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

by Jeff Haden

I thought motivation was a prerequisite to starting a tedious learning process—a spark necessary to get me going. But motivation is really a result. Motivation is the fire that starts burning after you manually, painfully, coax it into existence, and it feeds on the satisfaction of seeing yourself make progress. The problem with waiting for motivation to strike is that it almost never comes with enough voltage to actually get you started.

Rah-rah speeches and inspirational quotes and fire-walking challenges (more on those in a minute) may help you picture yourself at the top of the mountain with your arms raised in triumph, but the effect is fleeting. After the glow is gone, you’re left standing by yourself at the bottom of that same mountain, hugely intimidated by all the steps you need to climb.

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 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.

The motivation myth makes us unhappy for two reasons. First, it leads to a sin of commission. A person who self-identifies as a failure, who regularly quits before reaching the finish line, is a chronically unhappy person. But it also causes a sin of omission. We aren’t mindfully enjoying one of the most rewarding experiences on earth: slowly growing stronger, or more skillful, or more wise.

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.

The best way to get motivated is to break a sweat, literally or symbolically. Getting started is often the hardest part. Financial planners frequently recommend paying off a small debt first, even though the balance on that bill may carry the lowest interest rate of all your debts.

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.

The act of getting out of the house to go for a jog is often harder than actually running the five miles you planned.

I love Tim Ferriss, but don’t fool yourself: He works incredibly hard. The real premise of The 4-Hour Workweek is to increase your output by ten times per hour.

Confidence comes from preparation. Hesitation, anxiety, fear . . . Those feelings don’t come from some deep, dark, irrational place inside you.

That’s why motivation and confidence gained in one aspect of your life can spill over into other aspects of your life.

When you feel good about yourself in one way—when you achieve some degree of success in one aspect of your life—you tend to feel better about other parts of your life as well.

Even though taking a shortcut may lead to a short-term success, you will often regret ever having taken it.

Process gets a bad rap. Hard work, consistent effort, long hours . . . That’s what stupid people with no talent do, right? Um, nope.

Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency.

Science agrees with me. Research (see? I sometimes am actually performing research and not just procrastinating) shows that people who talk about their intentions are much less likely to follow through on those intentions. Or if you prefer researcher-speak, “Identity-related behavioral intentions that had been noticed by other people were translated into action less intensively than those that had been ignored.”* (I know: You don’t prefer researcher-speak.)

It also means you’re less likely to someday actually be on the trail, because “when other people take notice of an individual’s identity-related behavioral intention, this gives the individual a premature sense of possessing the aspired-to identity.”* Or in non-researcher-speak: You already got a huge kick out of people thinking of you as a trail hiker . . . so now you’re less motivated to actually be a trail hiker.

According to NYU psychologist Peter Gollwitzer, one of the authors of the study, that is not the case.

Gollwitzer thinks the issue lies in our sense of identity. Each of us wants to be certain things, and we naturally declare those intentions, even if we have not yet become those things.

Declaring what we want to be and how we will get there causes us to feel we are further along the path of becoming who we want to be—even though we have in reality done nothing but talk.*

Duckworth says that what really drives success is not “genius” but a combination of passion and long-term perseverance.

My definition of “grit” is: the ability to work hard and respond resiliently to failure and adversity; the inner quality that enables individuals to work hard and stick to their long-term passions and goals.

Talent typically reveals itself only in hindsight. Success is never assured. It looks inevitable only after it is achieved.

“The one thing I truly loved about being a pro cyclist was the process,” he said. “Not the accolades, not the money, not the podium . . . I miss the process of getting to the point where you can stand on that top step. “I miss the hours spent alone and suffering and working to get to the point where I could win. I loved the process. I loved all the thinking, all the collaborating, all the planning and effort and working with great people.

In short, the process looks like this: Success → Motivation → More Success → More Motivation → More Success = Becoming

Earned success is the best motivational tool of all. That feeling, that knowledge, is hugely energizing because it’s based not on wishing and hoping and dreaming but on a reality—a reality you created.

All the motivation you need is already inside you. But you won’t tap into it by seizing a single moment of inspiration. You won’t stay motivated because you experienced one “aha!” moment. You’ll stay motivated when you find a process you trust and commit to working that process for as little as a week.

By the end of that week you’ll have made a small improvement:

Never forget that we all lack confidence. We all lack motivation. We all have insecurities, doubts, fears.

No matter how badly you may want to achieve something, what matters more—a lot more—than the power of “why” is the power of “how.”

For now, just know that as you follow the right routine and gain a small—even very small—measure of skill, your motivation grows, your confidence grows, and your happiness grows, and those qualities make it easy to keep following the right routine, to keep improving, to keep gaining skill and confidence and motivation . . . because you will have earned those feelings.

Choices present a huge obstacle to meeting our objectives. They deplete our willpower to pick long-term gratification over short-term gratification.

Going to the gym, on the other hand, is a goal. We may want to work out . . . but we don’t have to work out. You don’t make it to the gym because you can negotiate, if only with yourself, and make other choices. That’s why the power of routine, something we’ll look at in detail later, is so important.

and more reps.* Everyone has goals. The people who actually achieve their goals create routines. They build systems. They consistently take the steps that, in time, will ensure they reach their ultimate goal. They don’t wish. They don’t hope. They just do what their plan says, consistently and without fail.

It’s impossible to “find” the meaning in a particular goal. While sometimes it does happen—if you’re really lucky—that a meaningful goal finds you, most of the time the meaning in a goal is the result of immersing yourself in a routine and a set of tasks. Just as you gain motivation from small, repeated successes, you also find meaning in those successes.

“Attainable” is also a problem. There’s nothing inspiring about an attainable goal. Attainable goals are targets, not goals.

But anything your boss asks you to do is a task, not a goal. Only you can set a goal.

Two essential truths: None of us receives enough positive feedback. Each of us is our own worst critic.

You will always be your worst critic because by definition you will never measure up. And in time you will give up. The work will be too hard and the rewards too few. That’s why you need to forget the goal. What matters is the process.

Likable people already know what they know. They want to know what other people know. They ask questions. They ask for details. They care about what other people think, and they show it by listening.

When you speak with more finality than foundation, people may hear you—but they don’t listen. Want to be instantly likable? Be the person who has accomplished very cool things . . . but manages to make other people feel like they are the ones who have accomplished very cool things.

Optimism—rational, reasoned, justifiable optimism—is contagious. And very, very likable.

You’ll give more people a chance to share who they really are . . . which gives you the chance to decide whether they are someone you want to play a bigger part in your life. On the flip side, you will instantly be more likable, which will attract people to you. And ultimately you will build better relationships because the process ensures your attention is placed on other people, not on yourself. Your goal—building more and better relationships—won’t get you there. Becoming more likable will get you there.

Now imagine you’re a young Jerry Seinfeld. And imagine that, although you never say it out loud, you dream of being a comedian. And somehow you realize that the way to be a better comic is to write better jokes . . . and that the only way to write better jokes is to write every day. Wait for inspiration? Nope. Wait for lightning to strike? Nope. Waiting accomplishes nothing. You need to write each and every day.

HOW TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL PROCESS