The Mindset You Can Adapt to Trick Yourself into Taking Action
Train your brain to get motivated
Have you ever felt like a complete sloth?
All you do is lounge around all day, eating food and watching Netflix. This isn’t who you are, but you don’t have the motivation for anything else. You know sometimes you have no problem acting, but sometimes you do.
If only there were a switch that would turn on your motivation.
Taking action
There are two types of people in this world: action takers and fakers.
What separates those who take action and work toward their dreams from those who don’t? Why is it that you can’t seem to make a change?
I have a theory.
You are what you consume.
When you surround yourself with stupid things, you feel bad. So, you don’t do anything. But when you surround yourself with positive things, you feel good. It encourages you to act.
You have a choice over what you surround yourself with. If you want to be more motivated, read on.
Input versus output
Your input is everything you consume, literal and otherwise. It’s the people you spend time with, the foods you eat, the social media accounts you follow, and the books you read.
Your brain is smart.
It picks up on these nonverbal cues and it translates into your beliefs. Your beliefs, in turn, are responsible for your thoughts and actions. You act out self-fulfilling prophecies.
If you believe you aren’t smart, you think you can’t achieve academic success. You figure ‘why study if I’m not smart anyway?’ Then, you get a bad score and it reinforces your belief that you’re not smart.
But, you can change your belief system. It’s simple, but not easy. You have to change your input to change your output.
“Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow and the day after that.“— Chris Hadfield
Change your diet
If you change what you put in, you change what you get out. It’s like a math equation. If you have crappy surroundings, you’ll have a crappy belief system. Inversely, if you feed yourself a positive diet, it will have a direct effect on your beliefs. You will start to feel better, and as a result, feel more driven.
Your surroundings
Everything in the world has an effect on you, whether you want to believe it or not. It happens on a subconscious level. These may include
- your friends
- your family
- your food diet
- your social media diet
- your bedroom
- and more
All of these things work together to form your belief system. If you change one of them, you start to change how you feel.
Your belief system will change if you change what you consume.
Be honest
You have to want to change in order to do so. Nothing on Earth will give you the motivation unless you decide it’s something you want. If you really want something, you’ll find a way to get it.
Take some responsibility for your agency. You make small decisions every day that influence your life. You don’t want it bad enough.
You have to make the decision to change, and you can’t refuse it. Not making a choice is still a choice. You either decide to stay where you are or you decide to change.
You have to admit that you do have some power over what you do, otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this right now. You chose to open this article and read it. Now take some responsibility.
You’re not looking to overhaul your life overnight. But small decisions add up over time.
The first step
Start with the first thing you want to change. You might make a list of all the things you want to change. All the things you want to do in your life.
Before you get too excited, stop. If you try to change everything at once, you will get overwhelmed and give up. The trick is to choose ONE thing. Pick one thing you want to change.
Figure out the smallest step you can take that can make it happen. If you’re trying to get in shape, put on your walking shoes. If you don’t have any get a pair. Your first step is to put on your shoes. You have no obligation past that.
Slowly, you will build a habit cycle.
The subconscious and your brain
Remember how I said everything you consume affects your belief system? You’re going to use that to your advantage.
By making choices and changing your surroundings, you manipulate your reticular activation system (RAS).
The RAS is responsible for motivation and mediates behavior. It searches for thoughts and actions that confirm your belief system.
If you’re trying to be a runner, you can add things into your routine that makes your RAS believe you are a runner.
Wear the clothes a runner would wear. Set out your running shoes and put them on in the morning. Every choice towards the intended action is a positive tick. These ticks add up.
There are a few ways you can give the RAS a subtle nudge.
Visualization
Visualize and feel what it’s like to be a runner. See yourself as a runner. Put things in your surroundings that runners would have. Imagine yourself out running on the pavement.
Read books about running and watch videos of other people running. Put pictures up on your walls of runners and what you want to accomplish.
If you’re into imagery, consider making a vision board. It serves as a visual representation of your goals and as a clear direction of where you want to go in life.
Affirmations
Use positive affirmations to build your beliefs. Repeat to yourself things like, “I am a runner,” and “I have boundless energy.” You can think, say, or write it down.
Writing
Science has proven the benefits of writing things down on paper. It helps you get clear on what you want and stay motivated. Writing things out encourages you to get specific on what you want in the short and long term.
Repetition is key. The more you see or do something, the more it gets ingrained into your subconscious.
Translating this to other areas
Once you understand the basics of how and why this occurs, you can use it to get motivation.
Take stock of your surroundings
What part of your life isn’t working out for you? What is it you want to change? What is it you want to accomplish?
Now be honest. What is it in your surroundings that contribute to faulty beliefs?
Your motivation
You’re here to get the motivation to do the thing. To figure out why you aren’t a doer and how to become one. You’re essentially going to rewire your brain.
Believe that you can change and you will. You can do this in a few different ways.
Social media
Social media plays a big part in our lives, there’s no denying that. Most people have some form of it. Twitter, youtube, facebook, tiktok. Who are you following? What videos do you watch? What do you read?
Change it. Stop watching stupid videos of cats. Stop following influencers and celebrities who make you feel bad about yourself. Unfollow or mute anyone who is not positively contributing to your health.
Start following people who do contribute positively. Check out some good mental health accounts to get your mindset straight. Follow fitness accounts that inspire and don’t guilt you.
Find the accounts you love and follow those.
People
This one is a hard pill to swallow. Chances are you know if your family is harming or helping your mental health. You can’t necessarily do anything about your family. You can try to decrease the amount of time you spend with them or try to change the conversation.
You can change who you spend your time with. Take a good look at who you’re hanging out with and what their beliefs are. If you hang around other people who have low self-esteem, chances are you’ll have low self-esteem.
If you’re around people who believe the world is out to get them, watch out. Pretty soon you’ll believe that too.
But if you spend time around people with growth mindsets they’ll bring you up instead of drag you down.
Listen to your gut
This applies across the board. Pay attention to how things make you feel. Listen to what your body and mind are telling you.
It’s easy to let others’ opinions affect you. They influence you, no doubt. And if they disprove, it’s not surprising you would want to act in a way they will approve.
We all want approval. It’s normal. But it shouldn’t get in the way of our own happiness and goals.
It takes courage to act on your decisions.
Final thoughts
Motivation is simple, not easy. Your beliefs dictate your actions. If you don’t believe in yourself or what you’re doing, it’s not going to work.
You can take this information and change your life. Or you can throw it away and pretend you never read it.
You can change what your surroundings look like.
You can change who you follow.
You can change your life.
All it takes is making the decision.
