Motivation is a powerful, yet tricky beast. Sometimes it is really easy to get motivated and you get wrapped up in a whirlwind of excitement. Other times, it’s nearly impossible to figure out how to motivate yourself and you’re trapped in a death spiral of procrastination.

This page contains the best ideas and research I have found on how to get and stay motivated. This isn’t going to be some rah-rah, pumped-up motivational speech. (That’s not my style.) Instead, we’re going to break down the science behind how to get motivated in the first place and how to stay motivated for the long-run. Whether you’re trying to figure out how to motivate yourself or how to motivate a team, this page should cover everything you need to know.

You can click the links below to jump to a particular section or simply scroll down to read everything. Also, at the end of this page you’ll find a complete list of all the articles I have written on motivation.

I. Motivation: What It Is and How It Works

What is Motivation?

What is motivation, exactly? Scientists define motivation as your general willingness to do something. It is the set of psychological forces that compel you to take action.

Here’s a more useful definition:

The author Steven Pressfield has a great line in his book, The War of Art, which I think gets at the core of motivation. To paraphrase Pressfield, “At some point, the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it.”

In other words, at some point it is easier to change than to stay the same. It is easier to feel insecure at the gym than to experience self-loathing on the couch. It is easier to feel awkward while making the sales call than to feel disappointed about not taking action. Each choice has a price, but when we are motivated it is easier to take action than to remain still.

This, I think, is the essence of motivation. When we feel motivated, we want to take action. When we don’t feel motivated, we want to remain the same. Somehow we cross a mental threshold—usually after weeks of procrastination and in the face of an impending deadline—and it becomes more painful to not do the work than to actually do it.

Now for the important question: Is there anything we can do to make it more likely that we cross this mental threshold and feel motivated on a consistent basis?

How to Get Motivated

One of the most surprising things about motivation is that it often comes after starting a new behavior, not before. We have this common misconception that motivation is something that precedes action. We believe that motivation originates in a passive state and then we follow through with some type of action.

The standard approach seems to be to listen to a motivational speech or read an inspirational book and then feel motivated. It’s true, this type of passive inspiration can work. But this is only one type of inspiration … and I think it’s the weaker type.

What is I think is far more powerful is active inspiration. Getting started, even in very small ways, is a form of active inspiration that naturally produces momentum.

You have probably experienced this phenomenon before. For example, going for a 30-minute run may seem overwhelming before you begin, but if you can muster up the energy to take the first steps, you’ll often find that you become more motivated to finish as you go. In many cases, motivation rises as tasks near completion. In other words, it’s easier to finish the run than it was to start it in the first place.

physics of productivity first law

This is basically Newton’s First Law applied to habit formation: objects in motion tend to stay in motion. And that means getting started is the hardest part.

This is also a far more gracious and forgiving way to view your behavior. So often we judge ourselves and assume that if we have the motivation to stick with good habits, then we must lack willpower or have some weakness. Instead, the philosophy of active inspiration reveals that you don’t lack some magical component of willpower, you simply need to take action and let motivation follow accordingly.

So how do we make getting started easier? Let’s talk about that now.

II. How to Get Motivated and Take Action

Why Successful People Don’t Wait for Motivation

In his popular book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, author Mason Currey notes that many of the world’s great artists follow a consistent schedule.

Maya Angelou rents a local hotel room and goes there to write. She arrives at 6:30 AM, writes until 2 PM, and then goes home to do some editing. She never sleeps at the hotel.
Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon writes five nights per week from 10 PM to 3 AM.
Haruki Murakami wakes up at 4 AM, writes for five hours, and then goes for a run.

The work of top creatives isn’t dependent upon motivation or inspiration, but rather it follows a consistent pattern and routine. It’s the mastering of daily habits that leads to motivation and creative success, not some mythical spark of genius.

Here’s why…

How to Get Addicted to Taking Action

William James, the famous psychologist, is noted for saying that habits and schedules are important because they “free our minds to advance to really interesting fields of action.”

An article in The Guardian agreed by saying, “If you waste resources trying to decide when or where to work, you’ll impede your capacity to do the work.” And there are plenty of research studies on willpower and motivation to back up that statement.

Want to know how to be motivated every day? Stop waiting for motivation and inspiration to strike you and simply set a schedule for doing work on a consistent basis.

never-miss-twice

Daily Routines: The Power of the Schedule

During a conversation about writing, my friend Sarah Peck looked at me and said, “A lot of people never get around to writing because they are always wondering when they are going to write next.”

You could say the same thing about working out, starting a business, creating art, and building most habits. The schedule is the system that makes your goals a reality. If you don’t set a schedule for yourself, then your only option is to rely on motivation.

If your workout doesn’t have a time when it usually occurs, then each day you’ll wake up thinking, “I hope I feel motivated to exercise today.”
If your business doesn’t have a system for marketing, then you’ll show up at work crossing your fingers that you’ll find a way to get the word out (in addition to everything else you have to do).
If you don’t have a time block to write every week, then you’ll find yourself saying things like, “I just need to find the willpower to do it.”

Stop waiting for motivation or inspiration to strike you and set a schedule for your habits. This is the difference between professionals and amateurs. Professionals set a schedule and stick to it. Amateurs wait until they feel inspired or motivated.

How to Get Motivated (Even When You Don’t Feel Like It)

Once you have your schedule set, it’s time to set a ritual for how you start your behavior. The power of a ritual, or what I like to call a pre-game routine, is that it provides a mindless way to initiate your behavior. It makes starting your habits easier and that means following through on a consistent basis is easier.

Twyla Tharp is widely regarded as one of the greatest dancers and choreographers of the modern era. In her best-selling book, The Creative Habit (audiobook), Tharp discusses the role rituals, or pre-game routines, have played in her success:

I begin each day of my life with a ritual; I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st street and First Avenue, where I workout for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.

It’s a simple act, but doing it the same way each morning habitualizes it — makes it repeatable, easy to do. It reduces the chance that I would skip it or do it differently. It is one more item in my arsenal of routines, and one less thing to think about.

Here are some examples of how you can apply ritual and routine to get motivated:

Exercise more consistently: Use the same warm up routine in the gym
Become more creative: Follow a creative ritual before you start writing or painting or singing
Start each day stress-free: Create a five-minute morning meditation ritual
Sleep better: Follow a “power down” routine before bed

The key to any good ritual is that it removes the need to make a decision: What should I do first? When should I do this? How should I do this? Most people never get moving because they can’t decide how to get started. If you want to know how to be motivated every day, set a ritual and schedule.

Time management tips

3 Steps For Developing Your Routine

Step 1: A good pre–game routine starts by being so easy that you can’t say no to it. You shouldn’t need motivation to start your pre–game routine.

For example…

My writing routine starts by getting a glass of water. So easy, I can’t say no.
My weightlifting routine starts by putting on my lifting shoes. So easy, I can’t say no.

The most important part of any task is starting. If you can’t get motivated in the beginning, then you’ll find that motivation often comes after starting. That’s why your pre–game routine needs to be incredibly easy to start.

For more about the importance of getting started, read this.

habit motivation

Step 2: Your routine should get you moving towards the end goal.

Most of the time, your routine should include physical movement. It’s hard to think yourself into getting motivated.

Here’s why…

What is your body language like when you’re feeling unmotivated or lacking energy?

Answer: You’re not moving very much. Maybe you’re slumped over like a blob, slowly melting into the couch. This lack of physical movement is directly linked to a lack of mental energy and lack of motivation.

The opposite is also true. If you’re physically moving and engaged, then it’s far more likely that you’ll feel mentally engaged and energized. For example, it’s almost impossible to not feel vibrant, awake, and energized when you’re dancing.

While your routine should be as easy as possible to start, it should gradually transition into more and more physical movement. Your mind and your motivation will follow your physical movement.

Related: physical movement doesn’t have to mean exercise. For example, if your goal is to write, then your routine should bring you closer to the physical act of writing.

Step 3: You need to follow the same pattern every single time.

The primary purpose of your pre–game routine is to create a series of events that you always perform before doing a specific task. Your pre–game routine tells your mind, “This is what happens before I do ___.”

Eventually, this routine becomes so tied to your performance that by simply doing the routine, you are pulled into a mental state that is primed to perform. You don’t need to know how to find motivation, you just need to start your routine.

If you remember the article on the 3 R’s of Habit Change, then you may realize that your pre–game routine is basically creating a “reminder” for yourself. Your pre–game routine is the trigger that kickstarts your habit, even if you’re not motivated to do it.

habit-three-r

This is important because when you don’t feel motivated, it’s often too much work to figure out what you should do next. When faced with another decision, you will often decide to just quit. However, the pre–game routine solves that problem because you know exactly what to do next. There’s no debating or decision making. Lack of motivation doesn’t matter. You just follow the pattern.

How to Stay Motivated for the Long-Run

Imagine you are playing tennis. If you try to play a serious match against a four-year-old, you will quickly become bored. The match is too easy. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you try to play a serious match against a professional tennis player like Roger Federer or Serena Williams, you will find yourself demotivated for a different reason. The match is too difficult.

Compare these experiences to playing tennis against someone who is your equal. As the game progresses, you win a few points and you lose a few points. You have a chance of winning the match, but only if you really try. Your focus narrows, distractions fade away, and you find yourself fully invested in the task at hand. The challenge you are facing is “just manageable.” Victory is not guaranteed, but it is possible. Tasks like these, science has found, are the most likely to keep us motivated in the long term.

Human beings love challenges, but only if they are within the optimal zone of difficulty. Tasks that are significantly below your current abilities are boring. Tasks that are significantly beyond your current abilities are discouraging. But tasks that are right on the border of success and failure are incredibly motivating to our human brains. We want nothing more than to master a skill just beyond our current horizon.

We can call this phenomenon The Goldilocks Rule. The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.

Working on tasks that adhere to the Goldilocks Rule is one of the keys to maintaining long-term motivation. If you find yourself feeling unmotivated to work on a task, it is often because it has drifted into an area of boredom or been shoved into an area of great difficulty. You need to find a way to pull your tasks back to the border of your abilities where you feel challenged, but capable.

The Goldilocks Rule

How to Stay Motivated

If you want to learn how to stay motivated to reach your goals, then there is another piece of the motivation puzzle that is crucial to understand. It has to do with achieving that perfect blend of hard work and happiness.

Working on challenges of an optimal level of difficulty has been found to not only be motivating (this is the Goldilocks Rule we talked about earlier), but also to be a major source of happiness. As psychologist Gilbert Brim put it, “One of the important sources of human happiness is working on tasks at a suitable level of difficulty, neither too hard nor too easy.”

This blend of happiness and peak performance is sometimes referred to as flow, which is what athletes and performers experience when they are “in the zone.” Flow is the mental state you experience when you are so focused on the task at hand that the rest of the world fades away.

In order to reach this state of peak performance, however, you not only need to work on challenges at the right degree of difficulty, but also measure your immediate progress. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains, one of the keys to reaching a flow state is that “you get immediate feedback about how you are doing at each step.”

Seeing yourself make progress in the moment is incredibly motivating.

In other areas of life, measurement looks different but is just as critical for achieving a blend of motivation and happiness. In tennis, you get immediate feedback based on whether or not you win the point. Regardless of how it is measured, the human brain needs some way to visualize our progress if we are to maintain motivation. We need to be able to see our wins.

checklist

When Motivation Wanes: What I Do When I Feel Like Giving Up

Here’s what I try to remind myself of when I feel like giving up…

Your Mind is a Suggestion Engine

Consider every thought you have as a suggestion, not an order. Right now, as I’m writing this, my mind is suggesting that I feel tired. It is suggesting that I give up. It is suggesting that I take an easier path.

If I pause for a moment, however, I can discover new suggestions. My mind is also suggesting that I will feel very good about accomplishing this work once it is done. It is suggesting that I will respect the identity I am building when I stick to the schedule. It is suggesting that I have the ability to finish this task, even when I don’t feel like.

Remember, none of these suggestions are orders. They are merely options. I have the power to choose which option I follow.

Discomfort Is Temporary

Relative to the time in your normal day or week, nearly any habit you perform is over quickly. Your workout will be finished in an hour or two. Your report will be typed to completion by tomorrow morning.

Life is easier now than it has ever been. 300 years ago, if you didn’t kill your own food and build your own house, you would die. Today, we whine about forgetting our iPhone charger.

Maintain perspective. Your life is good and your discomfort is temporary. Step into this moment of discomfort and let it strengthen you.

creativity

You Will Never Regret Good Work Once It is Done

Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” So often it seems that we want to work easily at work worth doing. We want our work to be helpful and respected, but we do not want to struggle through our work. We want our stomachs to be flat and our arms to be strong, but we do not want to grind through another workout. We want the final result, but not the failed attempts that precede it. We want the gold, but not the grind.

Anyone can want a gold medal. Few people want to train like an Olympian.

And yet, despite our resistance to it, I have never found myself feeling worse after the hard work was done. There have been days when it was damn hard to start, but it was always worth finishing. Sometimes, the simple act of showing up and having the courage to do the work, even in an average manner, is a victory worth celebrating.

This Is Life

Life is a constant balance between giving into the ease of distraction or overcoming the pain of discipline. It is not an exaggeration to say that our lives and our identities are defined in this delicate balance. What is life, if not the sum of a hundred thousand daily battles and tiny decisions to either gut it out or give it up?

This moment when you don’t feel like doing the work? This is not a moment to be thrown away. This is not a dress rehearsal. This moment is your life as much as any other moment. Spend it in a way that will make you proud.

Let the World Decide

So, what do I do when I feel like giving up? I show up.

Do I show up at my best? I doubt it. But my job isn’t to judge how good or how bad I am.

My job is to do the work and let the world decide.

Best Motivational Books

Drive by Dan Pink
Ambition by Gilbert Brim
The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone

Want more great books on psychology and self-help? Browse my full list of the best psychology books and best self-help books.

All Motivation Articles

This is a complete list of articles I have written on motivation. Enjoy!

Best Articles on Topics Related to Motivation

Or, browse my best articles.

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Add: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as an example of motivational theories. (i.e. you probably need to figure out the deeper stuff first. What looks like lack of engagement on the surface might just be a lack of a good foundation.) BJ Fogg’s B=mat.