Feeling like your motivation just up and vanished? Trust me, I get it. I'm struggling with that too!

Today, I’m diving into how to keep your motivational fires burning when all you want to do is hide under a blanket and binge-watch your favourite shows. I'm going to be sharing some insightful strategies to tackle those low-energy days, with a focus on the fact that motivation isn’t a magical feeling that just hits you out of nowhere. Instead, it’s about taking action—yep, just getting started is often the key.

I’ll also touch on the importance of creating simple routines that pull you into practice, and how breaking down your goals can help you push through the inevitable dips we all face. So, if you've been struggling to stay on track with your English practice or CELPIP prep, listen in to today's episode—I've got some practical tips that you can put into action right away!

The struggle of motivation is something we can all relate to. Whether you're preparing for the CELPIP exam or just trying to maintain your English skills, there are moments when picking up that textbook or logging into a practice app feels like an impossible task. I've been there too, and it's a universal challenge. Today, I want to dive deep into understanding where that lack of motivation comes from and, more importantly, how we can actively combat it.

A key insight I've discovered is from James Clear, who suggests that motivation often follows action rather than precedes it. This means that instead of waiting for that spark of enthusiasm to hit, we should just get started. Even the smallest action can spark that motivation we thought was lost. Think of it as a snowball effect; once we begin, it’s much easier to keep the momentum going.

Another practical takeaway is the importance of establishing a simple pre-game routine. This could be as easy as setting out your study materials or even putting on your headphones to listen to English podcasts. The key is to make this routine effortless so that you can begin your practice without needing to muster up motivation each time.

We'll also look into the concept of the dip, that author Seth Godin writes about in a book that goes by the same name, The Dip!

The dip refers to those inevitable periods when progress feels stagnant. Understanding that these dips are normal and part of the learning process can help us push through and continue working towards our language goals.

In wrapping up, I want to encourage you to embrace the idea that motivation is not a magical feeling we wait for. Instead, it’s something we create through action. So, let’s not wait; let's set those simple routines and begin our practice today! If you have a pre-game routine or plan in mind, I’d love to hear about it. Share your thoughts with me!

Takeaways:

• Motivation isn't some magical spark that appears; it's actually a byproduct of taking action.
• To overcome the slump or lack of motivation, just getting started can create the momentum needed to keep going.
• Creating a simple pre-practice routine can help trigger your study sessions and make them easier to start.
• Don't focus on the end goal alone; break it down into smaller, manageable tasks to keep yourself engaged.
• Physical movement is crucial; get up, move around, and your mental energy will follow suit during study sessions.
• Monitor your progress regularly to stay motivated, especially after achieving milestones in your learning journey.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• By James Clear: How To Get Motivated When You Don't Feel Like it. , | Motivation: The scientific guide on how to get and stay motivated.
• Seth Godin: The Dip (Here's a helpful book summary.)
• Dr. Ayelet Fischbach: How to set the right goals and stay motivated

How do you keep going when all you want to do is just give up? How do you get yourself to study and prepare for the Celpip or to practice your English when you don't feel motivated to do it anymore?

Today I want to share a message that came in from one of my clients that really resonated with me. He says I lack motivation to practice. I feel like I'm struggling to stay motivated. I can't even find a way to practice anymore.

How can I encourage myself to learn and keep on going? This resonated with me because it voiced exactly what I have also been struggling with the past few weeks.

A strong feeling of I'm just not motivated to do much of anything right now other than curl up under a warm blanket and read or watch Netflix. Yeah, I feel where my student is coming from just not feeling motivated these days. That got me to thinking about this a lot.

And I begin to wonder why is this lack of motivation happening in the first place? It's not how I normally feel, though lately it sure has been feeling like the normal thing I feel.

But where is it coming from and can I do something about it to get my motivation back? And I was thinking about you too. I know you struggle with this as well.

Days or weeks where you just don't want to practice, you just don't want to think about speaking tasks or reading skills for the celpip. And not only do you not want to think about it, you simply check out of your practice sessions for days or weeks at a time.

I bet you know the feeling, right? The initial excitement has faded and now practice feels like a grind.

And maybe, just maybe, you find yourself wondering to yourself if maybe you should just quit or where did my motivation go? I've lost it. I know I've been feeling those words these past few weeks.

And so ever since my student voiced what I was thinking, I started researching to see if I could find some ideas to help me and you us through these dips. If there is anything at all that we can do. So today, if you're dealing with a lack of motivation, I hope what I'm learning about can help you.

And today, to be totally honest with you, I'm learning about this from me as well. Hi, I'm Aaron. Welcome to the Celpip Success Podcast.

This is the podcast where motivated English learners just like you learn how to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the self exam.

Okay, so the first thing I want to share with you today comes from being surprised by what I found, as I've researched for today's episode, that first surprise is this.

Motivation, according to writer James Clear, and contrary to common opinion, including my own, is not something that we should wait for in order to act.

Listen to this quote from James Clear and I quote One of the most surprising things about motivation is that it often comes after starting a new behavior, not before. We have this common misconception that motivation arrives as a result of passively consuming a motivational video or reading an inspirational book.

However, active inspiration can be a far more powerful motivator. Motivation is often the result of action, not the cause of it.

Getting started, even in very small ways, is a form of active inspiration that naturally produces momentum. End quote. Now, that was an aha moment for me, and I'll be linking to his article in my show notes today if you'd like to check his work out.

The aha for me was don't wait for motivation to come to you. You can act your way into being motivated. Motivation is a result of action taking, not the cause of it.

And now that I think about it, I've seen this idea in action quite frequently. Maybe you have too. Even in the creation of today's podcast episode, the one that you're listening to right now. It happened like I shared before.

I've been feeling rather down on things lately. Before I started working on today's episode, I knew I needed to do it. I knew the topic I wanted to cover, but I didn't feel up to doing it.

I thought I didn't feel motivated to sit down and work out what I wanted to talk about. But once I got up, moved upstairs to my bedroom office and started typing, I felt my excitement. I felt my excitement flow back in.

And I'm definitely motivated to share what I'm learning about with you. My motivation came from taking action. Have you noticed this in your own life? And that leads to James Clear's next idea.

Once you get started, it's easier to stay in motion. He calls it the physics of productivity. This is Newton's first law. But applied to habits, objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

And when it comes to taking action on something you know you need to do, but you don't feel too motivated to do it, just getting started can be all you need, because nearly all the friction you're facing comes mostly at the start or at the beginning, that moment when you have to get off your sofa, turn off Netflix, and begin to practice.

In my case, to come upstairs, sit down here at my desk to prepare this episode the friction was at the start, when I was still on the sofa watching tv. Once you're moving, it's easier to keep going until you finish. Here's a takeaway for you.

Stop waiting to feel inspired to study or to prepare for your celpip examination. Focus instead on just getting started. Growing up, my favorite hockey team was the Montreal Canadiens. I was a massive fan.

My brother and I even collected hockey cards together. We had thousands of them, and I don't even want to think about how much money we spent on those cards.

And the Montreal Canadiens, well, I had everything on them. But there was this one player in particular that I loved to watch. His name was Patrick Waugh and he was the goaltender at the time.

He was my hero and one of the things that I loved watching was his pre game ritual. Every single game, while the other players were out skating around the rink to warm up, he did something completely different.

He did several stretches and then skated back and forth between the two goal posts of his net, hitting the post with the flat part of his goalie stick. He did this several times, back and forth, tapped the post skate to the other post, tapped it and back again.

That was his routine and he never skipped it. James Clear writes about the importance of developing our own pre game routines. In our case, pre practice routine or ritual.

The goal should be a simple routine that pulls you into focus. I mean, how difficult a ritual is it to skate back and forth between two goalposts of a hockey net, tapping the posts with your stick?

It's simple, isn't it? It's fast also, but it's powerful. And that focusing is why Patrick Waugh did it. The hockey arena is loud, fans are screaming, players are shouting.

And then you have all the pressures of trying to win at a professional level sport where it's your job to play well.

Those rituals, according to James Clear and I read about those rituals from other writers as well, are all designed to anchor you and help you get your head in the game, regardless of how you're feeling. So practice routines really matter. But do you have one?

And to be honest, I don't think I have a purposeful one for my prep work for this podcast, for example. So I will be working on this right along with you. Okay, so let's dig into routines for a minute so you and I can see why they matter so much.

Here's how they work. A consistent routine tells your mind something. And I didn't know this before digging into this.

I'm learning this with you, but a routine is not just a repetitive action. Okay? It's something that does something for you. It tells your mind. When I do this, something else is going to happen.

A few weeks ago, I was sharing with you how excited I have been about doing those stretching exercises that my physiotherapist has given me. You remember me talking about that? Well, there was a strong routine associated with it.

The exercise app would beep on my phone at 7pm because I told it to. Next, as soon as that beeping stopped, I would pull out my exercise mat and put it on the floor. This was my ritual. It would beep.

I would put my mat on the floor. As soon as those two things happened, the rest of my practice session followed, even if I didn't feel up to doing it.

So I know the power of these kinds of routines. James Clear points out that when you follow the same pattern every single time, you eliminate the problem of decision making.

Like, should I practice today? Should I stretch today? Or maybe I should do this other thing instead. Your routine becomes the trigger that kickstarts your habit.

So let's think through some things that will help you build your own cell prep routine. The first thing that you have to keep in mind is that your routine needs to be incredibly easy to do. James Clear.

And I know I mentioned him a lot here, but he writes a lot about this topic and points out that the most important thing about your pre game routine is that it must be super easy to do. Your routine must be so easy you cannot say no to it. You shouldn't even need motivation to start the routine itself. Here's an example.

The routine could start with something as simple as pulling out your headphones and plugging them in or syncing them with your cell phone.

If you do listening practice, for example, by listening to podcasts, the act of getting your headphones out and putting them on and syncing them with your cell phone could be what starts your practice habit. Your only goal is to start this tiny first step. Your headphones, plugging them in, syncing them. And here's a bonus.

Do this at the same time each day and we're going to talk about this in a minute. For me and my stretching, that was that beep on the cell phone and me pulling out my mat and putting it on the floor. That was my simple routine.

It was super simple. It took me less than 30 seconds to do and it was what started my stretching routine off. Part 2 Get moving. Physically or mentally?

James Clear points out that there is a strong connection between physical motion and mental energy. And I quote here, your routine should get you moving towards your end goal. Most of the time, your routine should include physical movement.

It's hard to think yourself into getting motivated. Here's why. What is your body language like? When you're feeling unmotivated or lacking energy, you're not moving very much.

Maybe you're slumped over like a blob slowly melting into your couch. This lack of physical movement is directly linked to a lack of mental energy, and 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. 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. Now I can totally attest to this being true.

Lack of mental energy is often linked to a lack of physical movement, and I think it's one of the reasons I've been struggling lately.

I've not been exercising much thanks to the weather and just changes in my schedule at work, but when I do get out and walk, I feel my mental state improve dramatically. I wonder if that's happening to you as well, how this might apply for you.

Can you pair your practice sessions with taking a walk or even just getting up from the sofa where you were sitting and moving to another space? Maybe your practice space?

If you have a special area in your home where you work, that movement can help of just getting up from the sofa and going somewhere else. And if you can do that outdoor exercise bit, that can help even more.

I know this to be true when it comes to podcast prep or me thinking through the challenges I'm facing in my business, I do my best thinking when I'm walking. Part 3 Follow the same pattern every single time. Consistency is crucial. That's what made my physiotherapist app so helpful.

It reminded me to take action at the same time every every single day. What if you put your pregame routine as a daily alarm on your cell phone?

When it goes off, you immediately begin to do it, then move into action, whether motivated or not, Surviving the slumps. The Dip and the Middle Problem my friend. This part is absolutely vital.

The dip or the messy middle or the middle problem is where most people give up and walk away from their celpip prep or their English practice or whatever important thing they're trying to accomplish. And I don't want this to happen to you. I don't want it to happen to me. So I'm also Paying close attention to this part.

Seth Godden, who is an author and marketing expert, has written many books, but one of them I am reading right now, and it's called the Dip. In it, he encourages the reader to actually anticipate the struggle that is found after the initial excitement of starting something new wears off.

He points out that the dip is normal and it hits everyone who dares to start something. And he argues that everything that's worth doing in life has and is controlled by the dip. So what is the dip?

It is the long slog after the initial excitement, where results. Where results seem stagnant, like they've gone and they've disappeared and they're no longer around.

It's just you wading through this thing, and it leads to having doubts, like, is this worth doing anymore? Maybe I'm not such a great English learner like I thought I was. Maybe I should just stop podcasting.

Maybe I should just stop trying to do this altogether. It's just too much work. Is it really worth it? Those kinds of doubts? He argues that the dip is actually proof that you're on the right paths.

It serves as an audition, forcing you to invest, forcing you to learn, and most important of all, forcing you to improve your skills before actually achieving success. In our case, building fluency in English. And the shortest route to that success is through the dip. What does this mean for you?

You gotta understand that plateauing, hitting that dip is absolutely normal. It's part of the price we all have to pay to achieve the result that we're looking for.

In your case, that's probably building your English fluency to a high enough level that you can score well on the CELPIP exam. And in order to get your PR status, the dip is normal. But, boy, it can be rough. And, boy, it can push you off target and get you to quit.

Seth Godden links the dip to a giant filter, a screen, meaning not everyone will make it through. Many give up. But those who push through their dip experiences often find great success simply because not many people make it through.

As some would say, you're breathing rare air on the other side.

To get across, you must improve your learning strategies and skills, which is what we're kind of talking about here in this podcast and in today's episode. Continually improving your skills and your strategies will lead to a breakthrough.

Dr. Ayelet Fischbach, and I hope I said her name right, is a professor of behavioral science and marketing at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. Even cooler, she's a Motivation scientist. She describes the dip as the middle problem.

She shares that for long term goals like achieving English fluency, for example, motivation declines in the middle because it feels absolutely disconnected from the start and the end. When the middle is long, whatever you do feels like a drop in the bucket. It feels insignificant.

In other words, you feel lost, like does this even matter anymore? Dr. Fishbach argues that in order to overcome your slump, you should keep the middle short. Oh, that sounds interesting to me.

How do you keep the middle short? Well, she suggests breaking down that long middle into short goals, measurable chunks like weekly or daily objectives.

This minimizes the feeling of being in an endless middle.

While most people can't really speed through an intermediate level of English where most language learning dips happen and break into an advanced level in a matter of weeks or months, the strategy of breaking your language learning objectives into shorter chunks is totally something that you should be looking into. Instead of thinking I have to bump my 7 to a 9 on the celpip, think how many conversations can I get into today that are 100% in English?

My today only five English conversations with my coworkers and make sure you track those. Or you can use something called the Goldilocks rule. Motivation is higher, says Dr. Fischbach, when tasks are at the optimal zone of difficulty.

Not too hard, not too easy, but just right.

If practice feels boring, too easy, or discouraging when it's way too hard, you need to adjust the task back to the border of your current ability in order to help you to stay engaged. So don't try to read Shakespeare, for example, if you are a beginner, that's going to be really too hard.

And don't just review vocabulary you already know that's too easy. You need to find content that challenges you slightly but is still manageable.

The next point that Dr. Fischbach makes is that we should be monitoring our progress strategically. And that means at the beginning of your goal you should be looking back at how much you have accomplished.

You know those check ins that I've been doing with you each? Well, it hasn't been every week.

But those regular check ins where we take some time to look back over the week and to notice the things that we did that worked, the things that we tried, the successes, and even the things that didn't work the way that we thought that we would, that it would, we should be noticing those things especially at the beginning and up to, you know, 50% of your goal.

That's what she is recommending now for language learning that's a little bit more tricky to put a percentage onto it, but it's probably safe to say to be looking back at what you've accomplished will be a great way to monitor your progress.

She also goes on to say, when you're in the last 50% of your goal, and again, I'm not sure exactly how you'd apply that to your English learning because it's hard to know what percent you're at. But she says to shift your focus to how much you still have left to go to reach the finish line.

I'm just going to suggest keep watching how you've made progress over the week, just to keep it simple but monitor your progress. So in summary, here's what I've been learning as I put together this episode.

The first motivation isn't this magical feeling that I need to wait for in order to take action. I think that was one of the biggest aha moments for me. How about you?

I realized that for me I need to instead of wait to feel motivated, I just need to start. And in order to start I need to build a simple starting routine, a pre game routine that will help me to move into taking action.

Maybe that's something that you need to do as well. I also really appreciated the messy middle, the dip, the middle problem.

I really like the way that Dr. Fishbaugh and Seth Godin talk about this part of the problem and I think that maybe you might be feeling this middle.

I know I am in many areas of my business and this podcast and shortening the middle by creating short, doable goals to make things move faster while tracking your progress is a really important thing to put into practice and I know that that's something that I'm going to do better at over the coming week. So over to you today. Don't wait for motivation to hit.

I want to encourage you today to come up with and begin using a pregame routine that will help you start your practice sessions. And if you'd like, I love to hear what your pre game practice is like. What are you going to start doing to start your practice sessions off?

You can send me an email@aaronselfitsuccess.com and let me know what it's going to be. I would love to hear from you and I hope that today's episode was helpful and that it encourages you to not give up to keep going.

And I hope that you will come back again in two weeks for the next episode. Have a great week, a great two weeks and thank you so much for listening. Bye Bye.