You Don’t Need More Motivation. You Need a Process.

Realizing You Life Coach

Motivation gets a lot of credit for things it probably doesn’t deserve. We talk about getting motivated to exercise, motivated to change careers, motivated to save money, motivated to finish a project or motivated to finally deal with something we have been avoiding. When we are motivated, getting started can feel almost easy. The problem is that motivation is a feeling, and feelings are not particularly dependable.

I have learned not to build important parts of my life around the assumption that I will feel like doing them when the time comes. Some mornings I feel like exercising and some mornings I don’t. There are days when I am excited about a project and days when I would rather do almost anything else. If the plan depends on having the right feeling at the right moment, I have given that moment far too much control.

What has worked better for me is creating a process before the moment arrives. Decide what needs to happen, break it into manageable steps, remove as many unnecessary decisions as possible and make the next action clear. Then, when it is time to act, there is less left to negotiate with yourself.

This way of thinking is natural to me. I make my living managing projects, but I was a planner long before I ever had Project Manager in my job title. Looking back, I can even see that tendency during the years when I was drinking. Unfortunately, I was using it to support the very thing that was destroying my life.

We Are Always Building Processes

When I was actively drinking, I planned around alcohol constantly. If a liquor store was going to be closed, I needed enough alcohol on hand beforehand. If other people might be drinking with me, I needed to account for what they might consume. I would think ahead about what they could drink and what I wanted to keep for myself. The purpose of all that planning was simple: when the time came, I did not want to have to think. I wanted the alcohol available so I could simply drink.

That is not a process I am proud of, but it taught me something after I became sober. Human beings create systems around the things we repeatedly do, whether we recognize those systems or not. Some of those systems help us. Others make destructive behavior incredibly easy.

When I began rebuilding my life, I still had the same brain. I still thought ahead. I still liked breaking things into steps. The difference was what I began building processes around. Education. Career development. Exercise. Relationships. Projects. Commitments I had made to myself.

The skill had not changed nearly as much as the direction in which I was using it.

Willpower Leaves Too Much to Chance

Think about the familiar goal of exercising before work. If you wait until the alarm goes off to decide whether you are going to exercise, you have created a surprisingly complicated decision at exactly the wrong time. You are tired. The bed is comfortable. You start calculating whether you could work out later. You remember that you have a long day ahead of you. Within a few minutes you can build a very convincing argument for staying in bed.

Now change the process. The night before, decide what workout you are doing. Put your clothes where you will see them. Set aside the time. Put the alarm somewhere that requires you to get up. Remove as many decisions as you reasonably can.

You can still decide not to exercise. A process does not remove free will or personal responsibility. What it does is make the decision you already made easier to follow and the excuse a little harder to justify.

I use the same principle in project management. When crews are building cellular RAN sites, I do not want everyone arriving each morning and inventing the construction process again. The work is broken into steps. Different groups understand their responsibilities. Tasks happen in a sequence. If something gets missed, we can identify where the process failed and correct it.

Life is obviously more complicated than a construction schedule, but the principle still works. Repeated decisions can often become repeatable processes.

Break the Mountain Into Steps

One reason people procrastinate is that the thing in front of them feels too large. I am a list builder for exactly this reason. A large goal can feel like a mountain when I look at the whole thing at once. Breaking it into smaller pieces gives me something I can actually do.

Finish a degree is enormous. Register for one class is manageable. Get healthier is vague. Walk for thirty minutes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday is something you can put on a calendar. Build a business can become overwhelming very quickly. Write the first article is concrete.

The smaller step may not look impressive, but it creates movement. Once there is movement, the next step becomes easier to see.

This is also why I do not believe discipline is simply the ability to force yourself to do difficult things. Sometimes discipline is having enough foresight to make the difficult thing easier to begin.

Plan While You Are Thinking Clearly

There is a version of you making plans and another version who has to carry them out. The planning version is often rested, rational and focused on the larger goal. The version who has to execute the plan may be tired, distracted, stressed or simply not in the mood.

I want the clearer version of myself to do as much of the thinking as possible.

That means deciding beforehand. What am I doing? When am I doing it? What do I need? What could reasonably get in the way? What can I prepare now? What will I do if the original plan cannot happen?

Planning does not guarantee execution. Nothing does. But it reduces the number of opportunities to renegotiate a commitment simply because the moment became inconvenient.

I have learned to plan beforehand so that, in the moment, I am mostly left with doing it.

When the Process Fails

A good process is not sacred. It is a starting point.

If something repeatedly does not work, I do not think the answer is automatically to demand more discipline. I want to know why it is not working. Maybe the time is wrong. Maybe the steps are unrealistic. Maybe there is an obstacle we failed to anticipate. Maybe the goal itself is no longer important. Or maybe I am simply avoiding something difficult.

That is where accountability and process work together. The process gives us something specific to evaluate. Instead of saying, “I need to try harder,” we can ask what actually happened and make a useful adjustment.

In my professional life, a project plan changes as new information becomes available. I do not consider that a weakness in project management. Refusing to adjust a plan that clearly is not working would be the bigger problem.

I think we should give ourselves the same permission in our personal lives.

Motivation Is Welcome, but It Is Not Required

I like feeling motivated. Everything is easier when enthusiasm shows up at the same time the work needs to be done.

I just do not count on it.

If something matters to me, I would rather create an environment and a process that help me act even on an ordinary day when I am not particularly inspired. That is where consistency begins.

You do not have to become a person with unlimited willpower. You do not have to wake up every morning excited about everything you said you wanted. You need to understand what matters, decide what you are going to do about it and build a process that makes following through more likely.

Then do the next step.

Motivation can come along for the ride when it wants to.

It starts with you.