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

by Jeff Haden

I spent a lot of time trying to motivate myself. I’d been told success was all about mind-set, and I wanted to lock in the optimal psychological state before the rubber met the road. We can all remember those times when we were hit with a lightning bolt of inspiration, whether to work out or to start learning French—and we can also remember how that urge never produced any action.

I was in the grip of an insidious myth. 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.

a lightning-bolt burst of motivation is like a sugar rush: It feels great but is impossible to maintain, and when you come down you actually feel worse.

The gene cards we are dealt are just a starting point; nearly every successful person I know started on the downside of advantage. Humble beginnings can create the perfect foundation for success, because starting at the bottom creates almost endless opportunities to enjoy small successes.

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.

Small successes are fun—and motivating.

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.

It’s easy to look back on a path to greatness and assume that every vision was clear, every plan was perfect, every step was executed flawlessly, and tre...

Why were they so surprised by their success? They were busy doing. They didn’t focus on what they did not have. They focused on doing the work, day after day after day, to get them to where they hoped to go. 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.

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.

He desperately wanted to be someone. He wanted to matter. That’s a wish we all share. For the most part, that’s why we change careers, or start businesses, or play an instrument, or go back to school. That’s why we run for local office, volunteer at a charity, or are active in church. We want to matter . . . but when we focus solely on mattering to other people—when we focus on seeing the reflection of our worth in the eyes of others—the difference that feeling makes in our lives is often fleeting.

If your goal has long been to build a business that does $10 million in sales, you feel amazing the second you hit that target—but that moment of achievement is just one moment. If your goal has long been to run a marathon, you feel amazing the second you cross the finish line—but that moment of achievement is just one moment. The road to a target, to a goal, or to a finish line is filled with countless hours of work and determination and sacrifice . . . and countless opportunities to feel good about what you have accomplished, each and every day along the way.

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.

He didn’t give himself the chance to enjoy the daily doses of fulfillment that come from engaging in the process. Accomplishing something, no matter how small the task, makes us feel better about ourselves. That’s why to-do lists are so popular.

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. Sure, the goal is still out there. But what they care about most is what they need to do today—and when they accomplish that, they are happy about today. They feel good about today.

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.

When you savor the small victories, you get to feel good about yourself every day, because you no longer feel compelled to compare the distance between here and there. You don’t have to wait for “someday” to feel good about yours...

To accomplish anything worthwhile, and especially to achieve a goal others say is impossible, you have to work your ass off. There are no shortcuts. The only way is the hard way.

You don’t need to wait until you can find more time; you have all the time you need. You don’t need to wait until you can find more money; money never drives success. (Though if you so choose, money can be the result of success.) And you absolutely do not need more motivation.

You don’t need to wait to find your passion; if you follow this book’s program, your passions—plural intended, as you’ll soon see—will find you.

You will stand strong. You won’t back off. You won’t back down. You’ll make smart decisions. You won’t focus on what you don’t have, because what you do have—however little it may seem—is more than enough. And you will find that the process, not just the result but the process involved in becoming something that you once dreamed of, will also make you feel awesome about...

Most people are confused about the source of motivation. They think motivation is the spark that automatically produces lasting eagerness to do hard work; the greater the motivation, the more effort you’re willing to put in. 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. That’s why tips for how to feel more motivated often fall short. Most of that advice can be boiled down to “You can be more motivated. All you have to do is dig deep into your mind and find that motivation within.”

The same is true for confidence, confidence being closely linked to motivation. The thinking goes, “You can be more confident. All you have to do is decide to be more confident.” It’s easy: Suppress negative thoughts, suppress negative perspectives, repeat some really cool self-affirmational statements, and . . . presto!

Most definitions of “motivation” involve some phrase like “the force or influence that causes someone to do something.” Motivation is viewed as a spark, a precondition, a prerequisite, a presomething that is required before we can start. If we aren’t motivated, we can’t start. If we aren’t motivated, we can’t do. Bullshit. Real motivation comes after you start. Motivation isn’t the result of hearing a speech or watching a movie or crisping your soles. Motivation isn’t passive; motivation is active.

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. Rationally, that approach makes no sense:

Everyone procrastinates.) I definitely procrastinate.

I love to write, but sometimes the thought of writing seems daunting, especially at the beginning of a project, when I need to find the right voice and the best way into the material.

I love riding, but sometimes I’ll do anything not to ride.

Neither makes sense, right? Writing and riding are both things I love to do, yet at times I find ways to actively avoid doing them. Putting off tasks I don’t enjoy would make a lot more sense.

but then something magical happens. Somehow my aversion to “hard” goes away once I break a sweat. The endorphins kick in. My legs warm up. I feel proud that I can do something hard, and do it reasonably well. That rush of satisfaction I always feel? (That rush of satisfaction you always feel when you start doing something you’ve put off . . . and suddenly realize it wasn’t as daunting as you anticipated?) I know that feeling will come. I’ve trained myself to anticipate that natural “high.” Instead of thinking, “Ugh. This is going to be hard,” I’ve taught myself to think, “I can’t wait for that little high I’ll feel when I move from inactivity to activity. I can’t wait to feel that rush I know I’ll feel when I’m actually doing what I planned to do.”

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.

Improving feels good. Improving breeds confidence. Improving creates a feeling of competence, and competence breeds self-confidence. Success—in your field or sometimes in any field—breeds motivation. It feels good...

Because once you get started, once you get active and start doing something—doing not just anything but something you know will get you one step closer to your goal—the process gets easier. Motivation kicks in because you’ve gotten started. A really cool virtuous cycle—one we’ll look at in detail a little later—kicks in. You feel good because you’re engaged and involved.

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.

Starting is hard because “motivation” doesn’t make it easy to start. Starting provides the motivation to finish.

Fire walks don’t provide lasting motivation. Breaking a sweat provides lasting motivation. Speeches don’t provide lasting motivation. Progress provides lasting motivation. Posters don’t provide lasting motivation. Success provides lasting motivation.

If you aren’t achieving your goals, a lack of motivation or confidence isn’t the problem. A lack of motivation or confidence is actually the means to a solution. When you accept your weak points, when you accept your flaws, when you accept your imperfections . ...

Hide from your weaknesses, and you’ll always be weak. Accept your weaknesses and work to improve them, and you’ll eventually be stronger...

Wait for a sudden burst of inspiration and you’ll never get started . . . and if you do manage to ride that initial sugar-rush wave, you’ll never stick with it, because sugar rushes never last.

You can’t “hack” your way to success. 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. Tim is the first to admit he has no problem with hard work—the key is to apply your hard work to the right things. But somehow that premise has been twisted to become “I just need to find the secret (something) that results in instant success.” Of course there are no hacks. Sure, you can learn to peel a banana a lot more effectively (thanks, Tim!), but real success, meaningful success, is never instant. You absolutely should look for better, more effective ways to accomplish your goal—and I’ll show you several—but there are no shortcuts.

Confidence comes from preparation. Hesitation, anxiety, fear . . . Those feelings don’t come from some deep, dark, irrational place inside you. The anxiety you feel—the lack of confidence you feel—comes from feeling unprepared. Once you realize that you can prepare yourself, that you can develop techniques to do whatever you seek to do well, that whatever you hope to achieve is ultimately a craft that you can learn to do better and better and better, and that any skills you currently lack you can learn, you naturally become more confident as you become more prepared.

“My confidence came from overpreparing. I still overprepare. I put together a page of notes for every driver, talk to the drivers and crew chiefs at the track . . . and then I use all that to help me trim the fat down to the most pertinent facts and the best angles to share with viewers during the broadcast. I use that same approach with other forms of racing. Feeling overprepared lets me feel confident and natural.” And where does the drive required to help you prepare come from? Success—small, frequent, repeat successes. It truly is a virtuous cycle.

Confidence is a feeling, but ultimately confidence is the result of knowing that you’re not only willing to do the work, but that you actually will do the work.

Hacking is great when you need to perform a simple task. Hacking is worthless when you need to acquire a complex skill or accomplish a huge goal. Plus, hacking doesn’t provide a jolt of motivation like gaining skill and expertise does. And hacking doesn’t help you gain confidence in your ability to accomplish other big goals—whereas real s...

Of course, riding the Gran Fondo was the opposite of a fire walk. While it was seemingly a one-off event, that one day was also the culmination of months of hard work. I didn’t close my eyes and sprint across semihot coals. My eyes were wide open, every day, to the effort and sacrifice and determination it took to follow the right routine that would allow me to accomplish my goal.

After all, if you can do one thing well, you can do lots of things well. You realize that all you have to do is find the right process, work the process, and enjoy the feeling of success and resulting motivation you get from constant improvement (because if you follow the right process, you will constantly improve).

Routine Is Not the Last Resort of the Less Talented (or the Boring)

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