The Last Motivational Health Article You May Ever Read

Every so often I’ll receive an email or run into someone who has read one of my columns.  Most recently a woman told me, “you know, I really enjoyed that last article you wrote; I felt so motivated afterwards.”  Honestly I don’t think I’ve ever motivated anyone because I think that the only person who can motivate you is you.  If however this article does happen to motivate you, it may just be the last article you ever read if you put these tools to use. 

Here are a few questions for you.  Is motivation a feeling or an action?  How can you tell when someone is motivated?  Can you tell if a person is motivated by how they feel or can you tell by how the act?  Well I don’t know about you but I haven’t figured out a way to read minds or pinpoint feelings at specific times so I will argue that you can generally tell how motivated someone is by how they act. 

I once wrote a short piece on how to get out of bed in the morning; definitely one of the hardest things for me to do.  The question I posed was, when you woke up this morning  did you wait till you felt like it to get out of bed or did you get out of bed anyways and then you felt like it?  In other words most of us never feel like getting out of bed in the morning but we do it anyways simply because we have things to do.  Only after we get out of bed do we start to feel energized. 

Some time ago I listened to an ultra marathon runner present to a group of students.  During his presentation he shared that he normally ran 135 to 150 miles per week (I don’t think I can even drive that much per week).  During the question and answer period of the presentation one student asked; when do you feel like running?  He replied with, “I never feel like running until after I start! 

One of my favorite acronyms is ACE, Action Creates Energy.  Action also creates excitement which is an emotion.  So another way of looking at motivation is to understand that action creates energy, excitement and positive emotions which in turn creates the feeling of motivation. 

So tomorrow when you wake up and have to do something you don’t feel like doing, just start doing it for fifteen minutes.  After fifteen minutes you can decide if you want to keep going but my instinct is that you will have already created enough momentum to continue until you finish whatever it is you need to do because you won’t wait until you feel motivated; you will have just done it regardless…and that’s motivation.