Every say to yourself “I need to get motivated to do this project or this thing?” I am pretty sure most of us at one point in time have said those words to ourselves. Or maybe we have had someone tell us we need to get “Motivated and get something done.” And yet there we are, still sitting there knowing we need to get up and get something done but just can’t seem to get the motivation up to move. I think this past year has made “being motivated” extremely difficult because of social distancing, virtual meetings with work, and a general lack of in person connections. We, humans, are social herd creatures and the effects of not being with “our herd” is showing itself in the lack of motivation because with the shutdowns, loss of jobs and social activities, well, what is there to be motivated about?
That is where action comes into place. I have been told all my life that I need to be motivated in order to take action and yet motivation seems to fade and then I end up not actually doing anything but beating myself up about not being motivated and doing something. Sound familiar?
But what if we look at it the other way around? Start taking some sort of action to get moving which in turn can create with motivation. I thought about this for a long time until one day I decided to try it. I pushed myself to start taking actions even though I really had no motivation to do those things. I made myself reach out to people, to start writing again, to start working with my horses and people again. In short I just started DOING things whether I had motivation or not. It was not always easy to push myself because of that “little voice in my head” saying other things, but I just ignored it and kept doing things. And to my surprise I am actually getting things done and moving again. And the best part of taking action to create motivation is that it actually works and is a sustainable way to get moving and completing things I need to complete. The motivation comes from the feeling of satisfaction that I completed some things and I want to get going to keep feeling better about myself, life, work, whatever it may be.
So to me the difference between motivation and action is actually doing the action rather than just waiting for motivation.
Namaste, my friends.
The "SEMI" Traveller 