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I read a very interesting piece in Psychology Today recently, from a clinical psychologist who specializes in addiction treatment. I’ve included it HERE.
His basic point is that we often mistakenly think that motivation will cause action, and that it is actually the other way around—that you need to start an action and then the motivation will come. He spends a lot of time digging into the faulty idea that so many of us want to change something and then just sit around hoping that we will be overwhelmed by motivation to make that change.
The main application in my life is obviously addiction. I got to a point where I felt terrible every day and put myself in rehab. Even on the way to rehab, I didn’t really want to go. And a few days in, I wanted to stop. But I was already in the middle of the action, and I did find that the motivation tank filled up as I took the action.
But that’s not even the best example for me. I mean, with drugs and alcohol, I was going to die, so there was a big part of me that was motivated every single day to scream at myself to take action. The better examples are all those things that aren’t killing us but we wish we could get to change.
The list is endless: character defects that work for us sometimes and against us other times… a bad relationship… bad money habits… weight loss… annoying paperwork… and on and on. There are so many things that I tell myself I’ll do tomorrow or next week that I am hoping will magically involve motivation knocking on my door.
The writer of the Psychology Today piece makes the case that you should think about it in reverse, that you take committed action even if you’re not quite feeling much motivation yet. He talks about working with countless people who know what they want for a happier life but they sit on their hands and hope for a fire to be lit under their ass, and it doesn’t come.
I often share these days about the concept of meddling, which is a character defect of mine. On a regular basis, I catch myself walking into situations that I wasn’t invited to, responding to emails I don’t need to, trying to mediate arguments I’m not involved in, and then I get myself into trouble. That’s unnecessary meddling, and it basically amounts to me not accepting the world as it is, and believing that the world should be as I think it should be. I’ll often jump in with advice or suggestions that nobody was looking for, and dress it up in my head as trying to be helpful. Well… am I being helpful? Or meddling? It’s usually meddling, and in those situations, I am an example of someone who knows a behavior that would make for a happier life… but I keep doing it and hoping for motivation to arrive.
The truth is, the author of that story is probably right. Motivation will probably arrive once I start hustling and taking action and see the benefits. I’ve never once gone to the gym, decided not to do anything and drove home. I just to shut the f— up and hopefully the momentum will show up to continue to involve myself in things that I need to be involved in, not the things that I involve myself in for s***s and giggles.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
A construction worker—a rather large, menacing guy—enters a bar. He orders a beer, chugs it back, and bellows, "All you guys on this side of the bar are a bunch of idiots!"
A silence descends. "Anyone got a problem with that?" The silence lengthens.
He then chugs another beer and growls, "And you guys on the other side of the bar are all scum!" Once again, the bar is silent. He roars, "Anyone got a problem with that?"
One lone man gets up from his stool, and unsteadily starts to walk toward the man. "You got a problem, buddy?" the angry man says.
"Oh no," slurs the drunk. "I'm just on the wrong side of the bar."
(Credit: Grapevine, June 2008, by Anonymous)
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