How many of you men have felt “motivated” to learn a new trade?
How many of you men have felt “motivated” to start working out?
How many of you men have felt “motivated” to be a better boyfriend/husband/father/etc ?
How many of you men have felt “motivated” to eat better and lose fat?
How many of you men have felt “motivated” to take control of your life back?
How man of you men have felt so “motivated” and then NOT followed through on accomplishing the the thing you were SO FUCKING MOTIVATED to do?
I’m going to venture to say that if we were in a classroom there’d be A LOT of you raising your hands and nodding your head in agreement – I’d be right there nodding with you.
Before we talk anymore about why I HATE the word motivation let’s talk about what it actually means.
Look at the word motive – according to Merriam-Webster the word motive means “ something (such as a need or desire) that causes a person to act”. When looking up motivation it says “ a motivating force, stimulus, or influence”.
They key words I’m looking at here are desire, stimulus and influence which leads me to my main point to why I HATE the word motivated…
BEING MOTIVATED IS AN EMOTION BASED TEMPORARY FEELING THAT DOESN’T LAST!
Being motivated isn’t going to get you to finish the trade school you signed up for when you to quit because it’s taking up too much time.
Being motivated isn’t going to get you to wake up earlier to squeeze your workout in that you committed to when you’re exhausted by Friday morning and want to sleep in.
Being motivated isn’t going get stop you from going on a binge on a random night to make yourself feel better all because your boss pissed you off.
Being motivated isn’t going to get you to take control of your life back when things get hard and you feel like you’d rather just go back to the way things were because “it’s easier”.
No – being motivated won’t do any of that.
It’ll only get the ball rolling (and trust me I’ve dropped the ball too many times that I’d like to admit).
So what do you do when motivation disappears?
Deep dive into DISCIPLINE & CONSISTENCY!
Create HABITS around behavior that will help you push onward when the “good feeling” of being motivated disappears and the exhausting from the hard work settles in.
Be DISCIPLINED enough to stick to the game plan YOU set out for yourself.
Be CONSISTENT in doing the hard shit even when the hard shit doesn’t look as shiny and new as it did when you were motivated.
Gentlemen – if you’re ready to stop JUST being MOTIVATED and are going start building habits that enforce you to be DISCIPLINED AND CONSISTENT then leave a comment below and let’s support one another in our pursuit of becoming better men!
Bradley Goldman
Read more about Bradley HERE
