I learned everything there is to know about motivation by (repeatedly) inflating an obnoxiously large swimming pool.

She lied.

My wife told me she was buying an inflatable swimming pool for our three-month-old son. She wasn't. She was buying an inflatable swimming pool for herself.

Four adults can lounge in the pool she bought. Thing is massive. Our kid is sixteen months old now. The pool is still overkill.

We don't have an air pump. I have to inflate the pool. Manually. With my face. I have to wrap my lips around a bacterial breeding ground and pray my immune system isn't taking a lunch break.

Every time I inflate this pool, I think about motivation.

I think about…

The Reward.

It all starts with an idea. Of a better future. Potential. A world with (a) more pleasure and comfort, (b) less pain and punishment, or (c) a combination of (a) and (b). This is The Reward.

Wanting to obtain The Reward, to turn this idea of a better future into reality, is the trigger. The thing that starts this entire cascade.

Directly after the trigger has been pulled, motivation will be high. Because the only thing on your mind is The Reward and how much better your life will be in the future.

Spoiler alert:

The motivation won't last.

The Work.

The juicy future dangling in the distance takes your hand and leads you to The Work. The Work is everything you need to do to obtain The Reward… to turn your dream into a reality.

At first, The Work won't be daunting. You won't give The Work second thought, no matter what it entails. You'll have tunnel vision. You'll only think about The Reward and how much better your life will be in the future.

At this point, motivation will still be high. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The Shift. 

Shortly after The Work begins, you'll realize this: The Work isn't as easy as you thought it'd be, and The Work will probably take longer than you thought it would. This wouldn't be so bad if you enjoyed The Work or if there was something fun about The Work. But the Work is neither enjoyable, nor fun.

This realization about The Work causes The Shift. Before, you had tunnel vision. The only thing you saw was The Reward. Everything else was blurry. Now? The whole picture comes into focus.

You'll finally see the mousetrap surrounding The Reward. You'll realize obtaining The Reward doesn't come without consequence: a bunch of work that, deep down, you really would rather not do. This will puncture a hole in the hull of motivation.

You're now a sinking ship.

The Soup.

When you see the mousetrap surrounding The Reward, you're in The Soup. The Soup is thick and unforgiving. The Soup is all about self-sabotage.

You'll find yourself searching for excuses to quit. You won't quit outright. Too hurtful to your ego. Instead, you'll look for loopholes. Reasons to quit that your shoulders won't have to support.

It's never: I stopped because I didn't want to do The Work. It's always: I stopped because of something that has nothing to do with my work ethic, even though the only reason I'm in The Soup is because of my work ethic.

The Soup is suffocating.

Chances of survival are slim.

The Slog. 

If you survive The Soup, you'll enter The Slog. The Slog is the act of doing The Work, no matter how uncomfortable or unpleasant.

Nothing fancy about The Slog. You're just trying to forget how much you hate what you're currently doing and how much better things will be when The Work is finished. Slipping back into The Soup is very possible.

Ready for good news?

The Rebound.

At some point, near the end of The Slog, before you finish The Work and obtain The Reward, your motivation will rebound. Because you'll be able to see the finish line. You'll realize it'll all be over soon.

During The Rebound, you'll work harder than ever before. The end is so close you can taste it, which is all you've been thinking about since you started.

The Finish.

The Finish is when The Reward meets reality, which doesn't always have a happy ending. This entire cascade was founded on a fantasy — an idea of what the future might look and feel like. 

Will The Reward actually look, feel, and taste like you expected it to? Maybe. Maybe not. There are no guarantees. The self-defeating talk that accompanied The Slog might be true.

The Breakdown.

This sequence of events will henceforth be referred to as the Wannabe Cycle. Every time I inflate the pool, I go through the Wannabe Cycle. You'll go through the Wannabe Cycle if you ever find yourself in a similar situation:

Wanting to obtain The Reward.
Not wanting to do The Work.

The Wannabe Cycle ain't fun. Most people don't survive The Soup. And many that do survive will be suffocated by The Slog. Sort of obvious, when you think about it: People that don't want to do the work probably won't obtain the reward. Duh.

The ONLY reason I'm able to make it through the Wannabe Cycle and inflate the pool on a regular basis: the downsides of inaction supersede the downsides of The Work.

Even though I don't want to inflate the pool, I'd rather inflate the pool than let my wife and kid down. Looking my kid in the eyes, knowing I didn't do everything I could to make him happy, is worse than letting bacteria bathe in between my teeth.

If the consequences of inaction aren't worse than The Work, the odds of you making it through the Wannabe Cycle are worse than the odds of you getting struck by lightning after finding the Holy Grail… which is frustrating. Because your desire to obtain The Reward remains.

If you want to improve your chances of making it through the Wannabe Cycle, you can create artificial consequences (if the real consequences aren’t painful enough).

You can try to make inaction more painful than The Work.

Maybe you bet your friend $100 you will lose ten pounds in two months. Or maybe you tell your friend to post a picture of you, shirtless, on social media, if you don’t lose ten pounds in two months.

You can also try to create artificial rewards. Maybe you tell yourself you can buy a new video game when you lose ten pounds. Or maybe…

Artificial consequences and rewards might help, but they’re fragile. Paying $100 one time is easier than eating cabbage, cottage cheese, and chicken for two months. Convincing yourself you don’t want a new video game is easier than hitting the gym on a regular basis.

This is why I’m not a fan of injecting artificial consequences or rewards into the equation. When you try to trick your brain, you usually lose.

Another thing I’m not a fan of is trying to find motivation.

The collision between not wanting to do The Work and wanting to obtain The Reward is the catalyst for a (so-called) lack of motivation.

I understand what people mean when they say they don’t have motivation, but I don’t like when people say it. Words are important. Saying “I don’t have motivation” or “I lack motivation” insinuates that motivation is a missing entity.

This isn't true.

If you didn’t have motivation, you wouldn't play Call of Duty for 12 hours, nor would you search the internet to find motivation. Not having motivation means not having motivation for anything. You wouldn’t even get out of bed in the morning.

You have plenty of motivation. What you lack the desire to do certain things. And saying “I lack the desire to do x” or “I don’t want to do x” is much better than saying “I don’t have motivation,” because: if you think you lack motivation, you’re probably going to try to find motivation. That’s what we do when things are missing.

You want Bugels from a vending machine. You need a $1 bill. Don’t have a $1 bill? Better find a $1 bill. Likewise, you want motivation to squat. You currently don’t have motivation to squat. Better go find some motivation.

Unfortunately…

Trying to find motivation is less effective than a boat with propellers made of hotdogs.

For starters, you’re trying to find something that isn’t lost. You’re trying to find a $1 bill when there’s a $1 bill in your pocket. So. There’s that. There’s also this:

The odds of you discovering motivation are low. Lower than being trampled by a Tyrannosaurus after being struck by lightning after finding the Holy Grail.

You aren’t going to read or watch anything that will change your long-term attitude towards The Work. You might feel inspired after reading The Man in the Arena, but inspiration won't stick around.

This is why it’s called “inspiration.” Inspire. You breathe it in. What happens after you breathe in? You exhale. Inspiration leaves just as quickly as it arrives.

Don’t get me wrong…

Your attitude towards the work can change.

But, typically, you can’t consciously trigger the change. It will happen unexpectedly, after stewing in The Soup for a loonnng time — years, probably.

This “epiphany” will occur when the pain associated with your current reality eclipses the pain associated with The Work. In other words, living another day in your body will be more painful than going to the gym, eating better, etc…

Epiphanies usually happen at random, but they can also happen after trauma. Everyone knows someone’s uncle’s cousin’s roommate’s son’s nephew’s grandfather that stopped eating sausage after having had a heart attack.

Unfortunately, you can’t replicate real trauma. You can try. Probably won’t work.

Trying to find motivation is a fantastic thing to do… if you’re willing to suffer in The Soup for years and bank on an epiphany that may never happen. (This is my specialty, BTW.)

If suffering in The Soup doesn’t sound appetizing, I have some good news. There’s another option: You can make The Work more enjoyable.

When The Work is sought just as much (if not more) than The Reward, you won't go through the Wannabe Cycle. Instead, you'll go through the Willbe Cycle. The Willbe Cycle bypasses The Shift, The Soup, and the Slog.

Example:

I play Zelda because I want to beat the game. Beating the game is the ultimate objective. BUT. I play Zelda because it's fun to play, more than I play to beat the game. If I turned on Zelda for the first time and the game was already beaten, I'd start over. Beating the game is secondary to the act of playing.

In some sense, beating the game is the saddest part of Zelda because it means I can't play anymore.

There are many ways to make The Work more enjoyable. Wayyyy too many. Here are three ideas:

• Shrink The Work. My wife bought a huge pool. If she bought a smaller one, inflating the pool wouldn’t be such a daunting task.
• Hide The Work. Jogging around the neighborhood for 20 minutes isn’t the same as jogging up and down a basketball court and shooting shots and layups. One sounds like work. The other sounds like fun.
• Create more feedback. Your brain loves seeing the fruit of its labor. If you show your brain “THIS IS WORKING!” (que Anakin Skywalker in podracer meme) then you'll be more easily hooked.

Creativity is your bottleneck. Just know that you'll have a tough time convincing your brain to believe something it really doesn't believe. You can try to convince yourself your life is a video game and that by going to the gym and eating better you're leveling up and whatever…

But if you don't actually believe this, you probably aren't going to trick your brain into believing it. You have to pander to your brain. If you enjoy basketball, then shooting hoops is a good alternative to jogging. If you hate basketball, then shooting hoops might be worse than jogging.

Ready for more?

You shouldn't be.

 

May the Gains be with you,
Ant