Motivation V Routine
Motivation is a wonderful thing and it can be used to get you to do things and achieve what you possibly wouldn’t with out. You may get inspired by a video you watch, a song you hear or a story you are told. This could give you the push you need to do the thing you have been putting off for a while or to change your ways for the better.
Like I said it’s a wonderful thing. Can we rely on it that though, is it dependable enough?
Probably not. As you know motivation is very sporadic and doesn’t have a great shelf life. Once you get some motivation to do something it might not last long enough to do the task in hand and it may fall by the way side. Obviously that depends on the length and magnitude of the task involved.
Motivation will always come and go. It’s really hard to maintain motivation for everything all the time. But what if we put routines in place that compensate for those times of lacking motivation? This could help ensure we are still doing the right things despite not always having high levels of motivation.
Routines/Habits need to be developed and worked on so that they become exactly that, a habit. We will have good habits and not so good habits that currently feature in our everyday life. We try to swap out the good ones for bad ones and sometimes that works. It’s a constant trial and error situation. When you find one that works you keep it and discard the ones that don’t.
Once we have went through this process for a while the good habits should outweigh the bad. They obviously need to be relevant to your goals as well. Whether that’s weight loss, sleep better, get stronger or just generally feel awesome. So having your habits and goals aligned is key.
This might mean we don’t have to rely on motivation to get things done as much as we think. Ultimately meaning we can achieve more by using routines as part of our daily practice. As always I suggest starting off small by adding in some new habits for a sustained period of time to see if they work and will stick. Things like drinking 2L water per day or going for a 20 minute walk are simple and easy to implement.
