Motivation Isn't Guaranteed
Think about the things in life you’ve always wanted to do, but have never gotten around to them. Got them in mind? Okay, now think about why you haven’t gotten around to them.
Most people’s answer will be “I never got the motivation to make it happen.”
I have some tough news for a lot of you. Motivation isn’t guaranteed and it isn’t reliable. Motivation doesn’t come at the beginning of a new habit. Motivation will come when you are making progress, and progress comes when you are consistent. So, the way to get motivated is to get consistent.
Makes sense, doesn’t it?
If you’re thinking, “I get it, consistency is key. But how do I get consistent?”, you're bringing all the good questions today! Let’s break it down.
When we start a new habit or a new routine, we often go too big and too fast. Let’s use a real life example. You want to read more than you do now, which is not at all. You try to go from never reading to reading a book a week. What a great goal, you think! You’ll finally be able to read all those books on your list. Do you know what typically happens in this scenario? You may stick with it for a week due to the excitement a new goal brings, but soon after you’ll burn out. Why? Because you haven’t practiced the habit of consistency.
So what does the habit of consistency look like in this example? It would be choosing to read one page a day. Going from never reading, to reading one page a day, is still a big step for many people and it is a step that is achievable, realistic, and meets you where you’re currently at. Meeting yourself where you are currently at is a step a lot of people miss, and then they are disappointed in themselves when they set a goal out of (current) reach. Can you read more than a page a day if you want to? Absolutely! The key is to show up for your new habit (reading a page a day) CONSISTENTLY. When you do this, you are showing up for your new habit and for yourself. You are making progress every day through the habit of consistency.
When it comes to making big progress, focus on consistency over intensity. When you focus on consistency, you’re focusing on the long game, on the infinite game. When you focus on intensity, it’s short term and short lived.
I’ve struggled with consistency many times in the past, and especially with my health. There was a period (years, really) where I would exercise for a few weeks then fall out of my routine. I would try crash diets and use mind-damaging diet apps to try to see quick results. I would go really hard in the gym one day, hitting PRs (personal records) with my weights and going for hours. Do you know what always happened after those times? I would burn out. I wouldn’t see results in a week and I’d think “what’s the point?” and go back to patterns that didn’t serve me. I wasn’t setting myself up for success because I was trying to become a person in a week that would realistically take me years. I wasn’t meeting myself where I was, and was constantly disappointed.
So many of us want to improve our health, and we all have different goals and different measures. We want to get stronger, gain more endurance, be more flexible, release excess weight, be able to climb a mountain and make it all the way to the top (maybe that’s just me). Where I have found most people, myself included, fall short is in making these habits part of our lifestyle. It took me years to figure out the real reason I wanted to exercise was to be stronger, hike longer, and maintain my flexibility. Those are all long-term and must be worked on every day for the rest of my life. When I had that realization, I knew short-term challenges and crash diets would never be the answer. The answer was consistency.
When I started getting consistent in the gym (I haven’t missed a week in over a year), and focused on giving whatever my best was that day, I didn’t need motivation. I no longer look to be motivated before I show up for my health, because I know I create the motivation. I am consistent, and my consistency is a pattern that is second-nature to me now. It took years to get to where I am, and now that I’m here, I can’t imagine ever turning back. I’m only moving forward.
Where can you get more consistent? Maybe it’s in your health, your business, your reading goals, in communication with loved ones, organizing your home, cooking meals at home. Once you’ve identified where you want to be more consistent, pick one, small action that you can start taking immediately that gets you closer to your goal. Remember to choose a small action that you can do every day, consistently. The day will come when you can make those habits bigger and add in more actions, but first you must show up for yourself.