Dear Helen,
How can I get myself to take action, day in and day out, on the things that don't bring me any immediate gratification? How do I stay motivated to keep on with those actions?
Thank you!
No Pep In My Step
Dear No Pep,
If you Google this question, you'll find plenty of techniques out there, all of which might be practically helpful for you. If actionable items are what you're after, Google away! Strategies are great and there are loads of resources that provide just that. I encourage you to seek out the exact help you need.
But because you wrote to me with this question, I suspect you're after something different.
Here's my answer:
I don't think you can.
I don't think you can get yourself to stay motivated.
You might disagree or know something that I don't, but I haven't seen any evidence that energy, thoughts, or feelings work like that.
In my experience, we're not even remotely in control of our thoughts. (If we were, we'd never have unpleasant ones.) Same goes for feelings and energy.
As for actions, well—from where I stand, it seems as though certain things occur to us to do whenever they occur to us to do them.
Let's say you have an intention to do something. It's an action you want to take, or maybe you just want the benefit of having taken it.
Sometimes there's resistance and you don't do the thing you said you would do because you just don't feel like it in the moment.
Other times you feel the resistance, but you do the thing anyway.
Still, there are occasions when you feel no resistance whatsoever; you just do the thing, no big deal.
What I'm saying is: It's all subject to change. As is the case with each and every feeling, resistance and motivation don't last forever. And they only seem like a problem when you think you have to make yourself feel differently. When you think what's showing up right now isn't okay and you have to change it to something you think is better.
Not feeling motivated is an okay feeling to feel.
Resistance is an okay feeling to feel.
Neither means anything about you except how you feel in a given moment.
At the same time, it can be helpful to remember that you don't have to feel any which way in order to do something. You can not want to do something...and still do it.
Feelings don't actually stop you. They can't.
Your mind might have you believe you can't do the thing without wanting to do the thing—but that's just the nature of a mind. A mind will take a feeling and draw conclusions from it (e.g. "I don't feel like doing this thing right now, so I'll wait until I feel like it"); weave a story around it (e.g. "Ugh, I'm so unmotivated! This shows just how much I lack discipline"); even create a timeline for it (e.g. "I'm never going to be someone who shows up regularly because I never have before").
So, really, it's less about getting yourself to do something or feel a certain way and more about allowing yourself to feel how you feel—and then doing what occurs to you to do.
Sometimes, what occurs to you will be to do the thing anyway; other times, what occurs to you will be to avoid it (or even to do something else entirely).
Both are okay. Neither is problematic, nor a fixture of your personality. It's just what's showing up in the moment.
I hope this helps!
Love,
Helen