Motivate me

Do you find yourself watching other people progress in their careers, set up their own businesses or change their careers?

Do you find yourself waiting for inspiration to strike?

Do you love hanging out on the sofa after work, tucking into your snack of choice, reassuring yourself that you’ll get some exercise/tidy the house/call your friend tomorrow when you feel more like it?

It gets tiring pretty quickly to wait for life to happen, and over time squashes you, the you who shines on your best day, until you’re barely recognisable. You need to start getting back into the drivers seat of your life. Cliche and cheesy and true.

Motivation is a lie. Motivation is simply the result of taking action.

Motivation. What a beast. Sometimes it feels like motivation is there in droves and other days it feels like it’s left the building. What if it isn’t motivation that’s holding you back? What if it’s as simple as you not taking action?

Mr Motivator is a slightly mad, Lycra-donning fitness ‘guru’ of sorts who shot to fame on a TV breakfast show in the U.K. back in the 1990s. The idea of a Mr Motivator is brilliant – somehow having someone there with the promise of being motivating you takes the pressure off you to be responsible for your own decisions and your own lack of action. Now all you have to do is wait for Mr Motivator to show up and you’ve got it sorted. And for personal fitness it can work amazingly well. It’s like having someone on your side to keep you accountable (dare I say it, like having a coach cheerleading you on).

Except of course two people can watch Mr Motivator and behave completely differently. The first person, let’s call her Sally, watches our Mr Motivator and enjoys laughing at him leaping around while tucking into her bowl of crisps/bag of chocolate buttons/popcorn (delete as appropriate). At no point does she choose to join in and experience the action. Person B, let’s call her Ellie, watches and immediately jumps up and joins in with the exercises.

The Oxford Learners Dictionaries defines motivation as: ‘the reason why somebody does something or behaves in a particular way.’ What if your reason for ‘doing something’ or behaving in a particular way was as simple as ‘because you chose to’? That’s all. You choose to say ‘yes’ or you choose to say ‘no’. That’s it. Wow, simple.

Action is simply a choice. Motivation is irrelevant.

What happens when you take choose to action, and you take it, is that you create momentum. Yes, it turns out my teachers were right and physics is useful after all. Any action you take towards a goal creates momentum. You choose whether to ride the momentum, like a ball rolling down the hill, and keep choosing action over inaction. One small step at a time. More action continues the momentum which makes you feel motivated. Inaction, and the choice you make not to take action, will eventually cause the momentum to stop and you’ll stop feeling motivated. Until you choose to take another step forward.

Don’t wait for motivation. Keep it small and start.

I get stuck in the inertia of inaction more times than I would like to admit. The truth is that I choose not to. I give myself reasons and excuses why ‘now is not the right time’, ‘I don’t feel like it’, ‘there are other things I should be doing’. None of those is wrong, and they are reasons I’m creating to support my lack of action.

Take my last blog post. It chose not to write that for a long time. There was always a reason. And often it was the excuse of not having enough time. Then I reminded myself of the idea that breaking big goals down into small steps can help you sneak past your brain’s fear centre (the dear old amygdala). So I set an alarm for ten minutes. When it went off I was already in the thick of writing so I reset it for another ten. It took me two lots of reset timers and I was done.

Action led to more action. It created its own momentum. Motivation was simply a choice.

Are you stuck and feeling unmotivated? Here are 3 things you can play with.

1. Choose. Choose to take one tiny action. Make it so small you actually want to laugh. If your goal is to go outside more, just open a window and stick your head out (safely, hold onto something and don’t lean too far). If you’d like to get a phone call out the way, get the phone number. Or just dial the number. It’s only a choice.

2. Get someone in your corner. Find someone to keep you accountable. Tell them of the choice you’ve made and the steps you’re going to take. Brainstorm the steps or the first step if you find yourself getting stuck in overthinking. Find someone who can support you, and challenge you. And start to notice what you tell yourself.

3. Do something. Doing anything differently will shake things up. Make the choice and do it. My favourite Yoda quote is ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’ Say ‘yes’ and do it. Lean on the support you’ve created for yourself in step 2 to get you over the line.

All great journeys begin with a choice and that one first step.

Have fun – consciously choose to act today in one very small way.

Louisa x

PS When you’re ready for transformation and change, let’s talk about the ways I can help you build your confidence, create your vision and increase your impact on the world.