Ep 245 Getting Things Done Without Motivation

Episode Notes:

Join me today as I discuss an area where many folks ultimately hold themselves back for going after your dreams: waiting to feel motivated.

In this episode I’m discussing alternative feelings to drive your action, how Steven Kotler discussed motivation in his book The Art of Impossible, and how what he is suggesting can be in line with moving towards your goals every single day.

In This Episode:

• Being willing and curious
• Taking action when not motivated
• The Art of Impossible – Steven Kotler
• Small actions over time – The Compound Effect
• www.michellebourquecoaching.com/connect

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Episode Transcript: (Transcribed by OtterAI with minimal edits)

You are listening to the It’ Your Time podcast and I’m your host certified life coach Michelle Arnold Bourque, and today’s episode, I’m discussing how to get things done without feeling motivated.

Welcome to The It’s Your Time  Podcast, the podcast. We’re busy professionals, like you get the practical solutions and support you need to gain control of your schedule. So you can strive to be the best in your career, but without the stress and overwhelm. If you’re looking to increase your energy and decrease your stress, you are in the right place.

Michelle Bourque 0:37 Hello, hello, hello, welcome back to the podcast. Friends, I hope you had a fantastic Fourth of July. The Fourth of July is one of our favorite holidays. And it’s going to be so nice because I am going to be home all weekend. For the entire month of June, I was traveling on the weekends. And I do love me some time on the patio with the pup, the hubs and perhaps a glass of wine. Now, before I jump into today’s topic, speaking of traveling, I want to first say, thank you so much for being here. I was recently at a meeting and someone came up to me to say that she listens. And I love that I just love, love, love hearing from you. And as we were talking, she said she has been helped by what we discuss here on the podcast, and basically understands the importance of the words that we say in creating our mindset. And then she said she knows it’s her fault. And I was like, no, no, no, no, I don’t want any of you criticizing yourself for being human. I see this so often. And honestly, I am sure that I did it when I started as well. You cannot use the work that we talked about here against yourself, meaning sometimes when we start to understand the power that we hold, we then beat ourselves up for not doing things differently. And I don’t want that for you. I want to help you build the awareness of your life. And from that point, you have a compassion and curiosity, and you start making changes. It’s way more fun than beating ourselves up friends. Trust me, I’ve done both. Let’s have more fun. Okay, speaking of making changes, let’s dive into today’s topic. Because today, I want to talk to you about how you can get things done, how you can make those changes, even when you don’t feel motivated. And I think there are many folks who miss out on truly creating the life that you most want. Because you think you need to feel motivated. We don’t, we can feel curious, we can feel willing. And with those two feelings, we can get a lot done truly creating new results. And I’m finishing up this book, The Art of impossible by Steven Kotler. I’m loving it. And in the first chapter, he talks about motivation, which I am going to get into here. But first, I just want to share some of my thoughts around it, and how it might not necessarily be exactly what you need in order to get the things done that you need to get done. So to begin feeling motivated, is a feeling right. And we know based on the think, feel do cycle, our thinking causes our feelings. So if you’re not feeling motivated, it might be a great place to get curious about. What are you thinking around the topic or the circumstance or, more specifically, maybe it’s a goal. You know, I always want you to think with these episodes, about how it pertains to you. So think about a goal that perhaps you haven’t quite achieved and get curious. What do you think the obstacles are that are in your way? You know, once you find the solutions to each of those obstacles, guess where you ended up? At the goal? I want to suggest you Yes. Get curious about all of that to begin, and then start looking at what are the obstacles? And how can you find the solutions now? Can you consider the feeling of maybe being willing, willing to start taking action on those obstacles on finding those solutions? Oftentimes, when you just get started, you can bring about the motivation. And you build on that with momentum because you start thinking things like, Oh, I got this, this is good. I can figure it out. Now listen, there are a lot of things in life that we also do without feeling motivated at all. For example, I’m in charge of picking up dog poop. You think I feel motivated for that? Not usually,

Michelle Bourque 4:47 if I’m honest, I think the action actually comes more from the fear of shame. Should the neighbors be checking out our lawn or the lawn folks that help us out so why is it that when we say we want to go After goals such as weight loss, or financial goals, or a new job or promotion, or maybe starting a new business, whatever it is for you. Why is it that we think that we need to feel motivated to get going? Listen, motivation doesn’t just fall down from the sky. And it’s often something that we feel for a limited length of time. So we don’t want to be too dependent on that. And part of that is what Kotler talks about in this book, which I highly recommend. He says motivation is made up of drive grit goals. So I do want to kind of dive into each of these that he talks about. And let’s just go through each of them and see how can we maybe learn from what he talks about as far as motivation, but then also know that there are ways to get things done. Now, when we’re looking at the framework, he talks about the importance of curiosity, passion, and purpose to support drive. So if we’re starting with Drive, he talks about again, drive grit and goals, we are going to get started with Drive. When you are curious, which as reminder, I often say that you can get so much done with curiosity here. But with curiosity, he says the hard work that needs to be done doesn’t seem so hard. Sure, it takes effort, but it can also be fun. And often when we think of drive, we think of persistence. So what he is suggesting is that Curiosity will give you that persistence as you keep continuing the efforts to continue learning. Next step. Now keep in mind, I am super simplifying here, he has chapters on each of these topics. But next up, I want to touch on grit. Angela Duckworth is often quoted around the concept of grit, she has a book titled grit. And he uses her definition in his book, which is the intersection of passion and perseverance. And he adds, that might not be enough. When we look at how neuroscientist talk about grit. It’s in line with goal directed behavior and self regulation. And of course, we have the combination of accomplishing a hard task and then receiving a dopamine hit, right, we all know, once you get that checklist, check, check, check, check, check, you get your little dopamine hit, but he is talking about accomplishing hard tasks and receiving that dopamine hit. And as we build on that, basically we’re stacking habits. That’s how we continue to get gritty. And then Cutler takes it a step further past with the psychologists say and what the neuroscientists say and discusses how peak performers cast a wider net on what grit means, which he talks about six skills that we want to be able to train independently. And I’m not again going to go into each one of these to detail, but I will tell you that six are number one, the grit of perseverance, number two, the grit to control your thoughts. Number three, the grit to master fear. Number four, the grip to be your best when you are at your worst. Number five, the grip to train your weaknesses. And number six, the grip to recover. And under each of those skills, he has some skills. I think the biggest takeaway from all of this is the importance of grit to recover. Many folks these days feel burned out and feeling burned out, can add another layer of frustration, when what you really want is to feel motivated. Right? Think about the times when you’re like, I just wish I felt motivated, I should be doing this, I shouldn’t be doing that. It just adds another layer of pressure. Listen, we don’t get burned out doing things that we love, burnout cost you motivation and momentum, you need to be able to give yourself some time out. And it will benefit you in the long run. I promise this was a challenging concept for me. And honestly, sometimes still is, but we need you at times. Slow down in order to speed up. So it might not be motivation that you’re feeling, it might be the willingness to be gritty in your recovery, you can get a lot done, and not necessarily feel motivated. And an important piece to this is do not feel guilty as you rest or judgmental towards yourself. Because that for sure will not get you moving in the direction of feeling motivated. And maybe depending on how hard you are on yourself, you might not even feel willing. So let’s just drop that extra layer. And then the question becomes, can you be greedy enough to build the habits that you want in order to create the life that you want? Here’s one more example of not feeling motivated. So I had this trip the past weekend. I was up 24 hours on Friday with the travel and the time change in the meetings. I took the Red Eye home on Saturday and I assure you If I was not feeling motivated to do my normal weekend food prep, I had to be intentional with my self talk, which falls under the self talk part of grit to control your thoughts and this book, and I had to remind myself, it is going to be a busy week ahead. If I can just knock this out, I will be setting myself up for success for the rest of the week. I was tired. And I was willing, motivated, like, yeah, let’s get this done. No. But hey, let’s just get this done. Yes. Which leads us to the last part that he mentions, goals. And the reason goals are important in the scheme of motivation, is because it is the easiest way to increase your motivation to increase your willingness to feel willing and curious to take action. Because you need to know where you’re going. You need to know what you are going after. Why we even want to do this is so important. Goals, knowing your why having a purpose, that is what gives your brain focus, because our consciousness is limited. And by having goals, you give your brain direction. And in this case, and having big goals gives your brain a filter by which you decide what you are doing. And we’ve talked about this in previous podcasts, the importance of knowing your priorities of knowing your core values. This is all what helps you to decide and filter through what it is you are going to do in your life. And then you start taking clear actionable steps towards those goals. So again, if you haven’t already received the planner, I’ve talked about it, please send me a message and I can get it off to you. It’s important to know what your priorities are to plan, specifically, each day three goals that are going to move the needle for you to put you in the direction of creating the life that you most want. And then as you do that, you have your actionable goals, you stack them, you accomplish them, and then you receive a dopamine reward. And you keep consistently doing that you keep feeding the loop. And that’s what Darren Hardy talks about when he discusses the compound effect. Small changes over time, which leads to lasting larger results. And again, you don’t necessarily need to feel motivated to take some crazy action all the time. You need to feel willing to start at a minimum baseline. You need to feel willing to just get started. You need to feel willing to fail and know that you will make progress. Maybe not perfection, maybe you can also feel willing to drop the need for perfection, because you will get moving on creating the life that you want. Through that feeling of willingness, being curious what could be possible versus sitting around waiting to feel this glorious wave of motivation surge through you. I mean, if it hits write it for sure but let’s not wait around for it. Get started today. And again if you need help, please feel free to schedule a no cost call Michellebourquecoaching.com/connect on the socials I’m @michellebourquecoaching and for sure I want to keep hearing from you.

Okay friends, that’s what I have for you today. Take what works leave what doesn’t and let’s be back here next week. Make it a great day take care

Michelle Bourque 13:41 Did you know you can take this work to a deeper level with me one on one. Go to Michellebourquecoaching.com and click on get started to begin