These 3 things can tell you whether all that time and energy you are putting in is going to get you results or will it get tough to keep showing up after a while. And if staying motivated is going to be a problem but the task is important for you, then how to motivate yourself.
How to motivate yourself
1. What really motivates us
Here’s a fact – no one can get us motivated to do anything, provide motivation for us. They can get us excited, all charged up to take action but not truly motivated because motivation is something that has got to begin within us.
Motivational stuff does work, but only when they touch an intense desire for something we already have. It can feed the fire but not spark it within us.
What really motivate us is consequences – something we are seeking, expecting will happen, or it’s something we are trying to avoid. Like, we can be motivated to stick to the diet to be in perfect health for the vacation planned later in the year. Or, we can be motivated to meet the deadline mainly to avoid everything not meeting the deadline would mean.
How to motivate yourself –
1. Autonomy.
Feeling empowered to choose. When we choose to work towards something rather than putting in our time and effort to avoid consequences, that’s when we get motivated and stay motivated longer.
“When you perceive choice, you perceive motivation”
– Ellen Langer, ‘Mindfulness’
Pull motivation always works better. Our belief in, our desire and need for something pulling us towards it works much better than push motivation, trying to avoid something. Because being constantly on the lookout can really get exhausting after a while.
2. Motivation + ______.
But sometimes we just have to do some things even if the result is not pulling us towards it. And it’s then that something more besides motivation ensures that the time and energy we are putting in wouldn’t be all wasted effort. We will go into this in details towards the end of this video. But before that, we need to get clear about something.
2. Is motivation a key ingredient of your action plan?
If motivation is a key ingredient of your action plan, then you will find this interesting. We may need motivation either because we are tired and don’t want to do something. Or, because we are feeling anxious about how things might turn out and need to feel motivated to overcome that resistance and start taking action.
Neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman calls this limbic friction… when the rational part of our brain knows we have to do something but the survival part, the limbic system isn’t really convinced.
Now, motivation is connected to dopamine. When we like the result of doing something, dopamine is released in the brain and it works like a treat or reward – getting it makes us want more. And the way to getting more is to keep repeating what we did earlier.
In other words, we become motivated to keep repeating the action. And that’s why they say, motivation comes from taking action, not the other way round. So, how to motivate yourself to take that first step?
How to motivate yourself –
1. Be specific.
Being specific about what doing that task is going to do for you. It works both ways. It helps get energize, motivate yourself to take action despite feeling tired… and it will also help overcome that nervousness that was holding you back because now we want that result… it puts pull motivation in place.
2. Simplest action step.
So, when there’s no motivation to begin, get specific about how directly or even indirectly doing that thing is important for you before you find the simplest action step to get the motivational ball rolling.
3. How to motivate yourself - best way to get results
Now, which one do you think is more important to get results – staying motivated or discipline and willpower? Which one works for you? Because knowing this helps us see how fast are we going to get results.
One line of ideas say that you don’t need motivation, it fluctuates, it’s unreliable. And so it’s better to simply depend on discipline and your willpower to keep showing up because consistently putting one step in front of the other is what gets us past the end line.
But then, there’s also the fact that motivation, especially intrinsic motivation or the intense desire to achieve that goal can help us get past all the hurdles and get results. The pull motivation makes it easier for us to keep moving forward through all the problems and low-energy days.
What works best –
Here’s the thing. We all have a limited amount of willpower available each day and every choice that requires self-control uses it up a little, which is called ego depletion. And discipline without motivation costs a lot of willpower. Watch the video up top to see the formula that gets us results faster even on low energy days when doubts start cropping up.
Meet you right over there. Hope you found this useful.
