Igniting Motivation: Insights From The 3 Principles

Hello and welcome to the CalmCast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out head teacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying,

And I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The CalmCast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state,

Which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music,

With an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today we're going to explore igniting motivation insights from the three principles,

And really I'm just going to share today some insights I've had around motivation that I hope you will find helpful in this kind of exploration we're having at the moment around productivity.

As you probably already have heard from me,

Productivity or motivation or trying to have more of it,

Not procrastinate,

All these things were all a massive part of my life for a very,

Very long time and working on that was part of my life.

So one of the first insights I had around productivity,

I have to say that when I started on this journey,

It probably wasn't one of the first things to fall away really.

It probably took a little while before I started to have these realisations around productivity and a motivation that I hadn't really had before.

It did take a while before I started to just notice that I was naturally being more productive and doing more of the things that I set out to do each day.

And the first thing was,

Well the first thing and the second thing are kind of connected really.

The first thing was this realisation that I don't have to feel a certain way to do things.

Prior to this insight,

I absolutely fundamentally thought I did.

So I would spend a lot of time on a daily basis trying to soup myself up to the state where I could do things because I thought I had to feel a certain way to get things done at all.

That was a definite seeking I had to feel differently so that I could get things done.

So I would spend a lot of time in the morning doing all sorts of rituals and routines and exercise and affirmations and you know,

Bulling myself up to the point where I thought I could get more done.

Very much getting into the state like somebody like Tony Robbins might describe.

And it was a lot of work and it took a lot of energy.

It took a lot of time.

So I guess maybe by the end of some of these things,

Doing these things,

I felt a little bit better and a little bit brighter maybe.

But I definitely thought that I had to,

But actually let's go back a bit.

I never really felt how I thought I needed to feel to get the things done in a kind of seamless way like they would be with ease,

I guess is what I was trying to create.

So I was always playing with that morning routine,

That morning ritual,

Changing it,

Adapting it,

Getting it to be different,

You know,

Trying to get to a different state,

A higher,

Some kind of higher level of motivation,

Feeling that I was looking for.

And so that was an ongoing task really to keep playing with the affirmations,

To keep playing with the order in which I did things.

I remember reading the book,

Is it called the 5am club or something like that?

I can't remember the author.

Somebody else will remember.

And that book before that I was doing meditation first and then exercise.

And after I read that book,

I did exercise then meditation because I thought that he kind of said that was better.

So I did it,

I slopped it around to try and ignite my motivation.

And what I thought was if I got all these things right,

And this was the aim was to keep looking,

Keep trying,

To keep trying all the different tools and techniques,

Keep trying all the different like online systems for task management and all these different things that eventually I would get all of those things right,

Get them all kind of lined up really neatly.

And then this beam of light called motivation would hit me on the head.

And from then on,

Life would be a breeze and everything would get done really easily.

And I would never doubt my motivation ever again.

And I am laughing because actually,

It's kind of laughing but slightly ironic because I know I'm not the only one who's done that or the only one who's still doing that,

Still trying to get themselves into a state where they can do things.

But that is all underpinned by the concept that we as human beings need to make ourselves motivated,

That we need to,

That we have to make ourselves feel a certain way in order to get things done.

The premise of that being that I can't do things if I don't feel a certain way.

And maybe that's a point to consider yourself.

Is that what you're saying to yourself?

If I don't feel X,

I can't do Y.

If I can't get myself into this particular state of energy,

State of mind,

State of whatever,

If I haven't got the right task management kit,

If I haven't got any,

If I haven't got that,

I cannot be productive.

I cannot do the things I would like to do,

Then that's a misunderstanding because we fundamentally don't need to feel any way at all in order to do things.

And you know,

It's easy to see that when you look at other aspects of life that are not to do with your work or your business.

You know,

Like do you need to get yourself into a certain state of mind to,

You know,

Go do the shopping?

Or maybe you do,

But there'll be some things in your life that you just do without needing to psych yourself up to do them,

Without needing to make yourself feel a certain way to do them.

So this,

This title that we're playing with here,

Igniting Motivation,

What I'm really saying is that you don't need to do that.

And once you stop trying to do that,

Motivation is a natural state.

Because when we think about the model that I talk about all the time is that there are some innate qualities to human beings.

And I think being productive and doing things and following our intuition and being guided and creating in the world is our natural state.

That is absolutely fundamentally part of who we really are.

And in actual fact,

When we think that's our natural state,

Maybe,

You know,

We're more talking about revealing that natural state.

And to do that,

It's thought that's in the way,

Isn't it?

It's our psychology.

It's all the stuff we've learned about,

You know,

What tasks are nice tasks and what tasks are not nice tasks and what tasks we're capable of and what those tasks might mean about the future and,

You know,

All that noise.

And the trouble is that when we're then trying to manage this thinking that's in the way of our deep embodied motivation,

Which is there all the time,

We're trying to say you've got the deep embodied motivation,

You've got the thinking over the top,

And then you're putting extra thinking in,

Which is all the tools and techniques and strategies and ways to try and make yourself feel a different way,

Which just add more and more noise to an already busy,

Noisy system.

And what I'm saying is that your natural state is productivity.

Your natural state is motivated.

And the only thing that ever gets in the way of that is thought.

You know,

It's thought that pulls you down into this space of not feeling like doing things.

That space that makes some tasks just look really hard when they're not really.

I mean,

How many times,

I think I said this in the last session as well,

But how many times have you psyched yourself up to do a task that you really have been putting off a lot and then done the task and then gone,

Oh my God,

That just was too ridiculously easy.

It really was ridiculously easy.

And I've put it off and put it off.

I've got one right now,

Which I'm going to actually do after I've done this session,

I think.

But you know,

My tasks that I put off are generally around reading.

I've got a document I need to read and check and proof.

And,

You know,

I know that I'm in my head,

I'm making it harder than it's going to be.

I really am.

I can sense that.

So there's something for me to get curious about there.

But what I often find,

In fact,

Is just if I just do the thing,

Once I see,

And then we can all do this,

Once we start to see that the thinking is the thing stopping us doing what we would like to do,

Actually,

Once we see it's thought,

The thought does start to fall away.

And we start to see that,

You know,

That we can just do the thing.

So on that note,

I should probably just go do the thing.

So the insights there,

Well,

The insights there really lead to the conclusion.

You know,

You don't have to feel a certain way to do things.

Motivation is innate to you.

Or this doing,

This doing of things.

Let's not call it motivation,

Because actually what I'm trying to point to again,

Which I've pointed to before about other words like confidence,

Motivation doesn't really exist.

You're either doing a thing or you're not doing it.

And if you're not doing a thing that you have a desire to do,

It's because you've got some thinking in the way.

Unless you are physically not able to do that.

But that's not the conversation we're having,

Of course.

If you're physically capable of doing something and you're not doing it,

Then it'll be you that's in the way.

And just get curious.

There's no guilt,

No judgment,

No I should be doing better.

Just start to look at that.

Because right now as I'm thinking about this thing that I need to read,

I'm seeing the story I've wrapped around it and how I've avoided it over the last week or so.

So I'm going to go and do it.

And I will report back as to how easy it actually was when it seemed like it was going to be really painful.

So you're innately motivated.

You've innately got capacity to do things.

Watch out for where you're thinking is stopping you.

So I'll be exploring this and other topics on Insight Timer this month in my live sessions and also in the new course Stress from Stress to Success,

Which is all about the three principles way of looking at productivity.

That's already live on Insight Timer.

And of course,

I have two other courses,

Calm,

Balance and Clarity with ease and revealing your full potential with the three principles.

Those two courses are still live too.

So you can access those too.

So I hope to see you on one of my lives perhaps or chat with me on a course.

They're great fun because we can have these little audio conversations which are great fun.

So I hope to see or hear from you soon.

Take care.

Lots of love.

Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.

This has been the Calmcast with Clare Downam,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.