21. Motivation

Hi everyone and welcome to Project Mindset, the channel for all those who know that with the right mindset, anything is possible in life. Today’s topic is motivation. I’ve touched on motivation here and there in previous podcast episodes, and I think it might have come across that I’m not entirely convinced that construct motivation or concept motivation is the right approach for most people, because it simply doesn’t work for me to say, “Hey, I’ll get certain motivational triggers, and then when they kick in, I’ll be motivated and then I can perform.”

For myself, I’ve been thinking that I want to perform, I want to work on the topics that are important to me, even when I’m not feeling motivated. Motivation itself, I personally find, is a very fleeting thing. It comes and goes, pretty much whenever you want it to. Sure, there might be little triggers here and there, especially in sports, maybe a song you particularly like, which can motivate you to perform even better. But for me personally, it’s not something I can really grasp.

Why motivation cannot be planned

I can’t plan to be motivated to do anything tomorrow at 6 p.m. If anyone can, please let me know, but I certainly can’t. Or, I know many others—I was one of them for a long time—who only tackle a certain task when they’re motivated. That means if I’m motivated to exercise today at 6 p.m., then I’ll exercise. If I’m not motivated, then I simply won’t.

For me personally, it was extremely important over the past months and years to figure out a concept or system that allows me to perform regardless of whether I’m motivated or not. I’ve realized that motivation can be a kind of drug. What I mean by that is, you can become dependent on it. So, I only really push myself when I’m extremely motivated. If not, I don’t do it. That can create a kind of dependency, where I say, no, I don’t need that for myself, because I have my goals, my plans, my desires in life, and I have to work on them every single day, otherwise I won’t get there.

And if I make every day dependent solely on my motivation, then yes, there can be more often days where I don’t make any progress, and that’s obviously a waste of time.

Use habits and fixed times

A little trick I’ve developed to really put the issue of motivation aside is to regularly try to establish habits where I block out a certain time in my calendar to tackle specific tasks. If I have this in my calendar long enough—for example, every day at 2 p.m. I’ll do this or that task—after x days, the task actually becomes a kind of habit, and I no longer think about whether I should do it or not because it’s automatic. Ah, it’s 2 p.m., I’ve decided to do this now, so I’ll get right to it.

I find it incredibly interesting when you can use the whole concept of habits as a system. Another small thing I use, which is usually about taking the first step towards a task, or the first step into training, or training together, is this: once you’ve taken that first step and spent a few minutes engaging with the topic, I personally enter a kind of deep work phase where I’m completely focused on the task and then make progress accordingly.

Take the next small step

That means I’m telling myself, hey, it all comes down to the first step. I don’t need to think about the long two or three hours of work, training, or whatever it may be; I just need to take the next step, and that’s, for example, the step towards training, or a step towards my desk, or whatever else comes up. Sometimes you just can’t see the forest for the trees; all that appears is the huge task that you have to deal with for hours.

It’s easy to forget that every task begins with a single step. A small tool I also use is meditation and visualization, especially when it comes to tasks that might not seem so appealing at first. Before starting a big task or even just beginning a training session, I meditate for two or three minutes, focusing on my breathing. Then I visualize the goal: what am I actually trying to achieve? What’s the point of spending two or three hours on a task? I often get so caught up in the details that I can’t see the forest for the trees. Then I realize, “Ah, okay, that’s my ultimate goal. I’m doing this to achieve my desires and goals.”

When focused work leads to flow

What I also find really cool is when I’m in that deep work phase where I started, and I’m really concentrating on what’s happening. Then, every now and then, I get incredibly happy—it’s also called the flow state—and I get into a real flow where I realize that working on it isn’t difficult at all anymore; in fact, I’m really enjoying it. And I enjoy that moment much more than moments of motivation. Speaking of motivation, I actually have to say a few positive things. It’s not all negative. One positive aspect of motivation, in my view, is that when you’re extremely motivated to do something, taking the first step is much easier. So it’s definitely a positive thing.

Discipline and consciously set priorities

Nevertheless, the steps that follow, the steps after the first step, are not, in my view, driven by motivation, but rather by discipline. I work on it every day, or I work on it five times a week, to achieve the respective goal. Regarding motivation, I’ve also noticed that, in my opinion, extremely busy people aren’t particularly motivated. Whenever I work with a very busy person and we divide up tasks—who does what for a project, for example—I’ve noticed that busy people deliver results incredibly quickly.

That means they don’t need to be triggered by motivation at all; they’re so busy that when they get a new task, they simply deliver immediately and as efficiently as possible because they know perfectly well they don’t have much time and they don’t wait until they’re motivated to do something—they deliver right away. Therefore, my pro tip is: if you need something done, there’s a very busy person who will get it done for you very quickly.

Different ways to motivate

For me, it’s absolutely clear that everyone deals with motivation differently. So you can’t say one way is better than another. I know that many people, for example, can be triggered by really good music, and when they hear that, they’re extremely motivated to exercise, or they might watch motivational videos on YouTube to cram in that extra shift they had back in their university days. So there are different ways people approach the topic of motivation.

Personally, I’ve simply discovered that I want to be independent of the topic of motivation. A very well-known influencer on Instagram, Gary V., recently shared a different perspective. He was asked what motivates him most, and he said, “Three words: you ‘re gonna die.” It sounds very strange at first, saying it so bluntly, but on the other hand, I can understand it. He probably means, “You don’t have that much time in life to postpone everything or wait until you’re motivated to do something, because you really are going to die eventually.”

Address important tasks in a committed manner

So yes, add a bit of urgency, a bit of necessity, a bit of prioritization, so you simply get things done. I hope I’ve been able to explain my concept of motivation a little better. My approach is quite different: I know for sure that I want to do the things that matter to me, regardless of my motivation. I want to do Joinerling every day. There are days when I just don’t feel like it and I’m not motivated, but I still want to do it because I know for sure that it will do me good.

Alright everyone, as always, a very short episode of Project Mindset. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I’d be happy if you left a review and a like. That’s the only way the channel can grow. Have a great day and see you next week. And don’t forget, mindset is everything.