The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win

by Jeff Haden

Are You Comfortable Financially?

If you’re constantly worried about or thinking about money, your first goal must be to generate more income, because money clearly matters a lot to you. (And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.)

Are You Relatively Fit and Healthy?

Want to land more media opportunities? Developing a better delivery and presence will help, but who gets media opportunities? Experts. Become an expert in your field and you’ll have something original or insightful to say—and your delivery and presence will naturally improve.

Want to build an amazing network? Don’t think in terms of building a network. Build a list of key individual contacts. Think about every key area your business depends on: supplies, products, professional services, marketing, media, etc. Then work hard to build a strong relationship with one person in each of those areas.

If you are in financial straits or relatively poor physical condition, your goal must help you overcome that challenge.

My guess is yes. That’s why you absolutely must trust your analysis, your judgment, and even your instincts—and act on that trust. You certainly won’t get it right all the time, but if you let “idea” stay a noun, you will always get it wrong.

And you get an additional benefit from telling certain people what you plan to do that day. The people whose opinion you value will know what you intend to accomplish . . . and they will know if you don’t succeed. Peer pressure—when applied to accomplishing a short-term task and not a huge, Appalachian Trail–worthy goal—can

Don’t create a plan based on “I’ll work as long as I can” or “I’ll work as long as I feel productive.” Set a concrete target.

Don’t just set a deadline. Totally commit to hitting that deadline. And feel free to play any mental games that help. Make a bet with someone else, or make a bet with yourself (where “losing” means you have to do something you really don’t want to do). In short, make the stakes personal. Find a way to be invested in the outcome not just professionally but personally.

The same trick works for an EPD. Start at 4:00 a.m. Or indulge your inner night owl, starting at 6:00 p.m. and working through the night. Either way, those first few hours will fly by. An EPD is not a normal day. Set the stage for atypical by breaking free of your usual routine.

Delayed gratification is always better gratification—and better motivation.

Speaking of food, plan meals wisely. Don’t take an hour-long lunch break. Prepare food you can eat quickly without lots of organizing or a mess. The key is to refuel, recharge . . . and keep rolling.

Pick a few productive tasks you like to perform—and gain a sense of accomplishment from—and use those for your breaks. Spending even a few minutes in the land of inactivity weakens your resolve.

When you take a break, don’t stop when you complete a particular task. Stop in the middle.

Stopping short allows you to instantly focus and concentrate when you resume whatever you were doing. You won’t be able to help diving right in because you’ll be too excited, and that initial enthusiasm will positively affect the rest of your day.

Make sure your first EPD is the first block in the foundation of a great new habit: achieving what you want to achieve.

“Here’s the thing,” Ray told me, “about being ‘done.’ When you truly have nothing left in the tank, you either black out, pass out, or die. That’s it. Otherwise you have more in you. It’s all about getting past your comfort zone. We always have more gas in the tank. We just don’t think we do because no one wants to run on reserve. They don’t want to go past what they think is their limit.

“Winning is a mind-set. Refusing to give up is a mind-set. When you learn that you can do more than you thought in one aspect of your life, you can apply that to every other area of your life. Get out and do things that are hard. Refuse to quit. Push past your comfort zone. Over time that ability will become a habit—and you’ll accomplish a lot more than you ever believed you could. Success is a mental game. Learn to win the mental game and you can do anything.”

Every Sunday evening Jim sits down with his list of important objectives for the month and year. Those goals inform the upcoming week and help keep him on track.

Then he looks at his calendar for the week. He knows what times are blocked out by meetings, etc. Then he looks at what he wants to accomplish and slots those tasks into his to-do list.

You already schedule meetings and appointments. Go a step further and block out time to complete specific tasks. Slot periods for “Write new proposal” or “Craft presentation” or “Review and approve marketing materials.”

Success is based on getting important things done.

Assigning realistic time frames forces you to prioritize. Assigning realistic time frames also helps you stay focused. When you know a task should take only thirty minutes, you’ll be more aggressive in weeding out and ignoring distractions.

Don’t be a slave to the default settings on your calendar tool. Schedule an hour only if you absolutely know you need an hour.

Multitasking is a personal-productivity killer. Don’t try to do two things sort of well. Do one thing really, really well.

Look at your day. Identify the downtimes. Then schedule productive things you can do during that time. Call it “edge time”—because using it well can create a major productivity edge.

Once you start tracking your time, you’ll be amazed by how much time you spend doing stuff that isn’t productive. (You don’t have to get hyperspecific. The info you log can be a summary of activities, not a minute-to-minute diary.)

Say you take an hour for lunch each day; that’s five hours a week. Be thoughtful about how you spend all those hours. You don’t have to work, but you should make whatever you do work for you.

Every family has peak times when its members can best interact. If you don’t proactively free up that time, you will often slip back into work mode. Either be working or be home with your family. Don’t just “be there.” Be with your family.

Getting something productive done right away is fun, and it’s motivating. Success → Motivation → More Success → More Motivation . . . so why not get your virtuous cycle started right away?

If you want to succeed, you can’t make excuses. Forge ahead. Establishing great habits takes considerable time and effort. Success and achievement are habits, and it’s incredibly easy to instantly create a bad habit by giving in, even just once.

Seemingly every successful person has faced tremendous criticism and rejection. Stephen King’s first book was rejected by thirty different publishers. Soichiro Honda flunked his interview with Toyota and decided to make scooters. Lucille Ball was told by acting teachers to try another profession. If you’re trying to do something different—if you’re trying to be different—other people will think you’re odd. That’s okay. Do what you want to do. That’s the only way to achieve what you want to achieve.

To succeed, you don’t have to be braver than other people; you just need to find the strength to keep moving forward. Fear is paralyzing, but action creates confidence and self-assurance.

Don’t wait for ideas. Don’t wait for inspiration. Big ideas most often come from people who do, not people who dream.

Ask for help. Asking for help is a sign of strength—and is the key to achieving a lot more. Ask Dany Garcia, cofounder of Seven Bucks Productions with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. “One of Dwayne’s keys to success is he can detach his ego completely and care solely about who has the best answers,” Dany says. “He’s extremely coachable. He’s really coachable in wrestling; as an actor he’s really coachable. . . . He’s totally detached from the ego side of decision making. When you’re talented and coachable and willing to find the best answer, no matter who has it or where it comes from, that’s extremely powerful.”

Successful people finish—unless

Successful people are successful because they do things differently from other people.

Every time you do something, think of one extra thing you can do—especially if other people aren’t doing that one thing.

You’re only as good as you are today, right here, right now, in this moment, and that’s why detail matters as much as, or more than, ideas and execution. A great idea is great only when you execute that idea incredibly well.

Choices are the enemy of willpower. So are ease and convenience.

Or decide what you’ll have for breakfast. Scott Dorsey, the aforementioned cofounder of ExactTarget, eats oatmeal with blueberries for breakfast every day.

The key is to take as many decisions off the board as you can the night before, because that will allow you to conserve tomorrow’s mental energy for making the decisions that really matter.

The goal is to make certain actions automatic rather than decisions because decisions require willpower.

Regardless of what decisions you decide to make, here’s one thing you definitely should decide: what you’ll do first when you get to work. That way you can . . .

That’s why the best time to make tough decisions is early in the day. That’s why the best time to do the most important things you need to do is early in the day. Decide what those things are and plan to tackle them first thing.

How can you avoid that? Um, duh: Eat healthy meals. Eat healthy snacks. Not only will you feel better, but you’ll also make better decisions—and you’ll be able to exercise more willpower in making those decisions.

The solution is easy: Create tangible reminders designed to pull you back from the impulse brink.

Finding ways to avoid temptation is a great way to avoid needing to exercise willpower. So is the guilt you’ll feel when you are required to take a physical action to avoid making the right choice.

The past doesn’t define you. Just make sure that next time, you know what to do differently.