It’s Not for Lack of Motivation
Motivation isn’t something that sits on the side waiting to be called up. In fact, it may never show up at all.
Motivation and willpower are not these proverbial things we all talk about that sit in a bucket waiting to be picked up. There is no pot labelled “motivation,” and another “willpower” that get filled and then stay full, just waiting to be used. They don’t run in an endless supply that we can access any time we want, and they don’t magically just appear at the exact moment we want them. And contrary to popular belief, they also don’t disappear . . . as soon as we need them.
People speak of motivation like this thing to chase and grab and hold onto. Nothing can happen without motivation and if things don’t happen? “I didn’t have the motivation.”
You don’t need motivation to do something. It is not this ticketing system, where you have to tick the motivation box before you can begin. In fact, much of the time, it is the opposite: mood follows action. You start and then the motivation flows to help you keep going.
We regularly read about all these ways to increase motivation, the tricks to find it when it is lacking, and how to boost willpower. But these are erroneous. We are being led astray.
This notion that you need motivation, or using “I don’t have motivation,” as a reason for not doing or not being able to do something is deceiving. It is letting someone believe that that is the reason for their struggle — but there is something deeper and solving surface problems only gets surface results. Being told how to solve this surface problem is like conning people into believing something that isn’t true; an online TV marketing gimmick for the latest weight loss pill or magic cleaning cloth. It’s this false sense of hope and beacon of light they are offered that says “here’s how you increase your motivation” . . . and then everything will work out.
Except it doesn’t. It’s not that easy and it’s not how it works. These promises of a six-week transformation and a gimmicky new program on an app that will make you motivated to change or increase your ability to stick to it and boost your willpower just isn’t a thing. Willpower is not a finite resource we can call on when we need it. If you are tired, stressed, have done mentally demanding tasks all day long or used a lot of willpower for other tasks, maybe you have depleted your willpower. And as much as you think you can fight it, at some point, it’s the reality: it just isn’t’ going to be there in the amount that you need or when you need it.
When I wake up in the morning, the number on the clock starts in the fours. It is still dark out, and the warmth and comfort of bed are incredibly satisfying. Like hell I’m thinking about how excited I am to go for a run. But if I waited for motivation to appear in that moment to get me up to go, I would never go. I can’t wait around for that.
Establishing the drive to do a single thing consistently on repeat over and over again is at the root of success. Something as fundamental as brushing your teeth is the same thing done over and over again, in an effort to make sure you have clean and healthy teeth. It’s the same for a skill like playing an instrument, or doing a sport, and it’s the same for your job and getting good at your career. It’s a habit.
But even deeper than that, this repeated day-in-day-out action is about something else in addition to consistency. It’s about commitment. Consistent, committed, habitual.
When I get up at 4:45 to run in the dark, by myself, while the rest of the world blissfully slumbers away, I’m doing it because I am committed and I am maintaining the consistency to work towards something bigger. Motivation, having it, or lack-thereof has no place in the equation. In fact, most of the time I don’t even think about whether I am motivated to do it or not — it’s just the thing that gets done.
We let ourselves hit this stumbling block called motivation. It’s like this thing sitting in the road and it jumps up and says “hey I’m motivation, and today I’m going to sit here pretending to be the roadblock that you can’t get around.”
Really though, it is tricking us. Because we can get around it, and we can move past it. In fact, if we want to, we don’t even have to take the path with road block motivation at all.
So the answer isn’t that you don’t have the motivation, can’t find the motivation (it never got lost) or don’t know how to get the motivation. The answer is that something else is missing at the root of doing the thing, before motivation was even a thing. Whether it’s going for a run, cooking healthier meals or doing daily exercises, commitment and consistency come first. Doing the thing over and over and over again come first. This builds motivation which lets you carry on. Some days it will be easy to build, some days hard, but the lack of motivation isn’t what is stopping you from doing it at all. We can do hard things.
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Change, start, cultivate or quit, I use movement and mindset to help people show up better for themselves. Learn more in my Weekly Drop In, a weekly email featuring some honest talk around our daily real life struggles and successes on the journey that is being human.
