In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about what’s behind motivation. Meaning, what galvanizes us to do or not do the things we want in our lives.

Because I’ve always wondered that, haven’t you? 

Like how come sometimes we can feel an unstoppable drive to go after or tackle something new or hard. And other times we just ignore the big things we want to achieve and instead of going after them, we camp out on the sofa binge-watching Netflix. 

Do you look for motivation within yourself or do you expect it to come from something outside of you – like a reward or inspiration or maybe for you it’s about an impending deadline.

How many times have you told yourself “I’m just not motivated right now.”?

And how has that affected your life or career?

For example, let’s say you want to lose the 30 pounds you gained during Covid. But you keep putting off the healthier eating protocol and the trips to the gym because you tell yourself you’ll do it later. Either tomorrow or next week or next year.

I think the idea of later has stolen more dreams from more people than almost anything else. Because when we tell ourselves we’ll do it “later” we feel better in the moment because we’ve told ourselves that we’re still going to do it…just not right now. So, we take the pressure off ourselves because we don’t have to endure the discomfort of starting something hard and we keep the dream alive by telling us we’re going to do it someday. 

But then what usually happens? For most of us, later ultimately turns into never. 

Or let’s say you really want a new job or maybe you want to start that side hustle or business you’ve been dreaming about. You know the market is hot right now but for some reason, you just can’t get yourself motivated. 

You tell yourself you want to get ahead, you want to make more money, but you keep putting off the networking, the searching for new opportunities. You don’t dust off the resume or start working on the business plan because it feels too hard. You just don’t feel motivated to do it.

So many of us make the idea of motivation mean that it’s something outside our control. That it’s something we will feel only after the right thing is said to us or there’s an important enough deadline or consequence looming to finally get us off the couch and doing something.

We think motivation is a magical thing that comes from somewhere else, and we’re sort of waiting for it to, metaphorically speaking, fly through an open window and whip us into action.

But that idea of motivation never works over the long term. 

The idea that something outside us can make us motivated just doesn’t work. Like a looming deadline or the promise of a big reward might galvanize us ahead for a short time, but it won’t be sustainable. 

In today’s episode, I want to offer up a psychology-based theory on where motivation comes from and how to cultivate it in yourself. It’s called the Self-Determination theory. And I think you’ll find it super interesting.

For more, give the episode a listen.

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