5 Steps to Never Lack Motivation Again
How do I motivate myself to workout?
It’s one of those universal questions that everyone has asked themselves at one point. It
doesn’t matter if you’re an average person who just wants to get in better shape or an elite
athlete with years of experience. Motivation is an obstacle that everyone encounters at some point.
So how do you overcome that obstacle? Do you just wait to be motivated before getting to work on what you want to achieve?
No.
The good news is, there is a proven and repeatable formula for creating an endless supply of motivation whenever you need it. In this article, you’ll learn how to create motivation in 5 steps!
Step 1: Take Action
The reason we struggle to get motivated is because we haven’t yet understood that motivation is a result of our process. Not the thing we need to begin the process. It’s actually step 5, not step 1.
The unfortunate truth is you will never be more motivated than you are while reflecting on your day in the shower, or in bed the night before. Of course, you should strike while the iron is hot and take advantage of the motivation when it spontaneously appears! However, our goals likely require a consistent effort from us. Which means we need a consistent source of motivation.
That starts with you taking action.
Regardless of how you feel.
Regardless of how the weather is that day.
Regardless of how “perfect” or ideal the circumstances are.
Take action towards whatever it is that you’re working towards. If you’re not sure where to start, take your long-term goal and break it down into 2-3 tasks that you can do daily that you know will move you in the right direction.
For example, if your goal was to lose 20lbs you might say every day you need to:
Get 10000+ steps
Increase the protein content of each meal
Get 8+ hours of sleep.
Step 2: Consistency
Consider your goals as investments (because they are). Now consider your actions as either deposits or withdrawals. If your goal is to get rich, you’d be much better off with more deposits than withdrawals. If your goal is to get rich quicker, it would be in your best interest to make daily deposits.
Your path to motivation is no different. Taking action is the first step, but it’s only the start. Now you need to perform that action consistently.
You know how your family and friends tell you that eating one pizza isn’t going to make you fat? They’re right. Similar to how eating one salad won’t make you thin. Nor will one workout result in visible abs.
We are the result of actions that have been taken consistently and repeated over long periods of time. If we’re now working towards a better version of ourselves, the same principle must be applied. Taking action once isn’t going to be enough. We have to take action and we have to take it consistently.
Step 3: Building Habits
Some people say it takes 21 days of consistency to build a habit. Some say it takes 66 days. I say, it doesn’t really matter how long it takes. It will take as long as it takes for you. Your job is not to worry about that. Your job is just to create the opportunity so that it can happen.
One of the most valuable lessons I teach my clients is about where to focus their time and energy. There are things that you can control, and there are things that you can’t control. You’re much better off focusing on the things you can actually affect. Otherwise, you’re just stressing about things you can’t change, and as we all know that’s a fantastic recipe for degrading your mental health.
For example, you can’t control how bad traffic will be when you go out for a drive. However, you always have control over how you react when you inevitably get stuck in traffic. Similarly, you can’t control how long it’ll take for you to form a lasting habit. You can only control whether or not you’re taking actions consistently enough for that to even occur.
Building habits is crucial to motivation because without them in place, you’ll never reach step 4.
Step 4: Results
This is the most important step. This is going to be the source of your motivation. Let’s go back to the example from earlier.
Let’s imagine:
Your goal was to lose 20lbs.
You’ve been getting 10000+ steps every day
You’ve been building each meal around a lean source of protein
You’ve been sleeping 8+ hours a night
In a world where all that’s true, you’ve definitely started to see some progress by now. Maybe it’s the entire 20lbs, maybe it’s more, maybe it’s less. That’s irrelevant. The point is you’ve now started to see some results.
Results are EVERYTHING when it comes to motivation. You’re now seeing the fruits of your labour. The efforts you’ve been making on a daily basis are now starting to pay off in ways that you can see!
Human beings are horrible when it comes to caring about something that is in the distant future. We’re naturally wired for instant gratification. Which is exactly what we are taking advantage of with this 5 step formula...
...which brings us to the final step!
Step 5: Motivation
You’ve taken action. You’ve performed it consistently. You kept up with it long enough that it became a habit. Your habits led you to start to see progress and results. Seeing the results has now motivated you to keep going!
You’ve now taken something that was once fleeting, random, and unreliable and created it through your own actions.
If you’re anything like the clients that we coach every single day, it’s pretty safe to make a few assumptions. I would bet at this point you’ve now lit a fire underneath yourself and want some more.
Now that you’ve seen what you’re capable of achieving once you commit to a process, you want to repeat that process. You want to see where you can refine that process. You want to test the boundaries of what you can add to the process.
Why?
Because now that you know you’re capable of achieving results, you want more!
The best part? Now you know exactly how to get it!
Conclusion:
"You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
- Marcus Aurelius
There are things we can control. There are things we can’t control. Our time is going to be best spent focusing on things we can actually control. If you wait to be motivated, you will paralyze yourself into not taking action. Instead we can choose to take action regardless. Through our actions we can then CREATE the motivation we thought we needed at the start.
The problem was never the fact that we weren’t motivated. The problem was that we thought we had to be in order to achieve our goals. We were expecting the benefits of Step 5, but we hadn’t yet even gone through steps 1-4.
With this proven 5 step process to create motivation you can successfully put yourself back in the driver’s seat. You no longer have to be a victim to circumstance. You won’t have to wait for lightning to strike in the form of motivation so that you can get started working towards the things that you care about.
You can go full circle and create your own source of motivation.
You just have to take action.