You’re listening to the Transform Your Life from the Inside Out podcast. This is a
throwback episode, episode number 23, which is titled, “What to Do When You’re Not
Motivated and You Want to Be.” You know, we’ve all been there before. We all said
things like, “You know, I really want to work out and I really want to get in
shape and I really want to be healthy, but it’s cold out or I’m too lazy today or
I’d X, Y, Z, or I don’t feel like it or whatever it might be. In this episode, I
talk about why when we think we want to do something but we don’t have the
motivation, I talk about how that happens, where it comes from, and how to bust out
of that. Here’s what I want to share with you in the introduction. Many times
people want the motivation without recognizing that commitment and self -discipline come
before the motivation. So most people are starting at the wrong end of the equation.
And if you want to do more things in life, but don’t have the motivation, whatever
you do, make sure you listen to this episode. Enjoy. Hi,
I’m Jim Fortin, and you’re about to start transforming your life from the inside out
with this podcast. I’m widely considered the leader in subconscious transformation, and
I’ve coached super achievers all around the world for over 25 years. Here, you’re
going to find no raw, raw motivation and no hype because this podcast is a
combination of brain science, transformational psychology, and ancient wisdom all rolled
into one to take your life to levels you’ve never thought possible. If you’re
wanting a lot more in life, to feel better, to heal, to have peace of mind,
to feel powerful and alive, and to bring more abundance and prosperity into your
life, then this podcast is for you because you’re going to start learning how to
master your mind and evolve your consciousness. And when you do that, anything you
want then becomes possible for you. I’m glad you’re here. You know,
it’s the word that you hear so many people talking about. I mean, for crying out
loud, we even have motivational speakers. I mean, have you ever thought about that.
You know, what is the purpose, the long -term purpose of motivational speakers?
Well, motivation is that huge word that millions of people talk about, but yet few
people understand, and they also don’t know how to sustain motivation. If you’re
battling staying motivated at working out or a new desire and behavior or something
that you want to create in life, then whatever you do, listen to this entire
episode. Because when you actually try to stay motivated, you’re starting in the
wrong place psychologically, and that’s why it wears off very, very quickly. Okay,
I wanna start with a behavior and a metaphor that pretty much everyone listening can
understand. And that is working out, because we can see that’s, you know, that’s an
external behavior, and Pretty much every one of you listening, I mean, even if
you’re motivated at doing that, then take what you’re going to learn here and use
it in a different area of your life where you’re not finding yourself to be
motivated. But you know, working out, you know the old numbers that come the third
week of January, something like 92 % of people have already stopped working out when
they made a New Year’s resolution to go to the gym. And you know the old song and
dance, You know, you’ve got the good intentions and you’re all excited and you want
to do it and you say well this time is going to be different. And then you start
out and you know statistics demonstrate two to three weeks later, you’re right back
to your old behaviors again. Well, the question is, which we’re going to talk about
in this episode, is why does this happen and what do you do instead?
Here’s the reason that you fail, which I said just, you know, a minute or so ago
is that you’re starting in the wrong place psychologically. And you can be thinking,
well, you know, Jim, how can I be thinking about being motivated and how is that
the wrong place to start? Well, let me ask you this, ponder this. What sustains
motivation? Because see what many people do. And by the way, this, the old phrase
by Jim Rohn, a phenomenal man. He passed away a few years back. But Jim Rohn used
to say, and by the way, I’m not calling you or anyone listening an idiot. But Jim
Rohn used to say that if you motivate an idiot, you’ve got nothing more than a
motivated idiot. And like I said, I’m not calling you an idiot, but some people can
actually sustain the motivation, but it wears off very quickly, motivation is
external. So the question I’m asking you is, what sustains your motivation?
As you’re pondering that, let me share with you, we’re going to go a couple of
levels deep here. What sustains motivation for most people when they don’t want to
stay motivated is this one thing. And that is, and By the way, this one thing is
something that probably most of you have a challenge with. And being transparent, I
used to have a challenge with it as well so I completely get it. That one thing
that sustains motivation is commitment. Let me explain what I mean. So let’s go back
to working out.
So you say, you know what? I’m going to get in shape, summer’s rolling around and
I wanna look good in my new bikini or I’m taking family pictures or I’m getting
married, I’m going to Hawaii on vacation, I want to look good on the beach,
whatever it is. So you tell yourself that you’re going to start working out. Then
what happens is you start the process of working out and then week number one, you
know what, you’re all hyped up about it. Week number two, for some reason for many
of you, and in the week three, many of you aren’t seeing the results that you want
fast enough. Then what happens is when people don’t see the results that they want
fast enough, what they do is they stop working out. And then they go right back
into their old patterns again, right? I know that you probably understand that cycle.
Well, here is the difference that I’m talking about. When we start working out, if
you don’t have the motivation or you have a fair amount of motivation or to
whatever degree your motivation is, but for some reason, you do get yourself started.
What happens is And the motivation wears off, as I just said, we quit. That’s where
commitment has to come in. Because when you stay committed to working out, even if
you don’t want to do it, what happens is eventually, and generally pretty quickly,
you start getting results. And now that you’re getting results, what happens, and
you’ve gotten the results as a result of being committed, now what happens is it’s
easier to stay motivated because you’re getting the results and the results actually
sustain the motivation. But notice the bridge from being tepid with your motivation
or having a hard time with it, the bridge from there to staying motivated is
commitment. Here’s something that I want you to understand is that commitment is the
bridge between where you are and where you want to be. And then if we actually
look into that even deeper, self -integrity, your self -integrity is the foundation of
commitment. By the way, self -integrity is this, and you know I’ve done this for a
lot of years and people fall into statistics and categories and patterns. Self
-integrity is doing what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do
it. And talking about numbers just now, what I know is that 90 % of you will say,
“You know what? When I commit to other people, I follow through. But when I commit
to myself, I only follow through like 70 % of the time.” And those are pretty much
numbers that I have just seen for years and years coming out of all of my
transformational groups. So let me give you a metaphor for commitment.
So right now you’re at point A and you want to go to point B. Now let’s imagine
a bridge, and I’ve given this metaphor before, but let’s imagine, and by the way,
repetition is the mother of all learning. So let’s say that you know what, you’re
at point A and you want to go to point B, and from point A to point B is a
bridge. Well, that bridge is made out of concrete, and The concrete actually has a
foundation inside of it, which is the rebar. So the bridge and the concrete are the
commitment and the self -integrity is the rebar. Also, I’m not gonna talk a whole
lot about self -integrating this episode because I know that I’ll create entire
episodes on, you know, staying committed, being committed, and on self -integrity a
little later, because I’m gonna go a different direction here in just a moment, but
I wanted to lay this foundation for you at this point is that when you’re not
motivated, the bridge that you need to get you where you wanna go to the outcomes
you want is commitment until the motivation becomes self -sustaining. And then
obviously it’s self -sustaining, but it’s a commitment that helped it become self
-sustaining. And my transformational coaching program, we do a whole week on
commitment. And many people say, and it’s pretty much universal,
Many people will say, “Wow, I never realized that I’ve never been committed to
anything in life.” And the reality is that everyone is committed to something. Right
now, even if you’re not getting the results that you want in life, you are
committed to whatever it is that you’re doing, even if you’re not getting the
results that you want in life. What I tell people is one of the most powerful
things that you can do is you can actually become committed to being committed.
But a lot of people say they’re not committed and I want you to understand that
you’re fully committed to a lot of things, to many things in life. And if you’re
not getting the results that you want and you’re upset with yourself, it’s because
you’re committed to something else, some other psychological strategy or behavior
that’s actually not getting you the outcomes that you want. But what I only want
you to understand is that you are committed to something. If you’re in phenomenal
shape and you eat well, guess what? You’re committed to working out and eating well
and staying in shape. If you’re 100 pounds overweight, guess what? As long as it’s
not actually neurological brain chemistry or whatever, and if it’s, you know,
specifically behavior, you’re committed even if you’re lying on the couch every day
eating, you know, cheetos and Doritos and ho -ho’s and ding -dongs. And that’s what
you do every day. You are committed to that. So I want you to recognize that,
yes, you’re deeply committed to a lot of stuff. You just have to look at what am
I committed to and is it getting me the outcomes and results that I want? Just a
minute ago, I said that we’re going to go a little bit different direction. I
wasn’t going to spend a whole lot of time on commitment in this episode or on self
-integrity. But I want to go deeper. Here’s something that you probably haven’t heard
before. And you know, it’s interesting is, I haven’t really heard anybody say this,
but when you look at it, it’s true. What you’re committed to, right now as you’re
listening to this, what you are committed to is your habits.
But see, you don’t call those commitments, you just call them habits. And I know
what’s interesting is that, you know what, habits are fundamental because everything
you have in your life, and I mean everything, everything you have or everything you
don’t have is a reflection of your habits, yet very few people are really in depth
talking about the brain process and reptilian brain and how it creates habits and
sustains habits, and we are quite literally the product of our habits. I saw
something on Facebook, it was a meme, and it said something that, oh, I don’t know
what it was. It says you won’t get it in life what you want, you’ll get your
habits. But what’s missing there is you don’t get on life what you want, you get
your brain -based reptilian subconscious habits. And that’s what this whole podcast is
about, is transforming from the inside out. And I wanna start ingraining it, and I
want you to start thinking from, what are my unconscious paradigms, what are my
unconscious habits, and what are my brain -based habits? Also, Like I said, I’m not
gonna talk too much about habits here because I wanna lay this out conceptually for
you first. But if you go back and you search the earlier episodes, I believe it’s
episode four, five or six or something like that, there is a more comprehensive
episode on brain -based habits and how to actually start creating habits and creating
habits that work for you. Let me point something else out here very quickly is
people personalize things. So let’s say for example, you know, we’re talking about
working out. And let’s say that you’re one of those people and you fall in the 92
% category and you start working out and then guess what? A few weeks later, you’re
back to your old patterns again. When I say personalized, what I mean by that is
many people say, you know what? Oh my gosh, you know, I’m back in that cycle again
and I said I was gonna do it, and I was all motivated for a couple of weeks, and
I fell off track, and something came up, and I’m back into my old patterns again,
and my blue jeans don’t fit anymore, and I’m eating junk food again. And then
people personalize that, and they say, well, that must mean that I am lazy,
or I have no discipline, or I just can’t follow through. And then many times,
actually, people create beliefs off from this evidence, not even recognizing it’s not
about them. What I’m going to say here about habits, and I’ve said in the habit
episode, is that your habits, 95 % of what you do is research demonstrated, it’s
actually completely brain -based. Your brain makes your decisions for you. Your
reptilian part of the brain actually is the seat of the brain or the part of the
brain, the oldest part of the brain, where habits come from. These are survival
mechanisms. And the reason we create habits is just imagine if you had to learn to
ride a bike every time you got on a bike. This is why we learn things and they
become habitual and they become unconscious and they become automatic. So what we
wanna look at here is that people beat themselves up for not being motivated or not
staying motivated or not being committed and it’s nothing more than reptilian brain
habits. So instead of focusing on your motivation, or even focusing on your
commitment, what I instead want you to focus on is this. I want you to ask
yourself, “What is it that I want to create?” And then where I want you to look
next is we’re going to kind of scoot them over to the side a little bit with the
motivation and the commitment. What I want you to look at next is I want you to
ask yourself this. What habit could I start and I can commit to that habit.
And you know what? When I start that habit, that habit alone will help get me the
outcome that I want. I wanna give you an example in my own life about how you can
use this. So I’m very proactive with my health. You may or may not know,
I don’t know how many episodes you’ve listened to, but my brother -in -law is a
shaman. Shamans are healers and for many years, I have been very,
very proactive with, which I don’t even know why they call it alternative healing. I
mean, it should be primary healing, but healing ourselves naturally and holistically.
So I use the machine and I’m not gonna go into it, but I guess I’ll explain a
little bit here. Basically, it’s a board of electrodes, but it’s not a board,
it’s made out of plastic and everything, but it’s full of electrodes and it actually
is like electromagnetic acupuncture and for me acupuncture has been amazing in my
life in terms of health and wellness and even actually if you’ve never tried
acupuncture I definitely suggest you try it I mean there’s a reason it’s been around
3 ,000 years for me it’s been like amazing but anyway I have something that does
electromagnetic acupuncture and candidly it’s a little bit of work to set this thing
up and then you have to lie on it and you’re on it for like 43 minutes depending
on the you’re on, I’m going to be candid. It’s not entirely comfortable, but yet
the health benefits are phenomenal. So I told myself this was about three weeks ago
and I have this unit. It’s about 1500 bucks. So I mean, I don’t want to waste
money and I’m like, okay, I need to start using this and I need to do it on a
daily basis. But because of the hassle it is to pull out and set up and get
comfortable and to lie on it and all the electrodes, I just, I wasn’t doing it. So
I know that you can relate to that in some area of your life or something that
you really know you need to be doing, but you’re not doing. So let’s go there with
it and you use that metaphor. So what I did is I said, you know what? The
benefits of that thing that I researched are overwhelming, I am going to do it. And
not only that, I’m going to commit to doing it, even though I wasn’t motivated to
do it, but I know that I needed to do it, I commit to doing it. And then what I
did, which I talked about in the Habit Program in that episode, is I said, “Okay,
every day at a certain time,” and I set my phone alarm by it. Every day at a
certain time, I, no matter what’s going on, no matter if, you know, I’ve got a,
you know, anything, doesn’t matter. What I’m going to do is I’m committing that I
will get on that thing every single day, period. And I’m,
I guess week three and a half now and the first week it was kind of like, you
know, this little self -talk we have sometimes like, wow, okay, well, this is the
pain in the rear end and blah, blah, blah, but I need to do this. Now it’s like
clockwork. Why? Because I have habituated the behavior and I don’t even need to stay
committed to it anymore and I don’t need to stay committed and I don’t even need
motivation because it’s becoming a habit. See, whatever you have as a habit, you
don’t need motivation for it, whether it’s actually going to work out or it’s lying
on the couch. I mean, if you’re in the habit of lying on the couch, you don’t
need motivation for that. If you’re in the habit of going to the gym, most likely
because it feels good because it releases endorphins, you go to the gym. So what I
did is I took something that I consider, it was relatively small. I mean, it’s just
a matter of time and getting on it and everything. But I actually just habituated
the activity of it, and now, guess what? I look forward to it. Whereas I’ve had
this thing now for I guess a year and I wasn’t using it, why because I wasn’t
motivated? Why because I wasn’t committed? Why because I wasn’t in the habit? Now
I’m in the habit and the motivation and the commitment come easily. So that’s what
I wanna suggest in this episode is I want you to look at, I want you to look at
what you wanna create. And I want you to actually stop focusing on the motivation
or the commitment for a moment. And I want you to ask yourself, what small
commitment and keep it small? And the reason I say keep it small is because we
actually try to go big is what we do. When we have things that we really wanna
change, let’s say we’ve got a big thing we wanna change like our health. Well,
imagine trying to turn around a cruise ship on a dime, it doesn’t happen, it takes
time. how much time that’s entirely a matter of your personal motivation. But the
way that I look at it is, I used to wanna tackle 47 things. I’m gonna eat right,
I’m gonna exercise, I’m gonna use my rebounder, I’m gonna sit in my infrared sauna,
I’m gonna take all my supplements, I’m gonna do all these things for my health. And
then it was hard to keep up because I was overloading myself. So that’s why I say,
let’s just take this really easy. There’s an app you can I don’t use iPhone, I
don’t know about androids, but I’m sure you probably can. It’s a free app, and it’s
called Commit to Three. And basically what you do, because many of you need to
learn how to have commitment. Most of us don’t have commitment. Well, like I said,
we’re committed to everything, but we’re not committed to the outcomes that we want,
is get this app, it’s called Commit to Three, it’s free, and pick three small
things every day to commit to. The app will remind you. The reason I want you to
do this is because I want you to learn how to actually start being and staying
committed to things. Because then once you stay committed to something, then it
becomes habitual, then you don’t need the motivation because you’re operating from
brain -based habit, reptilian brain habit. I also want you to pick really small
things because it’s easier to start small things than it is big things. You know,
A couple of examples here. Let’s say that you look at your kitchen and it’s a mess
and you got to clean the kitchen. Maybe it’s Thanksgiving or something, I don’t
know, but you’ve probably been there before where you’re like, wow, that kitchen is
a mess. I don’t even want to go in there. And then you say, well, okay, well let
me just clean a little bit. And then once you start cleaning, you start, you know,
you keep cleaning and before you know it, you’re done. There was also a book. I
believe it was a book. Actually, I went to look for it on Amazon before I recorded
this. I couldn’t find it, I didn’t look that long, but it wasn’t there immediately.
But I think the book was called One Push Up. And the whole point of the book is
what I’m sharing with you now is that don’t think about your entire workout routine.
Let’s say you’re working out at home. Many people dread their routines, and then
what they do is they get in their self -talk and it makes it harder for them to
work out. Then they start feeling about their self -talk and their to actually, you
know, take them off track. So the whole book is about, you know what, don’t commit
to 100 pushups or 20 or however many, do one. Because see, once you do one,
it’s then easy to do two. Why? Because you’re already down there. You’re already
doing it. It’s like cleaning the kitchen. Once you get started, you’re like, well,
you know, heck, I’m already doing it. Why don’t I just keep cleaning the kitchen?
And before you know it, you’re done. Okay, so this episode, The entire episode is
about obviously what to do when you’re not motivated but you wanna be. So then what
many of you do, as I said, you start in the wrong place, I’m gonna motivate myself
and you try to use your will and it doesn’t work. So then we wanna look at, okay,
well, you know what? I might not be motivated, but I’m gonna actually stay committed
to the outcome that I want. I’m gonna break it down into very small pieces, very
small commitments, and I’m gonna commit to those. And then you’re gonna actually, you
can set an alarm on your phone. I mean, use your phone for something other than,
you know, than surfing the internet or talking, but set an alarm on your phone. And
you can also buy habit apps, which I’ve mentioned in other places before, and then
actually commit to doing whatever it is that you’re going to do and do it every
single day. I wanna give you a word of advice here also, is whatever you commit to
doing, and you really, really want this to become a habit at some point, do not
give self and out. Create what I call an unbreakable standard. Now that I’m using
this healing device that I told you about, it’s an unbreakable standard for me.
There is not a day that goes by that I miss. And actually now it’s become such
habit. I don’t even think about, well, okay, I gotta set it up. And all right, I
gotta do that. I don’t think of any of that. I just do it because it’s habit. But
when I started this, I said, no matter what, this is gonna become an unbreakable
standard. And I will do this a single day. Well, now it’s habit. My brain is just
like your brain. My reptilian brain is just like your brain. Obviously, we think
different things, but our brains process in the same way. So your transformational
takeaway is this, is that your motivation is sustained. It’s driven from your
commitments. And then your commitments are driven by your habits. So what you want
to do to be repetitive here, and again, repetition is the mother of all learning,
is pick some small micro habit. Let me explain that for a moment. Is I break
habits into what I call macro habits and micro habits. A macro habit could be
working out, like let’s say you go to the gym, but a micro habit is that you need
to pack your gym bag every night. What happens many times is people don’t manage
their micro habits. They will say, you know what, I’m gonna pack my gym bag later.
They get up in the morning, now they don’t have any clean clothes and they say,
well, because I don’t have my gym bag, therefore I can’t go to the gym. So they
don’t do the macro habit because the micro habit has not happened. So what I tell
people to do is work on the micro habits because they will sustain the macro
habits. So a micro habit relative to the gym could be, you could say, you know
what, is every night before I go to bed, what I commit to is I am going to have
my gym bag packed and it’s gonna be in the back of my car. So when I get ready
to go tomorrow, my gym bags are already in the car. Notice how now you no longer
have that as an excuse to not do the macro habit, which is going to the gym.
Okay, that wraps up this episode. And in the next episode, it’s a Q &A, and I’m
going to answer Rebecca’s question. Her question is this, and I know for a fact,
this applies to at least 80 % of you listening right now. Her question is this, do
you think it’s possible to be truly happy when married to someone who isn’t?
Because I know, I see it all the time, the relationships, one person’s growing and
another’s not. And I’m gonna talk about in the next episode what happens and what
you can do. And that’s gonna also require you to take a deep look at yourself and
your fears. So I’ll catch you over on that episode. Thanks for listening and I’ll
catch you later. Make it a great day. Bye -bye.