The Science Behind Self-Motivation

Fear is so real, in fact
there are probably things that you’re afraid of doing right now
in your life in your relationships at work.
And the fact that you’re afraid
that’s robbing you of all of the experiences that you want to have in your life.
If you’re afraid to fly
that’s gonna limit your ability to travel and see the world or go visit friends.
If you’re afraid of public speaking
that’s gonna really limit your ability to express yourself and share your ideas.
If you’re afraid of talking to your boss or asking for a rise
that directly impacts how much money you make.
Or what if you are dreaming of starting a business
or you’ve already started a new business
but you’re afraid to talk to people
and you’re afraid to share your business with people.
I mean fear is something that stops us all.
Fear is real.
You can’t control the feelings that get a rise up in your body.
When you’re on a plane or when you’re talking to your boss
or when you see somebody that’s attractive
and you really want to go over and talk to that person.
But, you can always control what you think.
And you can always make a decision about the actions you gonna to take.
But the thing that’s so difficult for most of us is
how when you’re alone
you push through the excuses, the habits, the fears
and actual physical constraints that you have in your life right now
so that you can make the pivot.
What do you do
when you have to get on a plane
and you’re actually terrified of flying.
What do you do
if you got to give a presentation
and you are afraid of public speaking.
Here’s what you’re gonna do.
Think about your brain as being in two modes.
There’s autopilot we’ve all experienced.
Then what is autopilot?
Autopilot is the interior part of your brain.
You’ll hear neuroscientists andpsychologists talk about the basal ganglia.
Very important thing to understand is that
there’s a part of your brain
that its entire job is basically to execute your habits.
Habits behaviors that you repeat without even thinking about it.
When you pull your pants on in the morning
I guarantee you
you either put your left or your right leg in first
cuz that havior is what researchers call
a habit loop.
It gets encoded as a closed-loop system.
Right here the problem for most of us
is that half of the day we’re on autopilot
and that’s not me making a guess
that’s what researchers that study habits and study psychology say.
At half of your day you’re basically kind of checked out
and you’re on autopilot.
And when you’re checked out and you’re on autopilot
any behavior patterns that you repeat can take over.
And guess what our behavior patterns that we repeat?
Thinking patterns.
So self-doubt, worry
procrastination, overthinking, analysis paralysis, fear.
Those are all thinking patterns.
They are habits.
One of most the important things that I want people to understand
is that you’re actually not a worrier.
You have a habit of worrying.
You’re not a procrastinator.
You have a habit of procrastinating.
Big difference.
And when you understand that any behavior pattern
whether it is a thinking pattern
like you doubt yourself all the time
or whether it’s a behavior pattern
like you drink too much
or you snap at your kids
or you micromanage your team.
Every one of those behavior patterns and thinking patterns
can actually be interrupted and replaced using science.
Now let’s talk about the second part of the brain drive.
Drive is the mode where you’re in charge of your thoughts.
It’s where you are fully awake.
You are present.
And you are driving your thoughts and actions.
When you’re doing that
your prefrontal cortex is active.
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that you need
in order to learn new behavior
in order to do something difficult
in order to do something uncertain
in order to do strategic thinking.
And now you got a decision to make.
Are you going to drift back into the habits?
Or are you going to awaken your prefrontal cortex?
and drive forward
and focus and do something new.
You have to act within five seconds.
Are you going to go on autopilot?
and get trapped in your mind.
Or are you going to five four three two one
and awaken your prefrontal cortex and drive forwards.
You think that you need to feel confident or courageous
in order to get started.
You don’t.
You actually just have to start
and that’s the riddle of life
that lying in bed hoping that you wake up some morning
motivated to change.
That’s not the answer.
You actually have to learn how to push yourself.
You have to learn how to how to leverage the power of your decisions.
And you’ve got to learn how to take action
and you’ve don’t feel like it.
Because every morning when I woke up I did not feel confident.
I felt like a loser.
I felt like the world’s worst parent.
I felt like I had failed at every single turn.
See? This is the knowledge action gap.
You can know what you want.
You can know what you should be doing.
But how do you make yourself do it
When the feelings and the motivation isn’t there
when all you got is fear
you can not control what triggers you.
And the fact that you may rise up with anger
you may rise up with self-doubt
you may have anxiety fill your body
but you can always control what you think and how you behave.
And we spend way too much time trying to focus
on manipulating how we feel about things.
And not enough time practicing the skills
of controlling your behavior and your thoughts.
We make decisions of feelings.
95 % of our decisions are made by how you feel in the moment.
And that is the problem.
You need to take control of the moment
and leverage the power of your decisions
and make them up here.
Because when I was lying in bed
I wasn’t saying to myself I should get up
because that’s gon na help me start my day right.
I was saying do I feel like getting up.
Do you feel like making that cold call?
No, you don’t.
Do you feel like doing that third set ups?
No, you don’t.
Do you feel like having that hard conversation?
No, you don’t.
Do you feel like ending this relationship
whether it’s in business or in your life
that is sucking you dry?
No, you don’t.
We make decisions based on our feelings
and that is robbing you of joy and opportunity.
And it is blinding you from the fact
that how you change your life is one five second decision at a time
one push at a time.
And if you accept the fact
that you may never feel ready
and you may never feel motivated
and you may never feel confident
you may never feel courageous. And that’s okay.
But you can still push yourself forward.
What happens over time is
as you start to see yourself becoming the person that takes actions
that you start to see yourself becoming the kind of person
that speaks even though your voice is shaking.
You’re the kind of person that that has a bias toward moving
instead of a bias toward thinking.
Guess what happens?
You build the skill of confidence and courage.
Five years ago we thought the brain stopped growing at the age of twenty-five.
The answer now is never.
The truth is your brains always growing and expanding.
That’s why you can always learn new things
which is amazing
because it allows for what we call behavioral flexibility
meaning there’s no reason for you to ever be stagnant.
Not in business.
Not as a leader.
Not as a human being.