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

by Jeff Haden

There is only one recipe for gaining motivation: success. Specifically, the dopamine hits we get when we observe ourselves making progress. Not huge, life-changing successes. Those come all too infrequently, if ever. If you want to stay motivated, if you want to stay on track, if you want to keep making progress toward the things you hope to achieve, the key is to enjoy small, seemingly minor successes—but on a regular basis.

Motivation is something you get, from yourself, automatically, from feeling good about achieving small successes. Success is a process. Success is repeatable and predictable. Success has less to do with hoping and praying and strategizing than with diligently doing (after a little strategizing, sure): doing the right things, the right way, over and over and over.

When you consistently do the right things, success is predictable. Success is inevitable. You just can’t think about it too much. No obsessing allowed.

A slice of satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness can be found in the achievement . . . but the real source of consistent, lasting happiness lies in the process.

Incredibly successful people set a goal and then focus all their attention on the process necessary to achieve that goal. They set a goal and then, surprisingly, they forget the goal.

They feel good about themselves because they’ve accomplished what they set out to do today, and that sense of accomplishment gives them all the motivation they need to do what they need to do when tomorrow comes—because success, even tiny, incremental success, is the best motivational tool of all.

Actually, motivation is a result. Motivation is the pride you take in work you have already done—which fuels your willingness to do even more.

The key is to enjoy the feeling of success that comes from improving in some small way . . . and then rinse and repeat, over and over again.

You feel motivated because you took action. Motivation is a result, not a precondition. You don’t need motivation to break a sweat. Break a sweat and you’ll feel motivated.

Success → Motivation → More Success → More Motivation → More Success = Becoming

You’ll stay motivated when you find a process you trust and commit to working that process for as little as a week. Forget how far you need to go to reach your goal; just commit to following the process for a week.

Dream big. Set a huge goal. Commit to your huge goal. Create a process that ensures you can reach your goal. Then forget about your huge goal and work your process instead.

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.