Any and every emotion starts with the same thing: A carrot or a stick.
Either you need the carrot dangling in front of your face or you need the stick poking you in the back, but ideally you have a little bit of both.
When you are hungry it is the discomfort of being hungry and looking forward to a full stomach or a tasty meal that pushes you to get food.
When you need to go to the bathroom it’s the feeling of relief or the pressure in your bladder that get you motivated.
And when you chase your goals it is the dream of a brighter tomorrow or the pain of yesterday that pushes you to work harder.
Use this principle on anything and you will be able to find a motivation.
How strong this motivation is depends on how far you zone in on the feelings that you create, positive or negative.
Let’s take exercising as an example.
The stick can be anything from the discomfort you feel being stared at in public to the disappointment of seeing that number on the scale or the fear of the doctor’s prognosis should you keep staying unhealthy.
It can be the lethargic feeling you feel waking up every morning or your inability to play with your kids for as long as you want to.
Or the stick can be when you remember how often you wanted to work out, how fit you used to be, and how unhappy you are with your current body.
If you let any of these things actually hurt and if you do not run away from that hurt, you will find yourself with newfound motivation.
In this sense you are putting a stick not to your motivation to be fit, but to your motivation to be motivated.
For that you only have to allow yourself to truly experience how bad you feel.
That is rarely a fun exercise, but it is a very helpful one, and one side of the coin that you need to actually become motivated.
The other side is far more enjoyable, and something most look into, but without the pain of the stick their motivations are half-hearted and rarely last long.
For the other side, the carrot, a person wanting to be fit could look forward to what they get.
The carrot can be anything from the joy you feel at getting desirable glances thrown your way in public, to the pride you feel of the lower number on the scale or the compliments your friends give you whenever you see them.
It can be the energetic feeling you feel waking up every morning or your ability to chase down your kids for hours on end without growing tired.
Or the carrot can be when you remember how fit you used to be and realize you are even fitter now and how happy you are with the body you put so much work into.
Think about how this would feel and allow it make you excited and happy.
Allow yourself to feel pride, joy, and bliss, even from something as superficial as how your body looks.
If it makes you happy then it makes you happy.
Allow the positive feelings in and relish them so that they can become the second side of that coin.
No matter what you pick, the stick, carrot, or both, remember that motivation comes from having a stronger emotional feeling towards what you want to do than away from it.
If you feel more strongly to the goal of working out or the pain of not working out, than you feel resisting it, then you will work out.
This is what pushes you out of bed in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or what makes you finally cook food when all you want to do is order takeout, it is what makes you get up to work every morning and what makes you brush your teeth twice a day.
You do not have to reinvent the wheel; you already developed motivations before.
All you have to do is take the blueprint you have and reapply it to the new situations.