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no you do not read the title wrong
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motivation
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does not work or more precisely its
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working period
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has a ticking expiration timer if you
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want to seriously improve your life or
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reach a milestone goal
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it might be better to follow the tips in
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this video rather than relying on sheer
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motivation
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[Music]
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hello y'all this is zoe and if you think
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this video is about trash talking about
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how useless
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motivation is it is and it isn't
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before i dive into when it works why it
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fails what are some of the things you
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can do to compensate the limitations of
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relying on motivation
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i want to give you a brief background of
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some of the goals and milestones i've
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reached
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to come to this realization so although
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many of you may have known me for my
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glow up for diet and fitness journey
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as the girl who lost 30 pounds slimmed
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her legs
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on her arms and got 11 abs i also
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graduated from ucla in three years
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with a major in business economics and
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minor in accounting
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as the top five percent student with the
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summa laude and 2.95 gpa
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i was also the one who passed all four
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cpa exams in two months with an average
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score
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93.5 against a passing score of 75
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i restarted my youtube channel in 2020
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and grew over 200 000 subscribers in the
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last
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12 months and let me tell you something
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none of these things
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i accomplished was because i had
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over the roof motivation i am also just
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a regular human you won't see me every
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day super energized and be like
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yeah i feel so motivated today to work
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out for two hours
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pick an instagram worthy outfit film and
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edit two videos beyond five audit client
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calls read a book and
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stretch yo slow down
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like if i were to run on this motivation
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based system
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i would probably last for like two days
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or a week
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max and burn the health house this was a
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bit of an exaggeration but it's
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exactly how motivation works and doesn't
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gym memberships in the us report 12.1
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increases in january
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because new year's resolution heightened
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motivation
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while 50 of new gym members quit within
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six months of their annual membership
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so if motivation only works for the
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short term
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how do successful people achieve bigger
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goals
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like financial freedom weight loss
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healthy lifestyle
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building a business before i share the
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solution to bridge the gap created by
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motivation's
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time limitation be sure to hit the like
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button so that the algorithm can help me
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to push this helpful content to help
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more people
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in need and why not subscribe when the
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button is literally right there
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okay now on to the juicy part of getting
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around
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that motivation or willpower fatigue
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oftentimes people have a negative
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outlook toward failed diets
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failed lifestyle changes and deemed that
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the failure is due to a lack of
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willpower and character
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when in reality it's more so due to an
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incorrect method of relying solely on
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willpower
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because willpower or motivation is like
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an energy tank that will run out
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is not replenished energy is precious
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and our brain
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is wired to conserve it whenever
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possible
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it is human nature to follow the law of
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least
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effort described by james clear in his
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book atomic habits which i'll link in
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the description
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as humans we naturally gravitate toward
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the option that requires the least
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amount of work and every time you are
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trying to use your world power to go
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against the law of least effort
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that energy take gets depleted more and
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more
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if you're on a diet maybe on the first
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three days
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you are so motivated and you eat clean
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you exercise
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but day after day your motivation keeps
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dropping and it's harder to make the
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choices
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that go against the law of least effort
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every time you choose to run
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instead of binging tv in bed that takes
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motivational energy
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every time you choose not to eat your
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favorite cookie or pick up a salad
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instead that takes motivational energy
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after enough instances of these energy
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depleting actions
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it's easy to fall back on
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literally it's easy to fall back on
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what's
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easiest for you the old habits that you
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are trying to change
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so what if we reverse it what if we make
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the good habits
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the norm the default the actions you go
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to
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without making a conscious decision
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every time that would drain your energy
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and although i kind of relied on the
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system to reach all of my milestones
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it's not until now i realize how
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powerful this system is
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as compared to a system based off of
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pure motivation
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the key is to avoid the choice and make
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it
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default i'll say it again because it is
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important
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avoid the choice and make it default
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essentially this is a process of making
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the favorable action
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not a choice that uses up your willpower
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but an automatic action that you can do
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on autopilot
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it's kind of like buying a dress why
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would you spend a thousand dollars
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at the bougie store possible when you
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can buy the same dress
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the very same dress at like 200 at
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another store like three miles away
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instead of trying to become a super
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human with
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insane willpower you want to leverage
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your natural instinct to be
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lazy by making the favorable action easy
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and eventually into a habit you don't
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need to think about
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if we take sports as an easy 200
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illustration
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for someone who doesn't run on a regular
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basis it takes a crap ton
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of willpower and motivation and probably
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a lot of muscle camping
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to run five miles all of a sudden in one
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day
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and it's very unlikely for that person
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to be able to recover
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and run another five miles the next day
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whereas
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for a regular runner who jogs five miles
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each day
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it's almost second nature to do the run
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and it doesn't take much energy
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or willpower to repeat this the next day
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and this leads to my first tip of how to
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turn your goal
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into an easy habit tip number one
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start small often we hit the pitfall of
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wanting to achieve
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a lot now there's nothing wrong with
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ambition but to turn your ambition into
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unrealistic expectations will bite you
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back if your goal like mine is to
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graduate a year early
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it's easy to immediately want to take
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five or six classes per quarter when the
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norm
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is three because at the beginning you
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feel so motivated and
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empowered that you believe you can reach
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this goal if you give it all
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you got at the start but strategically
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speaking this will increase the chances
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of you
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overloading yourself with intense
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workload then your gpa will drop you
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might fail the class
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fall behind your plan then comes the
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next quarter you are already burned out
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to even take three classes
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i prefer to use a gradual method with
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the early graduation example
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i just took one one additional class
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per quarter realized that i was still
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able to get straight a's then gradually
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added more to
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five passes per quarter then eventually
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a minor as well
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and ease myself into graduating in three
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years
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it is the very same with fitness or
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healthy lifestyle adoption
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at first it feels like a lot to make
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that first step
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to going to the gym but remember the
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goal is to make it easy
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to avoid draining your willpower so
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instead of making the goal of hitting
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the gym
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every day in a week you can start by
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making the goal of
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going for one day in the week and once
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you are used to that adding another day
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doesn't seem like
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a lot after all kind of like the foot in
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the door
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psychological principle where your
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identity already conforms to the actions
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that you are taking
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it just makes sense to continue acting
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upon that image you create
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it for yourself or when you first go to
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the gym
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set the goal to be there for 10 minutes
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and
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that's it it might seem ridiculous but
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doing this primes your brain
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and to getting used to the action of
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going to the gym
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eventually when going to the gym for 10
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minutes each time becomes
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so natural it's easier to increase a
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time because
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you are already showing up and showing
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up is
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all it takes for something small to grow
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big
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goddammit why is someone moaning along
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right now
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many many minutes later tip number two
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is to reduce friction remember the hack
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is to make whatever change you need as
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easy
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as possible
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like could you decisively move to the
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farthest location from the swimming pool
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while wanting to become an olympic
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swimmer yeah
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yes you can but why would you want to
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make life harder for yourself
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and ways to find more excuses that
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drives you away from reaching your goals
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making things easier for yourself is not
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lazy
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it is smart if you want to work out in
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the morning
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prepare your gym clothes and put your
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gym shoes out
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the night before hey the visual cue is
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already
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out there first thing in the morning and
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b you won't be wasting more mental
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energy the next day deciding what you
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want to wear to the gym
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versus should you even go to the gym
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because it aligns with your long-term
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goal to be
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healthy and fit is it possible to not
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use sugar for a whole year
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in a house with a pantry filled with
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chocolate
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cookies brownies yeah it's definitely
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possible
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but why not change the environment to
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reduce the friction
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and the chances of your willpower
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running out each time
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the visual cue leaders you to fall back
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on your old
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habits obviously not every source of
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friction between
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you and your goal can be eliminated
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but if circumstances allow do yourself a
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favor and cut away
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anything that will go between the you
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right now
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and the you you want to become tip
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number three
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normalize failure i am definitely very
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guilty of this but anything that goes
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against my plan
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will often crush my morale
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when i need to put myself back together
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often we
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freak out when we fail because our
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education system does not teach
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us how to fail but only focus on success
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stories when really success is only a
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snippet of the journey
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filled with multiple failures before
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then so first and foremost whatever you
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are working towards
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build into your expectations that
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failure can
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happen so you don't freak out and become
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lost when it does second rule after
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normalizing failure is to not
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make this the new default using
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exercising as an example
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we are humans and life happens when we
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can't
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stick to our workout plans if you miss a
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workout day
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don't let that make you think your plan
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failed therefore
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not showing up for the rest of the week
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if you missed a day
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studying for a huge exam don't let that
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get into your head
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thinking how you won't be able to catch
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up and give up studying completely
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remember that progress is not all or
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nothing
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it's a compounding journey the
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distinguishing feature between winners
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and losers
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is how they react to failure anyone can
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have a bad
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performance a bad workout a bad day at
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work
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but when successful people fail they
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rebound
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quickly be right back so to recap
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because we went through
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a lot motivation works but only for
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a limited time span to reach a long-term
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goal make the actions you need to do
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the default habits that you do without
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second thinking three ways to build
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these habits with more ease
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is to start small reduce friction and
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normalize
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failure hope this video is helpful and
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that you
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can reach your goal in the future be
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sure to like this video and subscribe if
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you want to see more
00:12:26
helpful related content have an amazing
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day and
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see you next week
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this is the end
