How to do stuff when you have ZERO motivation.

Motivation.

That feeling we wait for to start a project or do a task or act a certain way.

Motivation has become one of my dirty words. A false idol. Similar territory to explicit cussing. I wince a little when i hear it.

The concept of motivation is empty. A dirty trick. Waiting for the stars to align before doing what needs to be done, will affect long-term compounded efforts and outcomes.

Side note, i love when the stars align and the energy is right to take a particular action or direction. But waiting to do what you know you must because the motivation isn’t there yet is cheating yourself.

Motivation evaporates or doesn’t show or pikes out when it promised it would come to the party.

A few months ago it became apparent i needed to start a writing habit. Even more recently it was obvious i needed to write daily and something more than a few lines. 10 days on Substack is currently underway and the reason you might be wondering why you are being spammed by me on the daily.

Today i had no motivation to write. My brain was generating plenty of excuses to get me off the hook.

‘Its saturday, weekends are for rest.’

‘No one will notice one less day of writing from you.’

‘You’ve done 5 in a row already, that’s pretty good.’

‘You need sleep.’

That last one does need attention. Anyhow, motivation was offline and in no rush to come back and partner up with me.

It was clear and tangible how unreliable motivation is.

Getting to the place you want to go, achieving the things you want, being the person you want to be…is determined by what you do, when you have ZERO motivation and can’t be f*cked.

When you’re without motivation, tired, frustrated and your toddler is screaming at you irrationally, covered in blue paint because he wants to be a genie..will you react and lose your sh*t or do all the right things with a cool head and calm loving demeanour because you want to be a good parent and role model.

How do you do stuff when you have zero motivation?

You simply choose to. You make a choice to act even though your not an enthusiastic, motivated, well slept keen-bean.

You put your feelings and thoughts aside and you act and behave in the manner necessary to move you closer to where you want to be.

How you choose to behave when you’re unmotivated says everything. And will gauge how much you move towards the things you want.

And theres my unmotivated day 6 Substack!