Motivation is a myth.

I first heard of this concept when I read the book ‘The Motivation Myth’, by Jeff Haden. In the book, Jeff highlights that motivation is NOT the prerequisite to “starting a tedious learning process” but, rather the RESULT. It is:

“the fire that starts burning after you manually, painfully, coax it into existence, and it feeds on the satisfaction of seeing yourself make progress.”

I think this table below summarises it well:

Motivation Comes from Starting

How often do we hear “I’ll start when I become motivated”? What is actually true, is that the motivation comes from starting.

How many times have you been faced with an overwhelming and ‘impossible’ task, only to find out that after you take a few steps towards that goal, you become more motivated to complete it?

For example, take this website and blog I have set up. For many years, I wanted to share my ideas and thoughts via a blog. I just didn’t have the platform to do so, and was ‘not motivated’ enough to start a website. Little did I know, after taking that first step, things became easier and easier. After getting started with a website domain, I became more motivated to get a website. Then I actually enjoyed putting together the website, looking at different themes and fonts to make my website my own. Little by little, that spark of motivation kept coming after every step I took.

This can be applied to anything. For example, that 5k run you want to do in the morning? It becomes a lot easier after you get out of bed (motivation), and then actually start running a few hundred metres (more motivation). The hardest part of all this is just getting out of bed (initial push).

Discipline is Key

So how do you actually perform the first step, if motivation comes after? As the heading suggests, discipline is the key.

What is discipline? Discipline is doing the action, regardless of how you’re feeling about it.

It doesn’t matter if it’s cold, raining and dark outside. You still need to get up and go for a run in the morning. Otherwise, you will never get anything done (especially if you live in the UK like me).

The point is to cut the link between feelings and actions, and do it anyway. As the diagram above suggests, you will feel ‘motivated’ and energetic afterwards.

Overall, the key message is don’t wait for ‘motivation’ to act towards something. Very rarely in life, will there be a perfect moment or environment that will inspire us to take action.

You went to work today, regardless of how you were feeling. You went, because you had to. This in itself proves you don’t need to wait for motivation to achieve something.

All you have to do is get started. Then you will have all the motivation you need.

Feel free to check out my post on how to achieve your goals by making them smarter.

Diagram from: https://www.yourswimlog.com/the-myth-of-motivation/