Motivation isn’t what you need to be more productive
When people first talk about wanting to be more productive, they usually say they need more motivation.
We think motivation will solve all of our problems.
And we treat it like this elusive key, that if we could just figure out the secret to motivation, it would light a fire under us to get done what we need to.
Working with dozens of individuals on their goals, I've never actually seen this being true.
Motivation is simply the reason you have for acting or behaving in a particular way.
It's not the 'how' you will do something. It's the 'why.'
Yes, we need motivation. We need to know the why for doing something. But it's not THE thing that will change our behavior.
What I've seen move the needle more than anything else is not motivation, but actually discipline and habits.
Discipline is the self control to keep working at something.
Habits are a regular tendency or practice, that is hard to give up.
Having both is a game-changer. Continue reading for specific recommendations and ideas to get you started on discipline and habits.
Ways to improve your discipline:
Setting up check-points and routines for ourselves will help us maintain progress over the long-term. Consider different time-based deadlines (monthly, weekly, daily) for yourself that you can begin to build up regular practices that will support your goals. As always, apply these more specifically to your goals and what works best for you, but here are a few ideas to get you started.
Monthly check-ins: Use the end of the month as a reminder to check-in on the progress, re-evaluate next steps and timing as needed.
Weekly reflections: Reflect on the past week - what are your wins? What have you learned? Prepare for the week ahead - what's on my calendar? What are my top priorities? Do I need to time block for anything else?
Daily routines: What daily routines will help you continue your progress over the long-term? Consider things like end-of-day rituals to plan for the next work day and to mark the transition from work to home life.
Ways to improve your habits:
Make it as easy as possible to change your behavior. Consider altering your environment or adding cues to remind yourself to do it.
For me, It can be the littlest thing like adding alarms or reminders on my phone to do certain things, or putting something physically closer to me as a reminder to do it. Or pairing a new habit with an old habit to make it even easier to add into my day at a specific time and location.
Or on the other hand, if you're trying to stop a habit, make it harder for you to do.
Something that works for me if I feel like I'm spending too much time on a social media app is to move the app to a different page or section on my phone. Most of the time it is just a habit to click into it, but when I move it I find myself stopping myself simply because I changed the behavior around it.
If motivation isn't the missing piece, your habits might be. Take the free Leadership Blind Spot Audit to find out what actually is. Take the audit here.
Brittany Canaski is a highly-rated Leadership Coach, Trainer, and Founder of Hello Velocity where she builds confident leaders and high-performing teams. When she's not building her business, you can find her planning her next travel adventure with her husband, watching Formula 1 racing, or volunteering in her local community of Charlotte, NC.
