Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 494 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Get Motivated by Taking Action

Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 494 of our trek, and today is Motivation Monday. Every Monday we hike the trails of life that will encourage and motivate us to live rich and satisfying lives this week. Today let us explore the trail called Get Motivated by Taking Action.

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. If all goes according to plan, we will have returned from our trip to Mesa, Arizona by now. I am recording a few episodes in advance while we are away from our office. We have several activities and goals planned for the remainder of this month, but we realize that to accomplish them, we must take action which will motivate us in the future to complete our tasks.

As we break camp and head out on our trek for today, let us invest time exploring the concept of…

Get Motivated by Taking Action

You may struggle to find the motivation you need to achieve the goals you want because you are wasting too much time and energy on other parts of the process. If you want to make it easy to find motivation and get started, then it helps to automate the early stages of your behavior.

1. Schedule Your Motivation

Many people never get around to starting tasks because they are always wondering what they are going to do next. You could apply this to working out, starting a business, writing a book, and building most habits. Here are some examples:

• If your workout doesn’t have a time when it usually occurs, then each day you’ll wake up thinking, “I hope I feel motivated to exercise today.”
• If your business doesn’t have a system for marketing, then you’ll show up at work crossing your fingers that you’ll find a way to get the word out (in addition to everything else you have to do).
• If you don’t have a scheduled time when you write every week, then you’ll find yourself saying things like, “I just need to find the willpower to do it.”

In other words, if you waste resources trying to decide when or where to work, you’ll impede your capacity to do the work.

Setting a schedule for yourself seems simple, but it puts your decision-making on autopilot by giving your goals a time and a place to live. It makes it more likely that you will follow through regardless of your motivation level. There are plenty of research studies on willpower and motivation to back up that statement. A personal example is that I get up at 5:30am every weekday to exercise. I rarely feel motivated when I get up, but I take action knowing that it is part of my overall goal for maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Stop waiting for motivation or inspiration to strike you and set a schedule for your habits. This is the difference between professionals and amateurs. Professionals set a schedule and stick to it. Amateurs wait until they feel inspired or motivated.

2. How to Get Motivated (Even When You Don’t Feel Like It)

The most successful creative people go beyond schedules to set up rituals that they stick to in order to accomplish what they desire.

In his popular book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, author Mason Currey notes that many of the world’s great artists follow a consistent schedule.

• Maya Angelou rented a local hotel room and went there to write. She arrived at [6:30] AM, wrote until 2 PM, and then went home to do some editing. She never slept at the hotel.
• Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon writes five nights per week from 10 PM to 3 AM.
• Haruki Murakami wakes up at 4 AM, writes for five hours, and then goes for a run.

The work of top creatives isn’t dependent upon motivation or inspiration, but rather it follows a consistent pattern and routine. Here are some examples of how you can apply ritual and routine to get motivated:

1. Exercise more consistently. – Use the same warm up routine in the gym.
2. Become more creative. – Follow a creative ritual before you start writing or painting or singing.
3. Start each day stress-free. – Create a five-minute morning Scripture study or meditation ritual.
4. Sleep better. – Follow a similar “power down” routine every night before bed.

The power of a ritual is similar to a pregame routine. It provides a mindless (habitual) way to initiate your behavior. It makes starting your habits easier, and that means following through on a consistent basis is easier.

The key to any good ritual is that it removes the need to make a decision: What should I do first? When should I do this? How should I do this? Most people never get moving because they can’t decide how to get started. You want to start a behavior to be easy and automatic, so you have the strength to finish it when it becomes difficult and challenging.

3. How to Make Motivation a Habit

There are three simple steps you can take to build better rituals and make motivation a habit.

Step 1: A good pregame routine starts by being so easy that you can’t say no to it. You shouldn’t need motivation to start your pregame routine. For example, my exercise routine starts the night before by setting out my workout clothes. When I wake up at 5:30am, I immediately get dressed and then read through my list of gratitude statements.

The most important part of any task is starting. If you can’t get motivated in the beginning, then you’ll find that motivation often comes after starting. That’s why your pregame routine needs to be incredibly easy to start. 

Step 2: Your routine should get you moving toward the end goal.

A lack of mental motivation is often linked to a lack of physical movement. Just imagine your physical state when you’re feeling depressed, bored, or unmotivated. You’re not moving very much. Maybe you’re slumped over like a blob, slowly melting into the couch.

The opposite is also true. If you’re physically moving and engaged, then it’s far more likely that you’ll feel mentally engaged and energized. For example, it’s almost impossible to not feel vibrant, awake, and energized when you’re dancing.

While your routine should be as easy as possible to start, it should gradually transition into more and more physical movement. Your mind and your motivation will follow your physical movement. It is worth noting that physical movement doesn’t have to mean exercise. For example, if your goal is to write, then your routine should bring you closer to the physical act of writing.

Step 3: You need to follow the same pattern every single time.

The primary purpose of your pregame routine is to create a series of events that you always perform before doing a specific task. Your pregame routine tells your mind, “This is what happens before I do ___.” Eventually, this routine becomes so tied to your performance that by simply doing the routine, you are pulled into a mental state that is primed to perform. You don’t need to know how to find motivation, you just need to start your routine.

This is important because when you don’t feel motivated, it’s often too much work to figure out what you should do next. When faced with another decision, you will often decide to just quit. However, the pregame routine solves that problem because you know exactly what to do next. There’s no debating or decision making. Lack of motivation doesn’t matter. You just follow the pattern.

A scripture passage that I have used before certainly applies here, which is Philippians 3:12-14, “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,  I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

As we finish our trek for today, let me ask you, “What ‘pregame routines’ can you set so you can take action and gain motivation?” Let me know if you need any assistance.

Next Motivation Monday we will explore how to stay motivated for the long-run. Tomorrow’s short trek is part of our Wisdom Unplugged series that we are now hiking on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These 3-minute wisdom supplements will assist you in becoming healthy, wealthy, and wise throughout the entire week. So encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our trek for today. As you enjoy these daily doses of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person when you meet with them and invite them to come along with us each day. If you would like to listen to any of the past daily treks, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek so each trek will be downloaded to you automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this trek of life together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!