01 Nov Self-Motivated
“It must be nice to always be motivated and always feel energetic!”
Have you ever heard that from the haters or critics, your friends or family? I have and I’m betting you have too.
People see you training consistently, working on your goals, and doing big things, so they just assume you wake up every day super motivated and fired up.
They think you don’t know what it feels like to be sluggish or dragging ass one day. They think you don’t know what it feels like to be stuck in the mud or deal with brain fog. The funny part is I do and I’m sure you do too!
It’s human nature that we don’t control how we feel. We’re going to have days we wake up just feeling terrible.
We’re going to have days when we walk into the gym feeling great and throw up heavy weight. We’re going to have days where that same weight feels like it’s crushing us.
We’re going to have days when we’re feeling excited and motivated and running through the door to work. We’re going to have days where we’re barely able to get out of the car.
We don’t control how we feel, but we always control how we respond to how we feel. How we choose to still show up because what we do control is our attitude, effort, and actions.
A lot of people believe that “the best” always feel motivated and that everybody else, if they’re lucky, only feel it every so often. However, the feeling of motivation comes and goes. Average people spend their lives making the mistake of waiting on motivation to take action. They believe that champions always have the motivation, which is why they always take action.
That’s not the case!
It’s Not About The Feeling Of Motivation
No one feels motivated every day.
Now a lot of people have a motivating reason. They understand their “why” and what their purpose is. I’ve shared before that my purpose is to make sure that every one of you doesn’t go through the pain of regret that I went through.
When I allowed fear to talk me out of doing the thing I said I love doing, I let fear talk me out of choosing to compete. That decision haunted me. It scared me. It weighed me down.
Then I saw friends going through the same thing and it broke my heart. So I made it my mission to make sure other people started striving for their full potential instead of settling for what fear or society said they should live up to.
I have my mission and motivation, but I don’t rely on the feeling of motivation and neither should you. You don’t control if you feel motivated or if you don’t. You do control how you show up.
It’s our discipline, not our feeling of motivation, that ultimately determines our success, but there are still some things we can do to increase that motivation internally.
1. Set Smaller Goals
You may have a big goal you’re chasing. Maybe you’re going after a billion-dollar goal. Maybe you’re trying to get into a competition. Whatever your huge goal is, remember that big goals are achieved by teeny tiny, little bitty steps.
You eat an elephant the same way you eat a donut…one bite at a time. It just takes a lot more bites to eat that elephant than it does the donut. Setting small, teeny tiny bite-size goals allows us to achieve progress and milestones more frequently.
Even if your goal is already small, break it down smaller. There’s a reason why to-do lists are so addicting. It’s because we keep wanting to scratch easy things off the list. We have a feeling and sense of accomplishment, which keeps us fueled and continuing to move forward.
2. Strengthen Your Accountability
Iron sharpens iron and butter knife people dull you out. The better your accountability is the more consistent your progress will become.
Find the people who challenge you to keep moving forward, encourage you when you get off track, and make sure you get up and do what you say you are going to do. These are the people who care enough about you to speak truth into you and call you out when you failed to follow through.
3. Clap For Your Damn Self
In other words, celebrate your progress! Write down everything you do, because not only does this practice help you track your progress, but it gives you records of that progress to celebrate along the way.
Think about how many people lose motivation and give up because they forget how far they’ve come.
For example, if your goal was to lose a certain amount of weight and you go to the gym, eat well, and train for 3 to 5 months, but you’re not at the number you thought you would be, it would be easy to give up and think it’s not working.
However, you failed to remember that when you first walked into the gym, you were only lifting the bar…now you’re lifting 115 pounds. When you started going on a run, it took you 20 minutes to run a mile, and now you’re down to 13. Your clothes fit better than they used to.
Writing down your progress and celebrating will help combat the feeling of being stuck and hopefully help us become addicted to bettering ourselves that 1%, every single day.
4. Focus On Helping Others
It’s amazing what happens to your internal drive and fire when you take the focus off of yourself and how you feel, and turn it towards someone else.
Train your mind to ask yourself, “How can I help someone else?” Shift the need for an internal feeling of motivation by giving yourself a target where you can add value to others.
By the way, you become a better leader through the process of learning that it’s not about us. It’s about how we become better in order to show up and bring our best for others.
You Don’t Have To Feel Motivated To Win
Sure, it feels great when you have the motivation. However, at the end of the day, setting your goals into smaller bites, strengthening your accountability, celebrating the small progress, and focusing on how you’re going to help and make an impact on others is what keeps you moving forward. Not the feeling of motivation.
Go win your day, Competitor. I’m cheering for you!
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