Stop Trying to Feel Motivated

This is Live On Purpose Radio episode 725, Stop Trying to Feel Motivated. Now is the only time to create and live the life you love. I'm doctor Paul Jenkins, the positivity psychologist. My job is to connect you to powerful positive psychology principles that immediately upgrade your relationships, business, and mental health. Are you ready? Let's jump in. Hello, and welcome back to Live On Purpose Radio. This is doctor Paul the shrink who expands your life with another episode of this exciting podcast, which is going through a rebarand really soon. So pay attention as we change things up just a little bit for a little refresh here at Live On Purpose Radio. Today, we're talking about motivation, which is a feeling really, not a prerequisite. A lot of times we carry around this assumption. As soon as I feel motivated, then I'll do it. We wait to feel like exercising or feel like having that difficult conversation or feel like changing the habit. See, we're waiting for the feeling to work on that relationship, start the project, or practice positivity. But feelings are not commands, and they don't have to come first. You don't have to feel like doing something in order to do it. In fact, a lot of times we get to do it before we feel like it. Now in our last episode, I talked a little bit about the brain science, how we have programming and neural pathways. Whatever we're programmed to do feels normal, feels natural, and our brain is basically lazy and loyal. It wants to keep doing what it's used to. So waiting until the new behavior feels natural may mean that we keep waiting for a very long time. Stop waiting for the feeling. Motivation is useful when it shows up but it's unreliable as a strategy because our feelings fluctuate. Our circumstances change. Energy levels change. The story and narrative that we have about our circumstances can change on a dime. And things that matter the most aren't always the things we feel like doing. So sometimes we mistakenly interpret I don't feel like it is I can't do this right now. So let's take a moment to separate our feelings from our choices. Motivation can certainly influence your choices, but it doesn't have to be a prerequisite or the thing that actually makes them. You can act while you're tired. You can act while you're nervous. You can act when you don't feel motivated. I did an episode before called do it while you're scared. Courage comes before confidence, and sometimes action comes before motivation. So we can flip that conventional sequence. Think about this for a minute. You get up in the morning and you ask yourself the question, do I feel like exercising today? Now the answer to that is almost always no. I don't feel like exercising. It's really comfortable right here in bed. Well, what if you ask a different question? Am I committed to my health? Now that's a different answer. Notice you're not asking, do I feel like exercising? Mel Robbins, who is just a brilliant author and speaker, wrote a book. It was her first claim to fame, really, the five second rule. She has since come up with the brilliant let them theory. Really enjoy some of the work that Mel's doing. And in the five second rule, she points out... And this is not the five second rule, by the way, where if you drop something on the floor, you can count to five and still eat it. No. The five second rule is don't wait for the feeling of motivation. You take action, and you do it by counting down. So go back to that moment. In bed, the alarm goes off, And instead of asking, do I feel like exercising, you've already committed to do it. And true commitment is measured when you do the thing you said you'd do when the feeling you had when you said you'd do it has passed. You you don't necessarily feel motivated in this moment. So to use Mel's strategy, simply count it down. Five, four, three, two, one. Now notice what your brain is doing is... Even as I'm counting it down for you. Because at the end of a countdown, what happens? Blast off. Right? The launch action. And it doesn't work, by the way, psychologically, it doesn't work to count up to five. One, two, three, four, five. And then your brain just wants to go six, seven, eight. Right? It's just gonna keep, a different pattern going. But you count it down. Five, four, three, two, one. Action. And you take physical action. Sit up. Put your feet on the floor. Stand up. See, once you take action, now you've got momentum. Your commitment is depending on you to do this. So we like to imagine, well, when I feel motivated, then I'll take action and get my results. But more often than not, it works more like, I take action. I experience progress, which helps me to feel motivated, and I take more action. It's that momentum. Getting out of bed, getting off the couch, getting yourself in motion is probably the hardest part. One of my podcast guests years ago said, it's the start that stops us. But how are you gonna feel ten minutes later? You're gonna be glad you're moving or cleaning the garage or writing that chapter for your book or making that phone call or practicing the piano. The motivation often appears after we've begun, when we experience that momentum. In episode seven twenty four, I mentioned that taking action is part of the practice that begins strengthening a different pattern. We're reprogramming our neural pathways. Don't wait for motivation to create movement. Use movement to create motivation. So how can we do this from a practical standpoint? And I wanna help you out here because sometimes that first action needs to be ridiculously small. So you're not telling yourself, I'm going to write the book. You simply open the document and write one paragraph. Even if that paragraph says, I don't even know what to write. Write that. Don't fix the relationship. Initiate one meaningful connection or conversation. Don't become a positive person. Just catch one thought today that was negative and consciously reconsider it. Meaning is more powerful than motivation. Motivation asks, do I feel like doing this? Meaning asks, why does this matter? And that's a very different question. If the reason is strong enough, you'll find the energy to do the things that you don't particularly feel like doing. Who benefits when I do this? That's another question you can ask, and it's not just about you. Who am I becoming through this practice? What am I creating? See, meaning provides the why. And when we have a strong enough why, we'll do the how through repeated repetition. Motivation becomes a helpful part of that, but I think it's optional. And a lot of times we tell ourselves we have to have it. When the why matters enough, you don't have to wait for the feeling to show up. So as we come to the the close of this particular episode, I invite you to think of one thing you already know that matters. Something that you've been waiting to feel motivated to do. And then stop checking how you feel about it. Just do five minutes of it, and notice what happens to the feeling after you get moving. One of my friends posted on LinkedIn recently that you just need to take action, and then you can start to direct it. Think about a car, for example. You can steer a moving car. A parked one? Not so much. Get the thing moving and then notice what happens as you get the momentum in motion. We're building a place where people don't merely consume ideas about positivity. They practice them. You don't have to wake up feeling extraordinarily positive. You show up and practice anyway. Come check out this platform if you haven't already. We're still in the very opening phases of this new platform, and it is powerfully moving the needle for the members who are jumping in and taking action. Come over to positives, that's plural, positives.life,not.com. Positives.life and just see what we've put together. I've got a free positivity power pack for you there that will also just give you a nice sample of what it looks like to actually take action toward that that valuable goal that you've promised yourself you would move toward. You don't need motivation to get started. Sometimes getting started is exactly where motivation comes from. Did you get what you came for today? You've heard it. It's time to apply it. Let's go live on purpose. Did you get what you came for? Give yourself the gift of taking real action on what you realized today. Please share this episode with someone you know would value it, and leave us a rating too. It's time now to live on purpose.