Do the work

Motivation sucks, motivation is overrated, motivation is fleeting and useless. If you listen to some motivational speakers they pretty much all say the same thing. “get up early and get after it” whatever that means. 

When it finally comes to the next day when you try to wake up early to work out you suddenly realize “this sucks” and indeed it does. Where is the motivation when you need it? 

The truth is you can’t just simply discipline yourself to do something. Even if you could, you can’t maintain it for very long. Most new year resolutions end in failure before January is over.

What really matters are habits, if you want to read some good books covering this subject then check out this post. 

What you have to do is “do the work” , show up and do the work. If you don’t feel like it, do it anyway. If you can’t bring yourself to do something, do it anyway. However, don’t think too highly of it. 

You need a bare minimum of work. Let’s take working out as an example. If you don’t feel like it, just go to the gym and when you arrive you have won and can go home. Yet, now that you are there it would be stupid not to workout. Do some maintenance lifting or cardio, do the lowest amount of work. You might not set any personal records that day, but every day can’t be a good day. 

if you want to read more, read every day and the days you don’t feel like it, just read for 5 minutes or read a page, once you are at it you might as well continue. 

If you write a book or blog, write for 5 minutes the days you don’t feel like it and call it a day.

It is not impressive to work out the days you feel like it, but the days you don’t feel like it. The days you go through the motions, you still have to GO through the motions.

At some point the motivation will return, in fact when you do something then the motivation comes. It’s actually the opposite of what most believe, you don’t get motivation and then do something, you do something and then you get motivation. 

Marketing guru and overall terrific guy Seth Godin talks about the idea that writer’s block is a myth and doesn’t exist. He argues that what writers’ block is, is the fear of bad writing. Plumbers don’t get plumbers’ block. If you just sit down and write, good writing will eventually come out. 

Stephen King says

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work,”

Ernest Hemingway has said 

“There is nothing to write. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Issac Asamoth has written and edited over 500 books in his life, the secret was. He sat down every day from morning till noon and just typed, eventually he would have a book. He did not need to write the next sci-fi masterpiece (which he did). 

I post every Weekend, why? Because I have decided to be a person who posts every weekend. How? I simply sit down every day and write for 30 min (sometimes more, sometimes less). I don’t think about how good the work is, sometimes the post might be good, sometimes less so. But if I post every week and even if some might not be as good as the other it’s still worth it, for people don’t start out good, they start out bad and they get better. 

Friedrich Nietzsche said

“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”

What’s important is not that you do your best work every day. What is important is that you show up and do the work.