"The Sine Qua Non of Motivation"
Like most of us, motivation to me comes with many peaks and troughs and it did not take me long to realise that is the way for most of us.
To try and gain control over my own ability to self motivate I have set out on a mission to understand why there seems to be a lack of constancy with staying motivated as well as a certain amount of inertia attached to the the low periods. Here's how I went about it:
First things first. I needed to understand the root of it all...
MOTIVATION
MOTIVE...ATION
MOTIVE+ACTION
A-HA! Motive to take Action.
I feel like I am starting to get somewhere. I have always been fascinated with etymology since I was in high school. I had this brilliant grammar teacher who was also a published writer, Mrs Maelli. She instilled a great deal of curiosity in most of us and taught us that most things could be understood through a simple deconstruction of words. I am glad I came across such an inspiring character.
The Oxford dictionary shows the word motivation as of the late 19th century came from the word 'motive'; the reason or desire for acting or behaving in a certain way. That did not quite "hit the spot", which is when I decided to look at the word in Portuguese and its Latin root.
'Motiva??o' broken down into "Motivar A??o", i.e. something that motivates us to take action. In Latin, the word motivus relates to movement, something that is mobile. Stay with me now...
If motivation has in itself implied that we need to have a motive, a reason to take action then all we need is to have that same reason very clearly defined. Simple, maybe. Easy, absolutely not.
Even if that were true why do so many of us, despite having a clear motive, still stumble upon inertia?
Getting unstuck: Turning motivation on its head.
Let's just for one second consider challenging the status quo. What if we accept that having a core reason clearly defined first is not the most effective way? Can we rethink motivation? What a tempting thought it would be to start with action... By default we eliminate the conundrum of having to find the motive to even start and trying to convince our reptilian brain to snap out of the "freeze" stage of decision making.
Having a reason and yet doing nothing about it would be pointless. Now here is where things get funky.
When we take action, towards a goal and completing a task no matter how small it triggers the dopaminergic reward circuit which in return - and you may have guessed - motivates us to take another small action.
Confidence: It is not what we think it is.
So much can be said about confidence, or lack thereof. Similarly, it is often a concept that is often misunderstood and that the practicality of it seldom successfully applied. We start to shrink down for fear of not being confident enough to do, be or achieve certain things.
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My favourite ever definition of confidence I heard from the author and motivational speaker Ed Mylett "Confidence resides in our ability to keep the promises we make to ourselves". The more committed we are to follow through on the tasks we set ourselves and to take action on the promises we make the more our confidence will compound. That works in every area of our lives - be it professional, personal or relationally.
The confidence we acquire through achieving goals the more momentum we will have to keep us motivated to take action.
Procrastinate Procrastinating
Lastly, the big villain of productivity. Procrastination. Look, I will not lie. Most of us fob off the things we struggle with or do not have an emotional connection to the outcome and/ or process.
It is important do to the things we don't want to do. Conversely, doing things we hate is the man culprit for procrastination. For the latter, whenever possible my advise is to delegate or outsource.
Everything else, I have a list I use called "The Tri-Factor". Batch your tasks in to bundles of 3 tasks at a time. Three is doable. Three is not daunting and it make it possible to activate the dopamine reward system upon completion.
If procrastinating has in fact kept you from getting anything done, try Mel Robbins' 5 Second Rule. A brain hack to break unhelpful habits which basically consists of counting down from 5..4..3..2..1 and just get to it.
How do you think I finally got around to writing this article? Sure, I have a lot of procrastinating to do still...but I'll do it later.
I hope this article has given you a different outlook on motivation and inspired you to develop your own tools to go after your dreams and chase excellence.
Every. Single. Day.