MOTIVATION OFTEN COMES AFTER STARING...NOT BEFORE.

 MOTIVATION OFTEN COMES AFTER STARING...NOT BEFORE.

Nearly any habit can be started in under two minutes. If you take exercise for example, when you get home from a long day of work and you say, “Eh, I’m too exhausted to go for a run or exercise.” When you look for excuses, you’ll find them and never get around to doing it because you think about the long distance you plan on running. This task just seems overwhelming at this point. Rather than focus on the whole thing that you need to do, I would encourage you to think of just the first two minutes. I put my running shoes on, I get out the door and I lock the door behind me. If you do just then, it doesn’t matter if you take another step. What you find is that motivation often comes after starting, not before.

We often think that motivation is something that we’re supposed to have before we do the work. Motivation will come as a result of doing some small amount of work. Then we can trust that the rest of the process will flow easily. My point is that the motivation needed to complete a habit is at its peak at the beginning of a behavior. The greatest amount of friction is in the beginning. The key is to make it so easy that you can’t say no.