Episode 184 - Best Hits - How to Feel Motivated Again
When you find yourself in a motivational slump, getting back into action can be a challenging task and you can waste a lot of time turning in circles, stressing about getting nowhere and feeling sorry for yourself. In this episode, I share 3 ways to boost your motivation so you can reconnect with your inner power and take control back over your life.
Topics
Three ways to feel motivated again.
Creating a new identity.
Tricking your brain to take action.
Changing beliefs and thoughts that hinder motivation.
Battling perfectionism.
Links
✨🏕️Join Rachel Meltzer and me in Brave New Path, a very intimate retreat, designed for quirky creatives obsessed with self-growth and ready to reignite their spark! Go to selfgrowthnerds.com/retreat to join🏕️✨
👉 Can't join us physically for the retreat? My online program The Courage to Start New is coming back this fall! Go to selfgrowthnerds.com/courage to learn more.
Resources
📚Helpful Books:
🎙️Podcast:
Transcript
[AUTO-GENERATED]
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:06]:
Welcome to the self growth nerds podcast. I'm your host Marie, a courage coach, creative soul, and adventure seeker. Since through hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2019, I'm on a mission to help you embrace your most confident self so you can achieve your dreams too. If you're eager for deep conversations, big questions, and meaningful connections, join me on the quest to discovering how we can create a more magical and memorable life. Hello, nerds. How are you? I am good. But recently, I have spoken to quite a few people that have been feeling uninspired and unmotivated. On some days, that was me.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:53]:
Today is good. It's a good one though. But I wanted to make an episode for those of you who need a boost, who are stuck in a motivational slump, who are turning in circles, stressing about getting nowhere, and feeling sorry for themselves. Okay? So if this sounds like you, you are going to love this episode. It's an episode that I actually recorded a little bit more than a year ago, and it's been one of the most listened to ever since. It's very appreciated. So I want to share it with you again. It's going to give you 3 ways to boost your motivation so you can reconnect with your inner power and take the control back over your life.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:01:38]:
Before we jump in, I wanna share something I've heard on a podcast this morning which was a really good reminder. It was, on The Gathering Pod, a podcast by Martha Beck, one of my favorite human beings on the planet. The episode is called finding the joy. And what she was saying is if you've been, like, obsessed over your to do list and you're just work, work, work, work, work, you've got your head down, you're you're feeling tense, it might be time to just put find the joy at the top of your to do list and prioritize that above all else. Find a way to feel good. Find a way to feel joyful. And then what needs to get done is gonna get done. And it's gonna get done in a much more playful and lighthearted way.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:02:28]:
Just try it out. Just try to live your day trusting your intuition. Your to do list is in the back of your mind somewhere. Your unconscious knows what's most important. And try to see if you can just let yourself be guided by your natural flow. Okay? And one last thing before I give the mic to Marie from the past is a reminder that the retreat, the Brave New Path retreat is coming. As I'm recording this, there's only one bed left in the shared room and there's some private rooms, that you can still book. You have to book before September 1st though.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:03:15]:
This is the limit. You have to book before September 1st. The retreat is taking place on October 4th from October 4th to October 7th. You can fly into Montreal and there's gonna be a shuttle there to bring you from the airport to the retreat which is in a beautiful high end chalet in the forest. We're gonna do a bunch of workshops. We're gonna have deep conversations. We're gonna spend time in nature. It's gonna be amazing.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:03:44]:
If you feel lost right now and you need to reconnect with your core to light your inner fire up again, this is for you. There are people in their twenties, thirties, and their fifties who have signed up so it's for everyone. If you cannot be there in person but you still want to do this work, I'm also offering an 8 week online group program starting September 10th. So it's gonna go from September 10th to the end of October. If you wanna have a look at the information for the retreat, it's selfgrowthnerds.com/retreat. And if you want to join the 8 week program, it's selfgrowthnerds.com/courage. The courage to start new. That's the name of the program.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:04:34]:
So if you need help entering the next chapter of your life, there's these two offers right now. So don't miss out. I'm gonna be really happy to support you. Alright. That's it for now. Enjoy this episode about how to feel motivated again. I'm sending you lots of love. So today we are talking about 3 ways to feel motivated again.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:05:02]:
This episode is kind of from me to me. I need this right now. I need this pep talk. I need to remind myself of what has worked for me before and hopefully Well, no. Actually, I know that many of you are probably in a motivational slump as well, so this is going to be helpful for you, too. Okay. So let's jump into the first way to feel motivated again and it's creating a new identity. Now bear with me, I'm going to explain exactly what I mean.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:05:39]:
My first question is how do you describe yourself right now? What do you say if someone were to ask you who are you? Do you say oh, I'm a lawyer and a father of 2 kids, and I live in Michigan. That is your current identity, your default identity, that was created because of where you were born, maybe what you studied, the job that you do, the decisions you have made in the past to have kids or not have kids. All of these factors have created an identity for you that might or might not align with what you want moving forward in the future. And if your id your if your current identity doesn't match what you want going forward, it's gonna be very hard to stick to habits. Let me give you an example. Let's say your current identity is as a devoted mom. Maybe you've been a stay at home mom for for many years and now you wanna start a business. Starting a business requires motivation for sure.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:06:57]:
It also requires that you take time away from your kids just for you to focus on your new goal. Now it might be very challenging to feel motivated to do that, if it doesn't align with your current identity as a devoted stay at home mom. Okay? Thankfully, you can create a new identity and I've done it plenty of times. Just like kids, like, they go, today I'm a pirate and then they start acting like 1. You just start a sentence with I and act how you would act if you were that person until you become it. Now that sounds completely mad, but bear with me. I've done it when I was on the Pacific Crest Trail. I would say, because this was really hard hiking multiple miles every day, I would tell myself I would I would hike and tell myself I am a thru hiker.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:08:02]:
This is what I do now. This is my home now. This is who I am. I am a thru hiker and acted like one even though I didn't feel like 1 in the beginning. It felt like a lot of effort. I'm gonna give you another example. The 1st year of my business, I told myself, I was taking a walk and I was telling myself, I make a $100,000 in my business. I am someone who makes a $100,000 in their business.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:08:33]:
That had not happened yet, but telling myself that creating a new identity allowed me to step into who I would be if that was me and take action from there. Let's say you want to write a book. Don't wait until your book has been written and published in order to give yourself permission to say I'm a writer. You can start saying now I'm a writer and telling yourself that every day will help you sit down to actually write. If you start seeing yourself as a writer, it's just going to be easier, it's gonna make more sense to you to carve out time in your daily routine to write because you are a writer and that's what you do. So you have to start talking about yourself, about actually the the self that you want to become before you become it. Start it saying I am a through hiker before I had through hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. But telling myself I am a through hiker is part of what allowed me to become it.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:09:47]:
Okay? It happens in your thoughts before it shows up in your actions. I'm gonna give you another example from recently in my life. I was struggling to send a weekly newsletter to my email list. Hello to you if you're on my email list. I send a newsletter every Wednesday with what's been on my mind, the, articles or videos or books that I think might be helpful to you, products or services that I'm offering, it changes every week. And this is a really important part of having an online business, but consistency was hard for me. I would sometimes send out a newsletter, sometimes I wouldn't. And I was telling one of my friends about that and what she said is, well, you create a podcast episode every week.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:10:38]:
Is that easy for you? And I was like, yeah, super easy. So what's the difference? Why can't you also send out an email newsletter every week? And the the answer to this question is that's because I have a podcast is ingrained in my identity. It's not optional. It's just part of who I am. I'm a podcaster and I have a podcast that comes out every Monday. It's been the case for two and a half years. So then, I had to start telling myself, I am someone who sends out a weekly newsletter. Instead, and notice the difference, it's very important.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:11:16]:
Instead of telling myself I need to send out a weekly newsletter. The first one, I am someone who sends out a weekly newsletter, is grounded and matter of fact. It's just like, okay, let's figure out when I'm gonna do it. And the second one, I need to send out a weekly newsletter, feels more like duty to me. Like one more task on my to do list. It feels heavier. The nuance is is very subtle, but it's there and it is very impactful in the way that I show up for that task or not. Now sometimes though you have to ease yourself into it and that's going to lead to the second way to feel motivated again.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:12:01]:
You have to trick your brain by setting clear parameters. Okay? When I started my podcast I didn't start by telling myself I am a podcaster. I publish an episode every week. No. I had to tell myself, okay Marie, you're going to publish 10 episodes, 1 every week, and then after you've done that then we'll see. But that's the first step, very clear. Because chances are that one of the reasons you are unmotivated right now is because you have no clear steps in front of you to follow. What's probably in front of you instead is a big mountain or like a vague sort of intention like, oh I need to figure out what to do with my life.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:12:50]:
No one gets into action by thinking I need to figure out what to do with my life because this task is so enormous that you wouldn't know where to start. So notice what you've been telling yourself that makes it hard for you to feel motivated. What's the belief there? If your belief is I need to change careers, it makes sense that you would feel overwhelmed and get stuck in analysis paralysis because there are so many possibilities. What you have to do here is get back into action, but you're like okay, but what action should I take? It doesn't matter whatever action you're going to take, what we want is to give your brain a clear path to follow, so that you remember that you're not just an aimless blob spinning in circles in their mind and that you have power and that you can get a lot of shit done. I'm gonna give you an example. So since I separated a couple of months ago, I've been, I slowed down in my work and it's been challenging to get the momentum going again. So what I did is this week, I decided to apply for a part time job. Now, I don't know if I'm gonna get the job.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:14:15]:
I don't know if I'm going to take it, but I needed to have clear steps to follow. And this job application had very clear steps to follow. You have to answer these questions. You have to give us a video about this, a video about that, a PDF about this, a PDF about that. I knew exactly what I had to do, and I focused on these tasks for a few days. I got it done, and when I finished I was like, reconnected to, the badass productive part of me that I had been distant from for a few months. And again, the, what you do doesn't really matter, what matters is that you do something just to get the energy in you moving again. Okay? Even if I don't take that job that that process helped me get back in touch with my power.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:15:17]:
Few other examples, back in 2020 when we were in COVID lockdown, many people, would struggle with anxiety about what was happening, what their future was gonna look like. Every day would kind of merge with the next and there was if we had the privilege to stay home, there was a a heaviness. There was a sense of lack of direction and one thing that was super helpful for me was to sign up for a free book writing class. I signed up for this class, it lasted 2 days and they gave us an outline of how to create a non fiction book and I just followed the steps that they gave us and that kept me occupied for a while, but without that, without giving my brain this direction, my brain would have gone crazy. Many people were going mad because our brain is kind of like a toddler with a knife. It just if you don't give it a problem to solve, it's gonna create a bunch of problems that we don't need to worry about in the moment. A brain without direction is dangerous to our mental health, so that's why we have to be really intentional as to the the direction that we give our brains. Now one last example is, in the beginning of my business, it's it's a mess.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:16:54]:
Starting a business is a mess. You're like there are so many possibilities again. What do I do first? What do I do second? What do I do 3rd? So what I did is I signed up to an online course that was designed to teach its students how to create an online course in 2 months. Okay? Online course about online courses. And I did everything the teacher said to do. And guess what? 2 months later, I had an online course called hike this damn trail, using my experience on the Pacific Crest Trail to help people get ready to hike the AT or the PCT or the CDT. I mixed that experience with my passion for personal growth, and I created this unique product. Now, I only taught that course once.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:17:47]:
I only had one cohort, but that doesn't matter because I spent those 2 months learning new skills and getting into action instead of taking 3 step in one direction, 2 steps in another direction then not getting anywhere. Now, the sad truth is that in that course only about 20% of people and that's a generous number. I'm not I don't have the exact statistics. Only about 20% of people who signed up actually accomplished the goal. Actually had an online course at the end. And, you know why I think that is? It's probably more than one reason, but one of the main reasons is gonna lead to the 3rd way I wanna give you to feel motivated again and you're not gonna like it. But trust me, this is the single most life changing perspective shifts I've had in the last few years and it's to lower the damn bar. Lower the bar all the way down to like 1 inch from the floor.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:18:59]:
You are way too perfectionistic. And I tell you that from a place of love because I was the same. People didn't finish their online courses because they were being perfectionistic every step of the way. The job application that I mentioned earlier, I looked at all the requirements and I I told myself this could take me a full week, but I'm gonna I'm gonna give myself 2 days. For this part, I'm gonna give myself an hour. For this part, I'm gonna give myself an hour and even if it's not as good as I would like it to be, I'm just gonna send it anyway. And I hear you tell me, no, but Marie, it has to be really good because I care about quality. I do too.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:19:45]:
I care about quality as well, but you know what I care more about? Finishing stuff. Getting shit done. I care about that much more than I care about the quality of what comes out. Because you know who gets helped when you're busy trying to perfect that thing you're working on? No one. No one. Not even yourself because you exhaust yourself and then you give up. Do you think my online course about thrill hiking was perfect? No, it was not. If I look at it, I can tell you a million things that would have needed improvement.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:20:20]:
But, you know what? It's out there and it has helped people. Versus, if I had spent 2, 3, 4 extra months on it. Well, in the meantime, the people that I've helped would not have been helped. If you think about starting a podcast for example, don't waste too much time learning into interview techniques and watching YouTube videos about what kind of microphone you should get, doing editing classes, on the Internet and stuff like that. Just do the thing. Ship it out. You're not going to be very good in the beginning of anything that you do anyway, so get that over and done with as fast as possible. For me, it felt so uncomfortable to coach at the beginning.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:21:11]:
I would end a coaching session feeling so bad about myself because I saw that I was not as skilled as I wanted to be. I thought I need to get better before I coach again. So I would watch coaching classes, I would watch coaching videos, but this is a backward backwards way to think about improvement because you cannot replace actual field practice. So if you knew it would take a 100 hours before you felt semi confident doing what you want to do, then your best bet is to get those 100 hours behind you as fast as possible, right? Not to wait until you feel confident before you take action because that doesn't work. It's trying it's trying to skip a step that's not skippable. Yes, you're gonna have to deal with the discomfort of putting imperfect work out there. It feels awful, especially when you have high standards and when you have good taste, but there's no way around me becoming friends with that discomfort, because if you don't it's just gonna get in your way. So you can remind yourself of what I remind myself.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:22:26]:
Feel free to borrow these, these perspective shifts if they resonate with you. There's 3 of them. Number 1, I only feel scared because I unconsciously believe that this is going to lead to me being kicked out of the tribe and dying alone in the jungle. I'm I'm just half joking. This is real. This is an evolutionary thing. We have evolved to seek approval, to be accepted by the group because back in the days, if we were rejected, we were kicked out of the cave, we were alone and and threatened by the weather, threatened by the predators. So it was our priority, it was life saving to be approved of.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:23:16]:
This is part of us. This is in our DNA and this is something that we have to consciously fight against. So, no, okay, I feel scared to put this imperfect illustration or podcast episode or blog article out there just because part of me, seeks approval. But, even if people don't like it, I am not actually going to die. I am going to be fine, because number 2, most people don't care. If if you post a blog article or a photograph that you've taken, maybe someone's gonna think, oh, I don't like it, but then they're gonna forget about it and they're gonna move on with their life. Chances are someone's gonna think, oh, I love it, someone's gonna think I hate it, and someone's gonna be very neutral, but everyone's gonna move on in a matter of a few hours and you will be okay. You will be just fine.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:24:16]:
So acknowledge the fear that comes up in your body. You feel it in your nervous system when you're about to put yourself out there in an imperfect way, and reassure yourself, tell yourself that this is normal, and that in reality you everything's going to be fine, and that you're going to survive this. And lastly, my third reminder goes back to identity, is who do you wanna be? I think of myself as a prolific creator. I tell myself I am someone who creates more than she consumes. This is part of the identity that I consciously create for myself. I am a prolific creator. I get out there courageously. And you can also decide to believe that about yourself.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:25:08]:
Even if it's not been true in your past, you can decide today, you can decide tomorrow to start telling yourself that. So what do you how do you want to start thinking about yourself? And then that's going to influence the actions that you take from there. So that's it for today, now let's recap. The first way to feel motivated again is to create this new identity for yourself. Consider how you want to talk about yourself. Instead of just falling back on your default identity without, asking yourself those deep questions. You're the designer of your own life, you're in control, but when we lose motivation it's often because we forget that we are in control. We just go with the flow and we're not in the driver's seat anymore, so get back in the driver's seat and decide who you want to be.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:26:05]:
The second way to feel motivated again is to set clear parameters that make it super easy for you to get into action and the action doesn't matter. Don't waste time trying to decide what action you're gonna start taking. You might change your mind, that's okay, just just do something. And number 3, the 3rd way to feel motivated again is to lower the bar, and that to me is the most important one. Lower the bar so that you get shit done without worrying too much about whether or not it's good enough. You have to get comfortable with being shitty at first. That's how you're gonna get good. So get out there and if you need help, if you've been trying to kick your own butt for a while, if you've been trying to find motivation on your own, maybe it's time to ask for help.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:26:58]:
Look, for the first two and a half years of my business, I had a coach to help me constantly. Not always the same person, but I was always in a relationship with someone who was more experienced than me to help give me direction. It's the first time in two and a half years that I don't have a coach. The first time. But I needed that in order to get going. So maybe that's what you need as well in order to get out of that motivational slump. So I hope this episode was helpful for you. Please send it to your friends if you know that they are struggling with motivation right now and as always you can reach out to me on Instagram at self growth nerds to tell me what you thought of the episode.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:27:47]:
I love it when you do. Love to have conversations with you in the DMs and, I'm gonna wish you a great rest of your week. If you love what you're hearing on the self growth nerds podcast and you want individual help finding a new direction for your life and developing the courage to make your dreams a reality, you have to check out how we can work together on selfgrowthnerds.com or message me on Instagram at selfgrowthnerds. My clients say they would have needed that support years ago. So if you're tired of feeling like you're wasting your life, don't wait. Get in touch now, and I cannot wait to meet you.