Why Motivation Doesn’t Really Matter | Zen Habits

Why Motivation Doesn’t Really Matter | Zen Habits

tags: motivation, productivity, lifehacks

• Energy comes in waves. And just as each wave has a crest, it also has a trough. Sometimes your level of motivation will be like a rushing tsunami. At other times, it will be a steady flow. These are natural rhythms and following these rhythms are important, because if you don’t, you will burn out.

• Sometimes you won’t be excited before you take action, but you will feed good after you’re done. Take exercise for example. A lot of people dread or loathe working up a sweat. They are not motivated beforehand, at least not enough for them to break through the mental resistance to the work that will be done. But, they feel awesome when they’ve finished exercising. Therefore, sometimes you can’t rely on being highly motivated before, sometimes you have to rely on being motivated after.

• You will not always be totally psyched. And that’s okay. Does water get anxious when it reaches a depression in the earth? No, it is completely content in its state of acquiescence. When it reaches a hill it does not worry that it now has to travel faster and pick up its pace. It simply flows down the hill.

• Accept that you won’t always be insanely motivated. If you’re waiting to take action until you’re incredibly motivated, you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself. It’s better to ease the strain by allowing yourself to be mildly interested or even in a state of dread. Allowing yourself to be in this state makes it easier to move past it because you’re no longer resisting it. When you resist the state you’re in, you perpetuate it.

• Tap into your flow. We all have times when we’re more creative or more energized, and we all have times where we feel like resting and recharging. For some of us, these ebbs and flows may happen at certain times of the day, for others it may be completely random. The point is to pay attention and exploit these fluxes of energy. By taking massive action when you are full of energy and by allowing yourself to relax when you are in a state of calm, you respect and honor yourself. You will accomplish more by following your natural rhythms than you would trying to force yourself.

• There is a time for being productive and there is a time for resting. Just as in nature there is a time for activity and new life in the spring, and there is a time for rest and turning inward in the winter.

  Just as nature knows that its perpetual growth is unsustainable, we must realize that expecting to be productive all the time, leads to burn out and being less productive.

  Maybe it’s time we start listening to our bodies. I think the more we follow the way of nature, the more intelligently we live.

• Sometimes we have to do things that are important but don’t align with our values. In such cases, I like to transform my lack of motivation into motivation to reduce the chance of such a situation occurring again.

• The difference between motivation and passion is central to remaining “motivated.” The rah-rah, pump me up motivation is short-lived and impermanent. However, if you are passionate about what you are doing, it is easier to stay motivated. No one stays motivated all day, every day.

• As Buddha said, “Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” Without a managed, integrated system of nutrition, hydration, physical activity, sleep and relaxation applied in your lifestyle, your energy production will be inconstant and below its potential.

• When all is said and done the most useless passing of your life is the efficient completion of something that never really mattered.

• Fear of being overwhelmed is one of the major reason why people actually can’t get started doing anything. They are paralyzed by the thought of completing something which is too big for them to handle. However if we focus on starting instead of finishing, this feeling of being overwhelmed can be conquered and therefore we can get more things done too.

• I find a good way to help with motivation, especially at work, is to realize that even though you’re not psyched about the current work you’re doing, you’re probably psyched about something else that you can’t work on yet. So try to see your boring work as the first thing you have to do in order to start work on the really interesting stuff that you’re already motivated towards. Your goal changes from “I will finish this even though I don’t want to”, to “I will get this to a point where I can set it aside and do what I want to”

• Let’s be honest- “easing the strain by allowing yourself to be in a state of dread” is just a guilt-free way to say you’re giving in and giving up. If you gave up on whatever you were originally motivated to do then sat back and waited to be naturally motivated again (which might not ever happen by the way), you would be right back at square one, without accumulating any new knowledge or personal growth, because you failed to face a challenge. Square one! Sure, you wouldn’t be burnt out or your body won’t be tired, but you will have no idea if whatever you first started out to do was truly worth it or not, because you stopped yourself from being passionate about it. You actually prevented yourself from putting all you had into it to find out if it was for you or wasn’t.

• I would rather wear myself out finding motivation to follow through on my commitments, 100%, than to sit back when people or things test my patience and ability and say, “well, motivation doesn’t really matter.”

• As long as you want to learn how to follow through on commitments, goals, and to just LEARN from every experience, motivation matters. It’s what enables you to do these things. So I say, if you think you don’t care about something anymore or you’re losing motivation, find a way to care by finding another form of motivation before you decide to give in and give up. Maybe you’ll and up learning that whatever you’re trying to accomplish is definitely something you DON’T want to do. But it won’t be a waste of time and energy to realize that, because you will have gotten closer to finding whatever it is you DO want to accomplish. And you just can’t get closer to realizing this until you put your heart -and body- into it, all the way.

• I’ve slowly started to realize this — I know that when I lack motivation, I should just ride it out. It will go away. I also don’t beat myself up over it anymore, as that used to get nowhere. We’ll get there, eventually.

• Focus is more important than motivation. Once you are motivated you become focused on the task at hand.

• Motivation can be important, what is more important is virtue. The best definition of virtue I have ever heard is doing the right thing even when you don’t feel like it. I don’t want to be a slave to my feelings. My feelings come and go, but I will always strive to do the right thing. Virtue doesn’t change. There have been many times I have done what was right even when I didn’t want to in the moment. Acting with virtue puts us back into the flow and generated it’s own momentum.

  My life changed dramatically once I started striving for virtue instead of the insatiable drive to satisfy my often insane feelings and desires.

• I just ask myself if in a year from now I would wish I have started today.

• Feel does follow action. If you wait for the feeling to get motivated, you could be waiting a long. time.

• I sometimes feel motivation is like a well - when it’s dry, it’s dry, and you don’t know the next time it will rain. However, it’s much better to think of it as a tide. When it’s gone, it’s gone, but you know it’ll be back soon.

• I don’t agree with just “tapping into your flow”. The reason energy only comes in bursts for most people is because they’ve failed to learn that how they feel has nothing to do with anything external. If you felt sick, tired and burned out…that nothing could possibly motivate you at that moment, and then someone offered you a million dollars to go have the most intense workout of your life…what do you think would happen? Or what if all of a sudden a train was headed right for you…would you be able to all of a sudden muster up the energy to get off your ass and get out of the way? Of course you would. The energy’s either there or it’s not. The only time it’s not, is when you’re dead. Going with the flow is passive. Tapping into your energy is something you can do anytime, as often as you want.

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