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Have you ever been motivated to do something and almost taken the step but for some reason you just didn’t follow through?

Is motivation really what we need to change our lives?

There is no shortage these days of motivational videos on how to exercise, books on how to diet, posts of cool quotes

but do they really work on getting us to take action?

Is motivation the kick that we need to turn the key on getting the body we want?

Or

Could motivation be the silent killer of our true potential?

What is Motivation

Let’s start with a definition.

Motivation –

A reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a certain way. Desire or willingness to do something; enthusiasm.

So to be motivated to do something means that we must want to do it, which is fine.

The Problem With Motivation

That would mean to turn our motivation into action, we would need to want to do it more than anything else we plan to do at that moment.

And here lies the challenge with looking for motivation to get us to change…

Our brains are wired in such a way that it will do everything it can to avoid change or risk.   

As soon as we have an idea to do something new, our brain starts focussing on all the reasons why we can’t do it.  

Therefore if you are currently in the habit of not exercising or not eating right then waiting for the magic motivational video, book or cool Facebook quote is not going to save you. 

Of course you will keep wanting a better body 

but it’s just too much of a change for your brain to allow you to follow through with the action.

So you will keep creating all of those very convincing excuses that you have been selling yourself on for years.

We need to stop waiting to feel like it.

The Good News

It is very easy to interrupt our brain.

When our brain senses a new idea it immediately goes into auto pilot mode and starts focussing on all the reasons why we can’t take action.  

It will dig up every fear we ever had that is slightly related to the topic.

All we need to do is interrupt our brains thought pattern  by doing something that requires it to come out of auto pilot.

The Silver Bullet

The simple act of counting backwards from 5 is enough to interrupt our brains processes and like magic the negative focus switches off.

I have found it doesn’t switch off for long though.  So at every point that I am motivated to take action I have to repeat the count down.

Give it a try and see if it works for you.  I have read of people using other techniques but they all revolve around the same idea of interrupting our auto pilot using something that requires concentration (like counting backwards) or a physical change (like clapping).

Conclusion

If we leave our auto pilot on we will always arrive at the same destination no matter how motivated we get. Don’t live on auto pilot, play with the controls a bit. If you don’t like it then play with the controls again and do something different.

We have nothing to lose and a whole life to gain.