Is Motivation a Myth?

Many of us believe that we need motivation to start doing something, whether it’s learning a new skill, or studying for exams, or anything else. We use “lack of motivation” as an excuse to explain to ourselves why we’re not getting things done. But what if we don’t need motivation to start doing something?

Motivation is not the Spark

We think of motivation as the spark that gets us to do something useful. Whenever we hear, see, or read something that we think “motivates” us, we usually think to ourselves that we now have the motivation to work hard to achieve our goals, however, this motivation never lasts. So how do we gain motivation? Well, the only way we can gain motivation is the feeling of happiness when we make progress. We need to start working and then motivation will keep us going.

Jeff Haden wrote in his life-changing book The Motivation Myth: “There is only one recipe for gaining motivation — Success. Specifically, the dopamine hit we get when we observe ourselves making progress.”

This means we can think of motivation as part of a loop starting with an Action, then Success, and after that comes Motivation which will help you keep going and making actions after your success.

So, what do you need to start? Well, it definitely isn’t motivation. You need a goal and more importantly a plan to achieve that goal, after that, you need a small victory to keep you going and get you that motivation. I talk a lot more about the importance of having a plan rather than a goal in my article about achieving goals, How to Actually Achieve your Goals