Motivation Comes Second

Sea Lions lounging in San Francisco, California

I've been having a hard time writing lately. There are plenty of valid reasons for this, but there's no need for me to list them all. The reality is that we all struggle to do the things we love on occasion.

I put a lot of pressure on myself after returning from San Francisco. I developed a dozen ideas for blog posts, and I had countless pictures to attach to them. All I had to do was write. The trouble is, the longer I put off writing, the greater the pressure I felt to be profound. 

So I thought about this blog post. How I would talk about the conference I went to. How I would shape the narrative around it. What would be my angle? What would make it interesting? I thought about it in the car, the shower, the bed. I woke up this morning and inspiration struck. Then I sat down to write and…

I realized that I don’t want to write about the conference today. I will soon. I have a lot to say about it, but motivation has been heavy on my mind, and I wanted to write this blog post instead. I asked myself: “What could you write about that would ensure a post would be published today?”

So here I am, writing about motivation. You might not find it revolutionary or unique or even good, but I don't need to be profound today. I just need to be present.

Over time, I’ve learned to give less attention to my reasons for not doing things. The stress of work, exhaustion for travel, or a million other projects all tell the same tale: I just don’t have the energy—the motivation—to do it. But the truth is, motivation has never been a prerequisite for doing things. It helps, of course, and I always prefer to have it, but I understand that most of the time… Motivation comes second to doing the thing.

Sometimes, instead of asking myself how to be motivated, I ask myself how I can lessen the barrier to doing the thing. If the goal is to eat, but the resistance comes from cooking, I order food. If the goal is to work, but the resistance comes from my discomfort while sitting in my chair, I work with a heating pad on the couch. If the goal is to write a blog post, but the resistance comes from the pressure to write something good, I give myself permission to write something terrible.

It’s not a perfect system, but it’s helped me move forward with checking things off my to-do list. I don’t know when the ease of writing will return, but I’m confident it will. It always does. Meanwhile, I’ll keep finding ways to lessen the barriers, and more importantly, I’ll keep writing.