Written on August 27th 2019
Motivation is defined as:
the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.
It gets thrown around a lot -
“I really don’t have the motivation to do this homework right now”
“I’m not motivated to go to work today”
But if the word ‘motivation’ was not in our vocabulary, then what would we use instead? It seems as though people use it constantly because there’s a label for this feeling, but if there wasn’t a label for it, would we keep using it as a scapegoat?
I’m such a sucker for self-help (hence this blog) and thus I’ve collated a few concepts that I’ve gathered over the years from several self-help gurus to help me get up and actually do things. Or in other words, things that have helped me remain ‘motivated’.
Let me break it down to three key points:
1. Motivation is a myth
If we really break it down, motivation is a feeling. Generally, when we say we don’t have the motivation to complete a task, we mean that we don’t feel like doing this task. We think about doing this task, and the thought itself is a demotivating factor, overall preventing you from actually carrying out the task.
But, what if I told you that you don’t need to feel like doing something in order to do it? *mindblown*
This concept emphasises that what you need instead is discipline. You need the discipline to carry out the task, regardless of whether you feel like doing it or not. Who said you need to feel like doing something in order to do it? You need to instead build up the strength and discipline to power through getting up and doing the task, completely disregarding how you feel about doing it.
About 90% of the time (depending on the type of task), you’re not gonna feel like doing the task anyway. But you have to complete it somehow, right?
And that is where the idea that motivation, as a whole, is a myth. In my head, it is non-existent - I do not think of how I feel about doing a task, I do not allow my conscious thoughts about a task to govern my response to carrying it out. Instead, I make myself aware that I must complete this task and I do not give myself any time to consciously debate the pros and cons of doing it or not. I just get up and do it. Feelings? We don’t know her!
I got this great concept which still strongly resonates with me from a fantastic article; please click here to read it if you'd like to delve deeper.
2. The thought of doing the task is harder than actually doing the task itself
When we say we don’t feel like doing something, it’s because we think about doing it. We refer to the default schema mounted in our brains about what we think it’s going to be like if we do the task. So, in a way, we are using our supposed predictive powers to govern whether or not we will carry out a task.
I stayed near the beach in Albania this week, and oftentimes I’d enter the sea, which would be freezing cold. I would step into the water and, as I’d inch my way further down, the water rose higher and higher up my body. The cold temperature made it painful, and so the commencing process of getting into the water was very slow. It was until I decided to immediately hurl my whole body into the water that I became comfortable and quickly got used to the cold water, later feeling it become warm.
I like to use this experience as an analogy for motivation. Me slowly walking into the cold sea, inhaling and exhaling sharply, is a metaphor for me thinking about doing the task. It seems cold and unbearable.
Then, me suddenly plunging my whole body into the water with no conscious thought - is me carrying out the task.
Me getting used to the temperature and later feeling the water become warm and satisfying, is me doing the task and realising it’s not that bad after all.
Once you get into it, the thought of you doing it doesn’t really cross your mind. Once you get into it, you are so focused on the task that you don’t even think about how you’re feeling - you just think about doing the task.
So, the thought of actually doing it is worse than the task itself, and this has been true for me all the time. Thinking about how much homework you have to do just wastes your precious time and energy, just getting up and doing it will generate more productivity and a complete lack of guilt. Just do it!
3. Motivation stems from action
I finished reading a great book recently, known as The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and the author, Mark Manson, points out a key feature from his ‘Do Something’ Principle, which is:
Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it.
In fact, let me just let him explain this (as I couldn’t have said it better myself):
“Most of us commit to action only if we feel a certain level of motivation. And we feel motivation only when we feel enough emotional inspiration. We assume that these steps occur in a sort of chain reaction, like this:
Emotional inspiration → Motivation → Desirable action
If you want to accomplish something but don’t feel motivated or inspired, then you assume you’re just screwed. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s not until a major emotional life event occurs that you can generate enough motivation to actually get off the couch and do something. The thing about motivation is that it’s not only a three-part chain, but an endless loop:
Inspiration → Motivation → Action → Inspiration → Motivation → Action → Etc.
Your actions create further emotional reactions and inspirations and move on to motivate your future actions. Taking advantage of this knowledge, we can actually reorient our mindset in the following way:
Action → Inspiration → Motivation
If you lack the motivation to make an important change in your life, do something—anything, really—and then harness the reaction to that action as a way to begin motivating yourself. I call this the “do something” principle. After using it myself to build my business, I began teaching it to readers who came to me perplexed by their own simple questions: “How do I apply for a job?” or “How do I tell this guy I want to be his girlfriend?” and the like.
During the first couple years I worked for myself, entire weeks would go by without my accomplishing much, for no other reason than that I was anxious and stressed about what I had to do, and it was too easy to put everything off. I quickly learned, though, that forcing myself to do something, even the most menial of tasks, quickly made the larger tasks seem much easier. If I had to redesign an entire website, I’d force myself to sit down and would say, “Okay, I’ll just design the header right now.” But after the header was done, I’d find myself moving on to other parts of the site. And before I knew it, I’d be energized and engaged in the project.
The author Tim Ferriss relates a story he once heard about a novelist who had written over seventy novels. Someone asked the novelist how he was able to write so consistently and remain inspired and motivated. He replied, “Two hundred crappy words per day, that’s it.”
The idea was that if he forced himself to write two hundred crappy words, more often than not the act of writing would inspire him; and before he knew it, he’d have thousands of words down on the page.”
So, what Manson is essentially saying is, inspiration and motivation can actually come from the action itself, instead of the other way round. Literally forcing yourself to do a task will generate more productivity, inspiration and action than thinking about and/or dreading doing it. Before you know it, you are so invested in the task that you potentially end up doing more than you intended.
(p.s. I highly recommend Manson’s book above if you’d like a rapid change in mindset to life)
I could go on forever, but the 3 points mentioned above are the main things that help me get up and do stuff. It’s really not as deep as you think it is - to just complete that piece of coursework or finish that painting you started. It’s about allocating your time effectively, not thinking about doing the task so deeply, and just, essentially, getting on with it! You’ll thank yourself later.
Peace.
- Aurora
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