The motivation trap

The concept of motivation can be an excuse to self-sabotage without realizing it.

Lack of motivation to achieve your goals is one of the most frequent obstacles is one of the most frequent obstacles complained about by those who come for consultation. They argue that it is impossible for them to carry out certain tasks because they do not have the sufficient desire or because they do not feel qualified to do it.

Lack of motivation as an excuse

Normally, these people have previously tried to perform mental exercises such as thinking positive or visualizing what they would like to achieve, obtaining very poor results or simply not getting anything, with the consequent frustration after realizing that their expectations have not been met.

And the fact is that just because we think about something, no matter how much we insist it is not going to happen. The formula most likely to give us the results we expect is the one that has action as an indispensable variable..

Believing that in order to do something or to achieve certain goals we must be motivated is based on a mistaken and limiting belief. If we think this way, we are delegating our possible achievements to very volatile factors.

The importance of habits

I may wake up one day with great motivation and another day it may not show up or be expected. This, like the desire to do something, depends on many factors, some of which are our own and some of which are not, depends on many factors, some of which are our own and some of which are not our own.. Maybe I feel a little headache or my boss is angry and this makes me feel discouraged for the rest of the day and I decide not to go to the gym, not to study, not to go for a walk...

On the other hand, if we observe how our mind works, we will realize that the more times we repeat an activity, the better we will get at it. If we practice a little every day with a musical instrument, it is probable that after a few months we will be able to play some melody and in a few years we will be able to play several songs. If we write a little every day, it is more likely that we will progressively get better and better texts that excite us more and more. If we go to the gym a few times a week for a few months we are likely to feel better and have stronger muscles.

In all these examples, what happens is that by taking small steps, we have built habits that will help us later on, we have built habits that will later help us to achieve more ambitious goals.If we think that in order to go to the gym we must first have a good musculature, won't that seem like an absurd premise?

The key is in the word mentioned above: habits.. It is about creating routines in our life that become pillars, stable foundations, that help us, with greater probability, to achieve what we would like to achieve.

We must start from the smallest thing so that, later, almost as a natural consequence, this progress becomes bigger achievements. We cannot run a marathon having simply trained for a week in our lives. We must start with small, achievable goals and behave as if they were part of our repertoire.. A small advance every day creates bigger advances and, as a consequence, the so desired motivation arises in our mind. Without looking for it, without mental exercises, showing us that we are capable of doing it.

Conclusion

We must make an effort without forcing ourselves. Striving means doing a little bit of strength every day, without exhausting ourselves, without getting frustrated. Forcing ourselves would mean doing more than we can. It would be to want to achieve the goal without the process, which would lead us to generate false hopes that would take us back to square one, definitely distancing us from our motivation. And here lies the paradox. If we insist on the spontaneous emergence of what we are trying to achieve, the less likely it will come to us..... However, when we focus on the process, on changing small things, the unblocking occurs.

The change in our behavior leads to a change in our perception, in the way we feel.