How to Use Motivation to Radically Boost Your Chance of Success

It can be really hard (maybe impossible?!) to motivate yourself to do something every single day. Motivation waxes and wanes with our moods, our energy level and probably all sorts of other things.

But, we need motivation right?

Yes, but here’s the trick: it’s the point at which we use it and how we achieve it that makes the difference in our results.

First, because motivations wanes, we can’t rely upon it. We need to create a habit that is tied to something we already do regularly (another habit of course!). To make some new action habitual takes awhile – anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks depending on which studies you read and what habits you’re talking about.

Use motivation in that initial period when you are creating a new habit. Motivation helps get you through those potentially tough weeks until your new action has become habitual and you don't need to motivate yourself to do it. For this to work for that long, you need to really, really amp up your motivation.

How do you do this? That brings me to the second point.

Secondly, create massive motivation by looking at the long term (>10 years) benefits and consequences in all areas of our lives (physical, emotional, financial, relationhsips, spiritual etc).

Often we try to motivate ourselves by thinking of the benefit (or consequences) we will experience in the short term. It seems reasonable that we will be more motivated by something we will experience sooner rather than later. The trouble with that is the benefits of our current behavior are often even more immediate.

When I tried using motivation to go for a walk each day, I always preferred the immediate reward of continuing to work, staying inside out of the weather etc. The short term benefits of “being able to walk further” weren’t really enough to drag me out of my current behaviour. But when I looked at the long term consequences of lack of exercise, and all the horrible health issues that could arise, it was much, much more motivating.

Another example is when I tried motivating myself to eat less sugar by thinking about losing weight over a few months. I failed because the pleasure of eating the sugar nowwas more enticing. When I switched to thinking of the long term consequences of eating too much sugar – possible diabetes, obesity, and the long term impacts on my relationships and business of mood swings and poor energy – I become much more motivated.