursuing a goal). If you are pretty hot in one area, you can consider yourself to have a degree of motivation – but to be as fully-motivated as you need to achieve great things, you really need to work on the areas that are lacking.
The main findings from this research show:
- Vermont had the highest percentage of residents who report eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables, four or more days per week.
- When it comes to exercise, Hawaii topped the list with 63.2 percent of residents exercising for at least 30 minutes, three or more days per week.
- From 2012-2016, there were only five states who managed to reduce obesity. Montana was the leader, followed closely by Colorado.
- South Dakota’s residents reported feeling the most active and productive every day in the last seven days when they took the survey.
- Utah spent the most hours volunteering annually, with an in impressive 80.8 hours, followed second by Idaho at nearly half that amount with 43.5 hours.
- Nevada featured the highest startup business density with 107.4 per 1,000 firms population.
It’s worth noting that Colorado never reached number one in any of the categories. They were however in the top ten 71% of the time, demonstrating the importance of viewing motivation using multiple factors.
Check out the map below to find out where your state sits in this motivation index.
