- Do you ever struggle to get motivated
to get yourself off your ass and go to the gym?
Do you ever say, God, I wish I just liked working out
or I wish I had more motivation
so that I could do the thing that I've always wanted to do?
Today, I'm gonna tell you exactly why motivation is terrible
and if you are relying on motivation,
you've already lost the battle.
- It's that I just don't care.
- Don't, don't care?
- It's a problem of motivation, alright?
- Hey, I'm Steve Kamb, rebel leader and goofball
from nerdfitness.com
and I'm gonna talk to you about our fickle friend,
motivation.
Look, I get it, motivation can be cool.
In fact, you might watch this video
and get motivated to make a change in your life.
Now, the problem with motivation is that it's fleeting.
Whenever you watch the Rocky training video from Rocky 4
or you watch this amazing video
of somebody doing some great strength training move
or you get inspired from watching a movie like Whiplash
to wanna play a musical instrument again,
motivation can get you started
but motivation is like your fickle friend
that abandons you at the least opportune time.
So they're like, hey, man,
I would love to hang out this weekend.
You're like, oh, dude, that's so cool.
Let's absolutely hang out.
This sounds like fun.
And then the day before goes by
and your friend sends you a text and is like,
oh, hey man, totally hope we can still hang out tomorrow.
I'll let you know when I wake up.
And you're like, dude, I already made plans
and we're gonna hang out
because that's what human beings do.
You just make plans and then you do the thing
that you planned to do.
So then you wake up the next day and your friend's like,
oh, hey, I'll text you this afternoon.
Hopefully, we can still make it
and then afternoon you get that nonsense text from them
that says, sorry, dude, can't make it tonight.
Busy, LOL, see ya later and you're like,
why couldn't you have just told me that earlier in the week
and I would have made different plans?
Ugh.
Motivation is that friend.
Motivation is there at the beginning
and motivation is what gets you to the gym
and you're like, I'm motivated.
It's January first and I'm gonna get in shape
and I'm gonna write a novel and I'm gonna floss every day
and I'm gonna build a robot
and I'm gonna travel and I'm gonna stop smoking
and do other things and blah blah blah
and you have this whole list of things that you're gonna do.
A few days go by and you're motivated less and less
and your motivation starts to wane
and then you get sick or work gets busy
or your kid comes home early from school
and because you're relying on motivation
like I just don't have the motivation today,
I'm not gonna do the thing
and bam, just like that, three weeks later,
all that motivation you had
and all this instant early success you had
is immediately gone and you're right back to square one
beating yourself up saying,
I wish I just had motivation like those other people
that can stick with the gym.
- Quit hitting yourself.
Quit hitting yourself, quit hitting yourself.
- Here's a little secret.
Motivation sucks.
Yes, it's like, motivation is like a Michael Bay movie.
It's all flash and no substance.
So it might get you off your ass the first time
but if you rely on it, you're gonna be disappointed.
So instead of relying on motivation, cultivate discipline.
That was one of the best quotes I've ever seen.
I saw it on Quora, Quora.
I don't actually know how to pronounce that word.
I think it's Quora.
I don't know, whatever, whatever it's called,
somebody leave a comment and tell me
how you actually pronounce that.
The comment essentially said,
somebody was saying, oh, I wish I had time to practice
and play the violin more but I'm just not motivated.
How do you guys get motivated
to practice your musical instruments more often?
And the best response was somebody that said,
dude, (beep) motivation, cultivate discipline.
And my eyes got real big.
I was like, this is the key to everything.
If you want to get in shape, if you wanna write a book,
if you want to practice music more,
motivation is not the answer.
It's discipline.
Systems, systems, systems.
You need to build systems into your life
and you need to set the barrier to entry
or the barrier to completing that task that you need to do
so low, you need to surround yourself with the right people
and you need to put these systems in place
so that you are not reliant on one ounce of motivation.
It's easy to work out when you're motivated.
What's not easy is working out when it's the last thing
that you wanna do
but those are the days when you make changes.
I struggled for months to get started on my book.
I signed a book deal back in
I wanna say June of 2013.
Nope, June 2014.
There we go, June of 2014
and I was given nine months to write my book.
Four months in, I was still not motivated
to start writing my book.
Mostly because I was terrified to start.
It was such a daunting task
that I couldn't get myself to do it.
Instead of waiting for motivation to strike,
instead I made sure that motivation stuck every morning
at seven a.m.
Instead of having to get motivated to write a book,
I set a goal, I had to write 500 words every day,
no questions asked.
No excuses.
No bullshit.
Just 500 words every weekday morning
and it didn't matter if those words were terrible,
didn't matter if they were even about the book
but I had to open the document where my book was
and start writing and I had to write 500 words.
I blocked the internet.
I told everybody on Team Nerd Fitness not to talk to me
and I just focused on that one task at hand.
I cultivated discipline and built systems
so that I had to write 500 words at a time
and sure enough on many mornings,
although I got 300, 400, 500 words in, I was ready to stop.
Other mornings, I ended up writing 1000, 2000, 3000,
5000 words because even though I wasn't motivated
when I started writing,
by the time I got started and got warmed up,
new ideas started flowing and the words leapt off my fingers
into the keyboard and onto the book
and after four months of not writing a word,
I ended up writing almost twice as many words
as I needed to turn in for my first manuscript
within three months because I stopped relying on motivation.
I knew it was useless
and instead focused on cultivating discipline
and built systems in my life to make it happen.
So if you're somebody that struggles
to get motivated to exercise,
stop relying on motivation.
Instead, schedule your workouts in your calendar.
Give $500 to one of your friends or roommates
and every time you skip a workout
and they will call you on it,
they will donate $50 of your hard earned money
to a political cause that you can't stand.
- Oh, geez.
- Have a friend that you meet at the gym ahead of time.
Prepay for personal trainer sessions so you have to show up
because you've already spent the money on it.
Whatever you need to do to make it
so that you absolutely have to go to the gym
or have to do your workout at home or go for your walk
or start your novel or work on your business
or save up money to travel to Mars with Elon Musk
or do whatever it is that you need to do.
Stop making it about motivation.
Build systems.
Now, I wanna hear from you.
How can you build a system in your life
to get you to do the thing that you have always said
you wish you were more motivated to do?
Thanks for putting up with me.
I'll see you in the rebellion.
(fun music)