Action builds motivation, motivation doesn’t convince you to act. We must start with the decision to act. Only by putting ourselves into motion can motivation show up.
Most people think about motivation like this:
Inspiration -> Motivation -> Action
Most of us think we’ll stumble across some amazing inspiration, which will then motivate us to take action.
In reality, motivation looks like this:
Action -> Motivation -> Inspiration -> Action-> Motivation -> Inspiration -> Action ->Motivation-> Inspiration
Action inspires and motivates us to continue. Once you take action, you realize what you are capable of. This realization motivates and inspires you to keep going. This happens every time we go for a run, or start writing, or take any other action we know we should. Our mistake comes in thinking that motivation occurring while we work is the motivation we need to start. You don’t need motivation to get started – you just need to start. Today we’ll look at why we don’t need motivation to start moving in the right direction.
Decision
The starting point is the decision to act. Think about the habits you perform everyday, with no particular motivation. Who feels especially inspired to brush their teeth, pick up groceries, or change the oil in the car? Yet, we still manage to get these things done. We know they need to be done, if only to avoid disaster later, and we make arrangements for them. We don’t wait for motivation in these cases because we recognize certain tasks require a timely response.
This timely decision-making can be applied to those things we keep putting off, too. Instead of waiting for motivation to inspire you, start with the decision to act.
Motivation isn’t the starting point. The reason is motivation doesn’t hit until after you’ve begun. Think about it. After you start to run, you become motivated to push harder and keep going. After you start writing, you feel motivated to hit a word or page count. After you’ve started your gym session, you feel motivated to do another set, or push harder and test your limits. All of this motivation and energy is a result of the decision to start.
So many people convince themselves they don’t perform certain behaviors because they aren’t motivated to do so. “If only I could find the motivation, I would do that amazing thing.” We act as though motivation is the only way anything difficult gets done. Sometimes, we even minimize and rationalize why those things aren’t really that important – “I should workout, but I’m just not motivated; it’s not like one workout really matters anyway.” The simple-but-not-easy truth is, it all comes down to a decision. Will you choose to do the difficult thing or not? Will you move or not?
The habits you practice are the habits that grow. If you practice being disciplined, your self-discipline grows. If in practice you say, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” you’ll continue thinking about doing things instead of actually doing them. What you sow is what you’ll reap, and what you practice is what you perform.
Who to Become?
The first step is to decide what kind of person you want your future self to be? What sorts of daily habits does that person have? If you want to be fit or in shape, your future self probably moves everyday. That could mean going for a walk every evening, or lifting weights every morning before work. If you want to be someone who writes or reads everyday, your present self needs to begin forming these daily habits. This doesn’t necessarily mean you dive in and start maxing out lifts and running dozens of miles, or assign yourself dozens of pages to write or read everyday. First, we build the habit (which we’ll explore in a later section), then we add volume. You only need to decide what the first step looks like. Just like building anything – a habit or a house – you need to create the infrastructure, then fill it up. The first question to ask is what kind of person do I want to be? Second, what kind of habits does that person have?
Instead of relying on an emotional state to get you to your goals, make a plan and list out the habits which will get you there. Think about the kind of person you want to be, then reverse engineer from there. If you want to be a person who moves everyday, or does some type of fitness every day, you might start by taking a walk every evening. Let’s say that every evening at six, you go for a walk. Instead of starting with an hour, though, start with just a few minutes. Then, as you build the habit, the question of whether you will go for a walk becomes more of a given. You’re ready to go for a walk every time 6pm comes around. As time goes on, and you continue to walk at 6pm, it becomes automatic; it becomes a habit you no longer have to convince yourself to follow through on. Once it becomes automatic, all you have to do is continue the habit. Motivation is immaterial, because your mind is already prepared to go for the walk.
Action
To quote the Ocean is Theory song, “The motion comes first, then the feelings will follow.”
Motivation is a result of action. As endurance athlete and podcast host Rich Roll says, “Mood follows action.” The actions you take influence how you feel. Sitting around with minimal movement makes us feel sluggish and sleepy. Walking, stretching, and moving throughout the day boosts our energy and makes us feel more active and awake. By taking action, we influence our minds to feel motivated.
Showing up boosts our mood and motivates us to continue. Seeing ourselves follow through on our decision makes us feel better about ourselves, it helps our confidence, and this continues as our abilities improve, too. We develop a self-confidence of not only being able to do difficult things, but regularly practicing difficult things. Our mood follows our actions.
We can see the importance of this as we move beyond the three month mark. After this time frame, we’ve seen the notable changes made by starting and we rely less on novelty and the newness of habits, and more on following through. We see ourselves become a “regular” at this formerly new thing. As the novelty wears off, we’ll begin to encounter days where we don’t particularly feel like showing up – whether it’s for a run, sitting down to write one morning, practicing our language skills or whatever habit you’ve formed. Some days you won’t feel like starting, yet you show up out of habit, and gain motivation as you start. On days like that, it helps to remember how much you enjoy that habit once you get into it.
You will never regret following through on a choice you made for improving yourself. Whether it’s exercise, practicing a skill, or simply keeping a promise you made to yourself, you’ll be happy you did it, and you’re also building a habit and confidence which will compound over time. Some days will ultimately come down to you making the tough decision to follow through.
Habit
There is a secret, though. It becomes easier to follow through on your decisions. Habits are automatic decisions our brains make to conserve energy. My making the same decision over and over, we make it easier to continue making that decision, making it more likely we’ll repeat that decision.
The best way to build motivation, therefore, is to build a habit.
Most people start out trying to do too much, then get overwhelmed, burned out, or injured, and have to take time away from the habit they’re trying to build. Then, they get discouraged and feel they have to muster up their motivation and courage to start again. It’s part of the reason New Year’s gym-goers find themselves frustrated by February. However, if you start small, by only going to the gym for ten minutes every day after work, and slowly build from there, you’re less likely to burn out or get injured. Start small, build up your mind and body, and continue those habits, becoming your future self. The point is to build habits for a successful life, not just a few weeks. There is a simpler way. It’s less about killing practice sessions right out of the gate, and more about you setting yourself up to succeed over the longterm. Take it slow and progress; set your foundation first, then add to it or change it as you like.
The point of building a habit is not to jump in and radically change your life in a matter of days. Instead, we want to build healthy, productive habits to last a lifetime.
The first step needs to be tiny so you have no problem getting it done. This means the very first step is going to be small – much smaller than you’d expect. It should take no more than two minutes starting out. Find the smallest step you can take toward the habit(s) you want to build. Commit to a small action every day taking you in the direction you want to go. If you’re working toward becoming fit, put on your tennis shoes and walk around the block. If you are building the habit of reading, read one sentence every single day; if you’re writing, start with one sentence. After a couple weeks, work up to a few hundred words. Remember, the point is not to work in a great burst and try to accomplish great things at break-neck speed. The point is to practice the habit so often it becomes automatic.
For our purposes of building a habit, our minds don’t remember how long we do a certain action; they do associate the habit with whatever preceded it. So, if you go for a walk immediately after getting home, so far as your mind is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether the walk is two minutes or twenty minutes. The habit of walking is associated with getting home, regardless of how long you spend walking. This is great news! It means you can form the habit slowly and steadily (and safely), then shape it into exactly what you need at different times of the year or through your life.
I’ve recently used this framework to form two new habits: one is stretching every morning when I get out of bed and every evening before bed. The second is walking outside everyday to get some sunlight. I set out to form these habits because I wanted to incorporate more movement into my day. Combined, they add thirty minutes of movement to my daily routine before I even think about a workout. They all keep me flexible and active and recovering more quickly from tough workouts. I’ve also noticed my mood is more even. I started out with doing a couple stretches before bed, and when I got up, then built up to ten or so minutes from there. As for getting sunlight, I started out chaining the habit to finishing lunch and going outside for ten to fifteen minutes. I’ve now been stretching twice daily for at least ten minutes a session consistently for over a year, and doing my afternoon sunlight sessions for two months.
Building from a tiny start is the best way to shift your habits into healthy ones you want to maintain longterm. Once the habit becomes automatic, motivation becomes less and less of an issue. Instead of hoping for an emotional wave to bring you closer to your goals, you have momentum and consistency compounding in your favor. Instead of having to convince yourself to workout or read, your brain will remind you it’s time to workout or read. It sounds silly or unbelievable, but it’s true. Just like a “bad” habit you do without thinking about it, soon you’ll be changing into workout gear, driving to the gym, or settling in to write or read before you realize it. I have driven to the gym out of habit so many times, especially on days I didn’t really feel like working out, but always gone inside to exercise and left happy I developed the habit. Once it becomes a habit, it’s hard to stop the inertia and momentum of just following through. And again, once you start moving, the motivation hits you and you’re proud and happy to be keeping your commitments to your future self. Every time you show up in your habits, you make it easier to do so the next time.
Decision after decision becomes discipline.
The word “discipline” describes an activity, exercise, or a regimen which develops or improves a skill; it is a form of training. It requires the ability to follow through on a plan repeatedly. We know discipline when we see it; a military troop in formation, the fit appearance of an athlete, the daily 5:30 am screen-shots posted to social media. We respect the sacrifice and commitment of disciplined individuals.
Anyone can develop discipline. This ability isn’t built in a day, but every day you work toward it is another day it grows stronger. As you become more disciplined, you can tell yourself to get things done, and you’ll do them, motivation or no. When it’s time to work, do the work. Build that relationship with your own mind and body, so that when your subconscious mind says, “It’s time to workout,” your body says, “Ok, what’s the plan?”
The key to discipline is following through every single time. It’s realizing every day does count, and consistency compounds. It’s realizing the only way to gain discipline is to practice being disciplined. The repeated decision to take action and maintain habits results in discipline. Discipline compels us to act in line with our habits and routines, even when the opportunity to fail presents itself. Discipline, the by-product of habits, helps us to continue to take action, regardless of how we feel.
We’ve talked about how motivation doesn’t occur until after we take action. First we make the decision, and take action. Motivation then inspires us to keep going; our results encourage us, and we continue to repeat that decision. The daily decision becomes a disciplined habit, and several habits determine the direction of our lives. Decide today to take a step toward that tough thing you’ve been thinking about. Your future self will thank you.
