- Hi, this is Marisa,
and I want to talk to you about how to motivate yourself.
We're now in a very interesting time
where many of us are safe at home.
I'm not saying stuck at home,
or trapped at home, or cooped up at home,
I'm saying safe at home
because it sounds like a nice word, doesn't it?
'I'm safe at home.'
'Stuck at home, cooped up at home,
'imprisoned at home', doesn't sound quite the same thing.
But many people say, "You know, I've got this time at home,
"you'd think I'd been motivated.
"I could write a book, I could read 20 books,
"I could be working out.
"I always say I haven't got enough time to workout,
"and now, I've got all this time, I'm not working out.
"I've said for years, 'If I had a week to myself,
"'I'd clean the house and I'd do all of these things,'
"and I'm not doing anything.
"In fact, I'm so unmotivated,
"I'm just lying on the couch,
"watching TV, eating potato chips.
"What's going on?
"I thought if I was motivated,
"I might batch-cook really healthy food and use that time."
So here's the classic mistake
that comes up again and again and again,
I see all my clients and they all say the same thing,
"I'm waiting for motivation."
You know what, motivation doesn't go,
'Here I am, I'm motivation,
'I'm at your door and I've come to motivate you,'
that never happens.
Waiting to be motivated is a huge, big, classic mistake.
You have to take action to become motivated.
You see, I don't love going to the gym,
I don't really love running,
but I never wait for the motivation,
to run or go to the gym, to come,
I know if I get on that machine
and start to workout, I become motivated.
I have a Pilates machine in my house,
I have exercise equipment in my house,
I have a boat right outside my house,
a kayak that I could go on every day.
But if I don't take the first action,
pick up my paddle, get on that paddle board,
get in that kayak, or stand on my Pilates reformer,
I won't do it.
And often, I go, "You know what?"
"I'm not in the mood.
"I'm going to do five minutes on the reformer."
And the five minutes becomes 25 minutes
because when I start, I keep going.
I know most of you have had this experience,
'I don't really want to tidy the house,
'but I'm just going to do one little thing.
'I've put it off all day, let me start,
'do the laundry, tidy up the house, pick up stuff.'
And as you do it, you feel so good that you do more.
Here's another thing I see with many people who say,
"I'm not motivated to have sex,"
a lot of women say to me,
"You know, I'm not really motivated,
"I've got so much to do.
"Make the kids' lunchbox, put out the kids' clothes,
"walk the dog, tidy up the house, do the dishes.
"I feel like the last thing on my list
"is have sex with my husband.
"I don't want to tick that list,
"it's just another to-do."
But then they said, "But you know what?
"I decided to have sex and the weirdest thing happened,
"I said that, 'Ooh, I'm really into this,
"'this is actually very nice.'
"And as I began to have sex,
"I became motivated to really enjoy the sex."
Whether it's sex, or running, or tidying up,
you do not become motivated until you take action.
You know, I've written five best-selling books
and I know you don't wake up and go,
'I'm so motivated to sit on my desk
'and write and write and write.'
You have to sit on your desk, go,
'You know, I'll just do some spell-check,
'I'll just look at some chapters,
'I'll just do that,'
and then what happens is,
because you are taking action,
because I'm taking action to just think,
'Well, I'll just spell-check and grammar-check
'and look at the layout and the formatting,'
and as I do that, I suddenly become
so motivated to write more.
So if you want motivation,
never, ever, ever wait for it to turn up at your door,
or in your living room, neither in your bedroom,
or in your gym, because it won't.
But when you take the first bit of action,
suddenly you are motivated.
Motivation begins when you take the action
that you don't want to take.
It's fine to go, 'You know, I don't really want
'to go to the gym, but I'm going.'
'I don't really want to clean up my house, I'm doing it.'
'I don't want to go through these emails,
'or do my taxes, or write out this speech,
'but I'm doing it.'
'I'm not even in the mood today for sex,
'but I'm doing it anyway.'
And please don't think I'm saying you should have sex
when you don't want to,
I'm saying in a relationship with a person
where you love each other,
sometimes you think, 'Well, you know, I could,
'why not? I'm not really in the mood, but I'm going to get in the mood.'
So I get in a lot of trouble,
people say, "Oh, you've just told me to have sex
"when I didn't want to,"
no, I haven't, I've told you that if you begin sex
in a loving relationship,
you'll often find that you start to like it
and enjoy it because motivation follows action.
It comes after action, not before,
so remember, if you're waiting for motivation to turn up,
it may never turn up,
but if you take the action
that you would like the motivation to give you,
if you do it first, all of a sudden,
everything clicks into place.
You take action, in taking action you become motivated
and then you keep going.
We've all done this, suddenly, I thought,
'Well, I'll just do 10 minutes of stretching,
'I've been working out for an hour.'
'I thought I'd just tidy up one drawer,
'I blitzed the whole house.'
'Suddenly, I'm motivated to really work on my business,
'work on my website, call my clients, do things,'
because instead of waiting for motivation to appear,
I took the first steps.
And here's something else that will really help you
to be motivated, you must say, 'I like it,
'I want it, I have chosen it.'
I know, as a writer, waking up thinking,
'Oh, no, I've got to write that book today.
'I'd rather be anywhere than here,' doesn't work
because, all of a sudden,
I have an overwhelming desire to tidy up the sock drawer,
make all the silverware in order,
straighten the cushions
because what did I tell my mind?
'Oh, no, I don't want to do this.'
My mind's job is to do what I tell it
and to take me away from what I tell it, I don't want to do.
So I get up and go, 'I love writing,
'I want to write, there is nowhere, nowhere, nowhere,
'I'd rather be right now than writing this book.'
I recently met a runner,
and he said, "Did you know, I run up this hill every day
"and I always hate it?
"And at the end, I go, 'I can't take another step,'
"but then I started to listen to you, Marisa,
"and I started to go, 'I love running up this hill,
"'I adore running up this hill, it thrills me.'"
What was amazing is, not only did he run up that hill,
he ran down and up again.
And he said, "I used to dread the count of 100
"to get to the top of it.
"And now, I'm getting up to 200."
And I know the same thing when I'm working out,
I go, 'Okay, I've only got 20 sit-ups to do,'
and I think, 'I'll do another 20 now.
'I've only got 15 lunges left,'
and as I get to the last one, I think,
'Well, why don't I do another 15?'
We can cope with anything when we know there's an ending
and we motivate ourselves when we take action,
but as well as taking the action,
you have to go, 'I want it, I love it,
'I've chosen it, I like it, I like it, I like it.
'I want it, I want it, I want it.'
And I recently met a writer who said,
"You know, I found writing the most excruciating,
"lonely isolating thing to do."
And think of those words, 'excruciating',
'lonely', 'isolating'.
He said, "But I listened to you
"and then I said, 'Actually, it's thrilling,
"'it's engrossing, it's absorbing, it's rewarding.'"
I worked with a model once
and she said, "You know, being a bikini model,
"it is torture, it's excruciating."
And I said, "Why?" and she goes,
"Well, people look at my body."
And I think, 'Isn't that interesting,
'that she'd say being a bikini model
'is excruciating, agony and torture,'
we all know it's not torture.
It's certainly not excruciating, it's not agony,
but the words you use define how you feel,
your words shape your reality.
Take action, begin motivation, use the right words,
'I love it, I want it, I've chosen it,'
and finally this one sentence,
should you choose to use it,
will change your entire life,
'I have chosen this and I've chosen to feel great about it,
'I've chosen to spend all weekend working on my business
'and there's nowhere else I'd rather be.
'I've chosen to write a book, write a speech,
'work on something, send it out.
'There's nothing else I'd rather do.
'I've chosen to workout
'and while I workout, I keep saying,
''I love it, I love it, my body loves the sit-ups,
''my legs love these lunges,
''my arms love these pull-ups.''
This is what I call, 'Lie, cheat and steal'.
Lie to your mind, cheat failure, steal back success.
You know what to do.
Take action first, don't wait, use powerful exciting words.
And finally, if you know someone who's going,
'Oh, I just, I've lost my mojo,
'my get-up-and-go has got up and gone,'
share this video, share it, like it, subscribe it.
And finally, please tell me
how can I help you, or what can I do for you
that will help you?
You know, if we all had motivation,
our life would be amazing
and you were born with it, children are motivated.
And you can reactivate, re-manifest, regenerate that,
just by listening to this video
and thinking, 'I can do that
'and I'm going to do it now.'
Thanks for tuning in.
See you very soon.