How do you motivate yourself?

I’ve come across the book Motivation Myth by Jeff Harden in which he says that motivation is not a prerequisite to make you take action, but action leads to a small success and that creates motivation. In a way motivation is a result of doing something, not a spark that you would need beforehand.

My experience

Jeff’s idea resonates with me. I often find that I don’t think about motivation often, even when I am the least motivated, as I know that it is just a fleeting feeling between me and the action that I can overcome once I start to act. I often call it the ‘butt’ power. Once I sit down to the piano and play that first note, somehow the energy generates itself from the action.

In the book The Happiness Equation the author Neil Pasricha says

“It is not easier said than done, it’s easier done than said.”

As soon as I feel lazy or demotivated, the first thing I try is to do the very thing that I consciously or unconsciously avoid in my mind. Interestingly, it has always been the case that the more I do it, the more I love it, the more I want to spend time on it, and the fleeting feeling of laziness is often replaced with satisfaction and a sense of success. The most addictive and rewarding motivation is a sense of small success after doing something. Those are often very small successes, daily rituals of doing things. I actually love whatever I am not motivated to do at the moment. When I focus on an action as a mere medium of exercising my passion or love for it, it is always easier to make that first step. Don’t wait for motivation to arrive, just do the work and enjoy motivation coming as a reward.

What about you?

Is there anything you have been procrastinating about? What is your way of making yourself more motivated?

Jeeyoon