Where Does Motivation Come From?

Dean Bokhari's Meaningful Show

https://deanbokhari.com/acton-leads-motivation/ | RE-RUN: EP188. Action Leads to Motivation

The majority of people looking for motivation will wait for something, or someone, to come around and motivate them before they can get up and take action to motivate themselves.

This is the wrong approach.

I operated with this “motivation comes before action” mentality for years before finally realizing that I had it all backwards. I would look for ways to get motivated to workout, to get up early, or to stop procrastinating and do my work. And I’d be motivated about doing these these things for a little while, but shortly thereafter, the motivation would fade and I’d stop taking action.

Then I realized that the lifespan of motivation is a lot like the honeymoon phase of a new relationship—it’s really exciting at first, but that feeling doesn’t last. A relationship needs to be tended to, with small and thoughtful actions, in order to sustain itself. Motivation works in a similar way. We need to take small and thoughtful actions to keep the motivation train moving along, or else it’ll lose steam and come to a screeching halt.

This realization led me to a simple discovery, which I now believe is the most important thing you need to know about getting motivated:

Action leads to motivation.