The motivation myth: why waiting to feel like it is your biggest mistake

There’s a very well-told lie that says you need to feel inspired to do something big or difficult. You wake up, wait for that unstoppable urge to hit the gym or get ahead on work, and… nothing happens. Then you think: “Today’s not my day, I’ll try again tomorrow.”

The plain truth is that motivation is a feeling, and feelings come and go. They change if you slept badly, if you’re hungry or if the day is cloudy. Building your life on motivation is like trying to build a house on sand.

If motivation comes and goes, what keeps you moving? The boat and the oars

Imagine you’re in a boat trying to cross a lake. Motivation is the wind in your sails. It’s wonderful when the wind blows your way: the boat glides without you having to push. But what happens when the wind stops? Most people cross their arms and wait for it to pick up again.

Discipline is the oars. Rowing gives you blisters, wears you out and takes constant effort. But the oars are what make sure you reach the other shore, no matter what the weather is like today.

The brain loves routines because they save energy. When you turn “rowing” into a habit, the effort gets smaller. Aristotle summed it up perfectly more than two thousand years ago: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

What science says about willpower

One line of research helps explain why waiting to feel like it usually goes wrong. Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer studied what happens when people swap “I want to do it” for a very concrete plan, something like “when I get home, before I open my phone, I’ll put on my workout clothes.” After bringing together dozens of studies on this kind of plan, he and his colleague Paschal Sheeran found a consistent effect: people who decide the when and where in advance follow through much more often.¹ The plan does the job we usually expect motivation to do, only without depending on the mood of the day.

There’s also a curious clue about the order of things. Research on habits shows that, with repetition, action starts being triggered by context (the time, the place, what came right before) and less and less by how you feel in the moment.² That’s why people who have been training for years don’t wake up wondering if they’re in the mood. The boat already knows the way.

How do you act when you don’t feel like it? Just start rowing

You don’t need to feel like doing something to go and do it. Action often comes before the feeling. If you start acting, even without wanting to, motivation tends to show up halfway and give you a push.

In practice, the first stroke can be much smaller than you think. Instead of “I’ll work out for an hour,” agree with yourself that you’ll just put on your sneakers and step out the door. Instead of “I’ll write the report,” open the file and write the first sentence. It seems like very little, and that’s on purpose: the goal of this stroke isn’t to cross the lake, it’s to get the boat moving. Most of the time, once the boat starts moving, keeping going costs far less than starting.

Stop staring at the sky waiting for the perfect wind. Grab the oars and do what needs to be done. Your future self will thank you for every stroke you take today.

More important than feeling motivated is this question: have you rowed toward where you want to go today?

So you don’t drop the oars in the middle of the lake, here are three more reads:

• Tomorrow morning’s workout doesn’t depend on willpower, and here’s what moving does to your brain.
• Feeling stuck while rowing hard is more common than it seems, and it might be a sign that you’re actually moving.
• Tired rowers row badly. See what you lose when you cut your hours of sleep.

Editor’s note: We all have that friend who’s been waiting three years for the “stars to align” or for some magic motivation to finally start a project or join a gym. Do their future a favor and send them this link. It’s an elegant way to let them know the wind isn’t coming anytime soon and it’s high time they picked up the oars.

Footnotes

1. Gollwitzer, P. M. & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119. ↩ source

2. Wood, W. & Neal, D. T. (2007). A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. Psychological Review, 114(4), 843-863. ↩ source