What's your go-to self-motivation strategy?

A motivational lightbox sign encouraging turning ideas into reality, placed on a wooden shelf by a textured glass window.

What’s your favorite motivation strategy?

“A deadline!” - that's the universal answer, right?

But in those instances when you have no external deadlines? No one else is waiting for this specific work from you? 

Maybe it’s a new project that’s still in idea form or something you’re launching independently.

Then what?

I learned recently that motivation follows action, not the other way around. I feel like I should have learned this earlier in life, but instead I was always waiting to feel the motivation before taking action. In actuality, I need to take action first and the motivation will follow.

I’m going to say that again, on its own line, because I feel like I can use the reminder:

Motivation follows action.

Action precedes motivation.

The question then becomes what action do I take?

Do I just start doing the thing I’m insufficiently motivated to do?

Force my way into it? 

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I find sometimes it’s another action, similar but different that gets me motivated. A goal-adjacent action, if you will.

An example, to help it make sense:

My personal strategy for infusing energy toward my long-term goals into an open day?

Take the dog for a walk, and (here’s the most important part) listen to a business podcast. These don't work independently; they have to be combined. 

Another key requirement? The podcast needs to be one that allows my mind to wander a bit. More often than not, the podcast topic reminds me of something I’m working on and I quickly start to strategizing. 

Sometimes a snippet of the podcast will catch my attention again and it’ll get incorporated into whatever it is I’m planning.

Sometimes I realized I completely missed the last 30 minutes. 

And yet, it was still valuable to me because by the time I'm back at my desk my mind is fully into my project and I can continue to make good progress on it. Motivation unlocked.

Another example:

My personal best way to make progress on writing projects is not forcing myself to sit down to just start or working from a list of prompts. 

For me, that motivational door gets unlocked when I focus first on a free-writing session. What I write in those sessions often starts like a journal entry and then gradually transitions into a very early draft. Or it contains a paragraph or two that I can quickly adapt into a focused piece. 

Granted, I’m still sitting down to write. But! Because I’m writing with zero pressure (except to keep it going for the duration of the timer I set), it feels like a separate activity.

I always free-write directly on my laptop, undocked from my workstation, in a comfortable armchair. It doesn’t matter where or which one, but it cannot be at my work desk. That makes it feel like a different task, too.

So that’s my personal go-to strategy – find the action that’s just next to what I want motivation for. I’ve learned my best approach is not to aim directly at the goal. Find the goal-adjacent activity that gets me moving and is close enough that when the motivation is generated, my goal is sitting right there ready for me.