The ability to improve self motivation is something that is often believed to be impossible. Many understand motivation to be an innate trait. Due to this, we often look at other people and wonder where they get their motivation from. We view this from both the positive and negative perspective.

I will see someone that is a parent, an athlete, successful in their occupation and they still find time to be a friend and have a social life. When I see these individuals, I am amazed at the motivation it takes to consistently be in her shoes. I also see individuals who wake up in the morning, do very little to nothing for 16 hours and then talk about being ‘worn out’ before they go to bed.

Motivation can be difficult to manufacture and being able to generate self motivation can be very difficult if you don’t understand some basic principles. While understanding motivation can be complex, the following is at least one way to become better at generating more self motivation.

In his book, “Smarter, Faster, Better”, Charles Duhigg talks about one key element related to improving a person’s self motivation.

Obtaining a sense of control.

The basic principle states that when a person doesn’t believe they have any choice and no control over their choices, then they are not likely to very motivated. The story he used to drive home the point was a story the Marines.

They started to change the way they trained soldiers going through bootcamp. Bootcamp is normally seen as a way to break down and rebuild a soldier, where everything is completed exactly how the drill sergeant determines it to be done. To improve the training process, they began introducing choices and control into the training process.

The choices were sometimes of minor importance. For example, one task assigned to the soldiers was to clean the kitchen. The soldiers were given no instructions. It seems like a very minor task, but soldiers had to decide whether they wanted to keep left overs or throw them out. They had to determine where items such as the ketchup were put away. These situations where soldiers were given the ability to make a choice and had control over what occurred started to change the way soldiers perceived themselves. These small examples grew into large situations that were experienced out in training exercises, where soldiers were deliberately given tasks that couldn’t be completed with the instructions they were given.

This meant they needed to make choices of their own, controlling the outcomes.

One of the moments in my life where I had to really address my own motivations was the year following my graduation from a programming bootcamp. When I graduated, it was November of 2016, Donald Trump had just been elected president (which was a unexpected outcome at the time), there were lots of discussions about the timing for hiring managers and why it would be January prior to companies being ready to hire. Then there was assessing my desire to remain in the healthcare, public health and wellness market, where I already had developed myself as an expert.

What I found in conversations, was a gravitation to factors that I could not control. Here are a few quick examples:

Political: Trump is now president and is going to be repealing the Affordable Care Act, so healthcare companies are not going to take as many hiring risks in this unknown environment.

Timing: A hiring manager needs to wait until the beginning of the year prior to fully reviewing new applicants. They may also need to wait until there is more clarity on what impact Trump’s presidency will have on their business.

Location: There are very few healthcare related startups in Kentucky, especially when focused on Lexington. It may be wise to start thinking about other markets that would be more likely to be hiring than Lexington.

These conversations became disheartening and demotivating. As I listened to these stories and opinions long enough, it became easy to fall into a belief that I simply needed to succumb to the circumstances.

Sometimes the advice would be to wait until “things got better”. As someone who prefers action, even if the action is the wrong decision, these opinions were depressing. On the days that I began to believe the storylines, I felt foolish for taking action when the suggested approach would be ‘wait for better days ahead’.

Upon reflection of that period, in the context of Charles Duhigg’s book, I can see how having a sense of choice and control is crucial. The belief that your effort has some impact on the outcome is incredibly powerful.

So what should a person do in order to generate some sense of choice and control when it does not seem like there is any obvious opportunity? For this I take some inspiration from James Altucher, who shares something he calls his ‘Daily Practice’.

My interpretation of James’ daily practice routine is that every person has multiple aspects to our lives. We have our physical health, mental health, family relationships, social connectedness and career. The challenge we have is to do something each day to positively impact those areas. It would be ideal if a person could have an activity for each area, however when you are struggling to find motivation and inertia, find at least one activity that can be completed daily.

In that year after finishing the programming bootcamp, I implemented elements of a daily practice, as I searched to understand what direction my career takes me.

Here were the two practices that I have found that provide me choices and a sense of control, which ultimately allowed me to maintain an internal reserve of motivation:

Running:

I was very observant in 2017 to not get too caught up in following a strict training plan. In fact, the amount and type of training that I completed was not optimized towards any end goal. That being true, I can say without hesitation, it was one of my most successful and rewarding years of running. The only real goal I had with each run was to continue to maintain my health and fitness, along with ensuring I optimize my happiness by the time I stop running for the day.

Writing:

I enjoy writing. It is also something I have utilized at various times to support my career ambitions. Since the very first HTML page I posted to ditschfitness.com, in 2003, I have worked at sharing ideas on health, fitness and performance through my writing.

In terms of finding some choice and control, it is an activity that no one manages for me. I do not have an editor, an agent or a director of content. In the year after bootcamp, I sat down and tried to write something of value. There were days that I wrote 200 words that were simply mental notes. Then there were days that I was able to put down 2000 words that formed the beginning of an article I wanted to share.

On days that I am struggled to write, I would either go for a run and find inspiration, or start to edit something I wrote on a previous day. The value of the writing may be difficult to calculate in monetary terms, however it has been invaluable in terms of maintaining a sense of choice and control over my career.

Become an expert at generating self motivation:

When you do an honest self assessment that leads you to question your motivation to make a change, one of your first steps should be to find an activity where you can exert choice and control.

The activity does not have to be something major, it can be something as small as the example from the Marine bootcamp, where soldiers got to choose where they put the ketchup when they cleaned the kitchen. Once you have a chosen activity, it is ideal if you can practice that sense of choice and control every single day.

As Charles Duhigg shares in his book, generating motivation is a skill that can be learned. Therefore, like anything worthwhile in life, if it provides you value and requires practice, my recommendation is to practice often.