A Practical Guide to Motivation That Actually Works

How many times have you woken up knowing exactly what you need to do, and just… not felt like doing it? You know that feeling. You hit snooze. You stare at the ceiling. You think about your to-do list and a little voice says, “I don’t want to.”

You wait for a sign—for a rush of energy, for your mood to switch, for some magic push to get you going. Maybe you scroll looking for a quote that sparks something. Maybe you watch a short video to fire you up. You tell yourself, “Tomorrow, I’ll be motivated.”

Then tomorrow comes. And it’s the same story.

I get it. I’ve been there more times than I care to remember. We all have. The kitchen sink is full. The email is still unwritten. The gym shoes are sitting in the corner, clean and untouched. We look at it all and think, “If only I felt more motivated.”

But what if we have it backwards? What if motivation isn’t what starts you—it’s what shows up after you start? What if waiting to “feel like it” is the exact trap keeping you stuck?

Think about it. Waiting for motivation is like waiting for a bus that never comes. You just stand there. Real life isn’t about waiting for a bus. It’s about putting one foot in front of the other. You can walk, even if it’s slow.

That’s what we need—a way to just start walking. Not a spark. Not a special feeling. Something plain and steady. Something that works even when you don’t “feel” like it.

1. The Waiting Game

You have something to do. Maybe it's a big thing, like starting a project. Maybe it's a small thing, like tidying up. You look at it. And before you do anything, you check inside yourself. You ask: "Do I feel like doing this right now?"

So you wait. You wait for the feeling to show up. You wait for a wave of energy or a clear mind. You think you need to feel ready, feel excited, feel focused.

I have done this more times than I can count. I’ve waited to feel like writing. I’ve waited to feel like making a hard phone call. I’ve waited to feel like tackling the mess in the garage. I put my whole day on hold, waiting for a feeling that often never comes.

We act like our feelings are in charge. We let them call the shots. If we don't feel like it, we don't do it. We treat motivation like a special guest who has to arrive before the party can start.

But here’s the honest truth: Feelings are terrible managers. They’re fickle. One minute you feel okay, the next you feel tired or bored or distracted. If you only move when you feel perfect, you’ll hardly ever move.

Think about something simple. Do you wait to feel a burst of joy before you brush your teeth at night? No. You're tired. You might not want to. But you do it anyway. The action doesn't need the feeling.

So why do we think other tasks are different? We get this idea that to start important work, we need a special mood. We imagine successful people are always feeling pumped up and ready. That’s not really true. They’ve just learned to start before they feel ready.

When you wait to feel like it, you give away your power. You make yourself a prisoner of your passing moods. You’ll be stuck watching the clock, waiting for a change inside you that may take hours or days or weeks.

I want you to see the pattern. Notice how often you say, "I don't feel like it." We all say it. That phrase is the wall between us and our work.

The shift happens when you flip it. You don’t need the feeling to start. You start to get the feeling. The action comes first. The good feeling—the sense of focus, the little spark of pride—that comes after you begin. It’s the reward for starting, not the permission slip.

Stop waiting for the perfect weather inside your mind. Just take a small step. The waiting game is a trap. The only way out is to move.

2. The Magic of Micro-Actions

So, if waiting to feel ready is a trap, how do you get out of it? How do you start when everything in you says "no"?

The answer is almost stupidly simple. It’s to start very, very small.

I call these "micro-actions." A micro-action is the tiniest possible first step you can take. Your brain sees big tasks and wants to run away. "Clean the garage" is scary. "Write a report" feels huge. So you make the first step so small it isn’t scary at all.

You’re not trying to climb the whole mountain. You’re just trying to tie your shoes.

Here’s how I use it. I didn’t want to write today. My micro-action was: "Write one bad sentence." Just one. I didn’t need to feel inspired. I just had to write one sentence, and I could make it terrible. That was the whole task.

I haven’t wanted to exercise. My micro-action was: "Put on your workout clothes." Not to work out. Just to get dressed. That’s all.

We think we need a big push to get started. We don’t. We just need a tiny nudge.

The magic is this: Starting is the hardest part. A micro-action makes starting easy. Once you start, it’s easier to keep going.

When I wrote one sentence, I often wrote another. When I put on my workout clothes, I often thought, "Well, I might as well walk for five minutes."

You trick your brain into motion. You go from doing nothing to doing one tiny thing. That tiny thing creates a little bit of momentum. Momentum builds on itself.

Think of something you’re putting off right now. Now, make the first step tiny. Make it so small you can’t say no.

"Go to the gym" becomes "Put your shoes by the door."

"Cook dinner" becomes "Take the pan out of the cupboard."

"Call the client" becomes "Open your contacts list."

Don’t think about the whole task. Just do the tiny, first micro-action. We often fail because we try to do everything at once. Just do one small thing. The feeling of motivation will often find you after you’ve already begun.

3. Design Your Environment, Don’t Rely on Willpower

We think we need more of it. We say, "If I just had more willpower, I would do it." I’ve thought this so many times. I’ve felt bad when my willpower runs out.

But here’s the truth: willpower doesn’t last. It’s like a phone battery. It’s full in the morning. You use it all day. You use it to choose work over play, to be nice when you’re tired, to say no to treats. By evening, the battery is dead. You can’t expect it to work then.

So what do you do when your willpower is gone? You can’t just wait for it to charge back up. The answer is around you right now. It’s your environment.

Your environment is everything around you. The things you see. The things you can reach. We’re lazy in a way. We do what’s easy. We follow the path with no blocks. So you have to design that path.

Don’t fight yourself with willpower. Change what’s around you instead.

Make the good choice the easy choice.

Want to read more? Put your book on your pillow. You’ll see it at bedtime.

Want to play guitar? Leave it out in the open. Don’t put it in a closet.

Want to drink water? Fill a bottle and keep it right next to you.

Make the bad choice a little harder.

Want to watch less TV? Take the remote and put it in another room.

Want to eat less junk food? Don’t buy it. If it’s not in your house, you can’t eat it.

Want to scroll less on your phone? Charge it in the kitchen at night, not by your bed.

I did this. I kept eating cookies late at night. I’d tell myself to stop, but I always gave in. My willpower was tired. So I changed my environment. I stopped buying the cookies. Now, I can’t eat them. It’s that simple.

Look at your space. Is it helping you or hurting you? Are your workout clothes in a drawer, or are they sitting out where you see them? Is your phone the first thing you touch in the morning?

We think the battle is inside us. It isn’t. The battle is against a world set up for us to fail. Change the world around you, just a little. Don’t try to be a hero with endless willpower. Be a designer. Build a world where the right thing is the easiest thing to do. Then you don’t need to feel motivated. You just need to follow the path you built.

4. The Power of “When-Then” Planning

Let me tell you about one of the simplest tricks I know. It works because it takes the thinking out of doing. Most of our trouble comes at the moment of decision. Your brain asks, "Should I do this now?" And in that second, it’s easy to say "no."

The fix is to make the decision before that moment ever comes. You do this with something called "When-Then" planning. It’s like giving your future self a clear instruction manual.

Here’s how it works. You make a rule for yourself. You say: WHEN [this happens], THEN I will [do this].

You’re not deciding if. You’re deciding when and what. You’re telling yourself exactly what to do ahead of time. When the moment arrives, you don’t have to think or feel motivated. You just follow your own rule.

Let me give you examples from my life:

WHEN my alarm goes off, THEN I will sit up and put my feet on the floor.

WHEN I sit at my desk after lunch, THEN I will work on my main task for 20 minutes.

WHEN I feel stressed and want to scroll on my phone, THEN I will stand up and stretch for one minute first.

WHEN it is 8 PM, THEN I will put my phone on the charger in the kitchen.

Do you see it? The "When" is the trigger. The "Then" is your automatic move. It’s a tiny program you install in your brain.

We fail because we trust ourselves to make good choices in hard moments. But we’re tired, distracted, or weak in those moments. A "When-Then" plan is a promise you make to yourself when you are strong. It’s you helping your future self.

You don’t need willpower. You just need to follow the plan you already made. Try it right now. Think of one thing you struggle with. Now, make a "When-Then" rule for it.

When [this specific thing happens]...
Then I will [do this specific, tiny action].

Write it down. Say it out loud. You’re no longer waiting to feel ready. You have a plan. All you have to do is follow it.

5. Embrace the Ugly First Draft

Let’s talk about the thing that stops us most often. It’s not being lazy. It’s wanting to be perfect. I have done this my whole life. I want the first thing I make to be good. So good, in fact, that I often make nothing at all.

You know the feeling. You want to start something new. But you picture the perfect result in your head. You see the finished, polished thing. Then you look at your first step and think, “This will never be that good.” So you stop before you begin.

We have to let that go. We must make peace with starting ugly.

Think of it this way: nothing great is born perfect. A beautiful painting starts as rough sketches. A strong building starts as a messy blueprint. A great story starts as a terrible first draft. Your job is not to make the final product on your first try. Your job is to make the first version. The only rule is that it has to exist.

I call this the "Ugly First Draft." It is your friend. It sets you free.

Here’s how I use it:

If I need to write, I tell myself, “Just write a bad page.” I give myself permission for it to be the worst thing ever written. I can fix it later, but I can’t fix a blank page.

If you need to work out, don’t try for a perfect routine. Just move for ten minutes. Let it be clumsy. Let you be slow. Doing it poorly is infinitely better than not doing it.

If we need to start a project, we must make the first, roughest sketch. We list every idea, even the stupid ones. We create something to work on.

Why does this work? It silences the critic in your head. That critic wants everything to be good right away. When you aim for an ugly first draft, you tell the critic, “Not now. Right now, I’m just creating.” You separate the act of making from the act of fixing.

Your first try is just for you. It is not for show. It is your raw material. You can’t shape thin air. You need clay on the wheel. An ugly first draft is your clay.

So please, try this. The next time you are stuck, aim for bad. Aim for messy. Aim for “done” instead of “perfect.” Get the ugly thing out of your head and into the world. You will find it is much easier to make something good from something ugly, than to make something good from nothing at all.

Wrapping It Up

So, here we are. We started by saying motivation is a myth. I hope now you see what I mean. It’s not that the feeling doesn’t exist. It’s that we get the order wrong.

We think it works like this: First we feel motivated, then we act.
But it really works like this: First we act, even a tiny bit, then we feel motivated.

The feeling comes after the action. It is a reward, not a requirement.

Let’s look at what we covered. This is your new way to get things done.

First, we quit The Waiting Game. You and I must stop waiting to feel ready. Feelings are poor guides. We can act even when we don’t feel like it.

To do that, we use Micro-Actions. When a task is too big, make the first step tiny. You don’t clean the whole room. You pick up one sock. I don’t write a whole chapter. I write one sentence. This is how you break the spell of doing nothing.

Next, we stop fighting ourselves. We Design Our Environment. Willpower runs out. So make the right thing easy to do. Put your workout clothes where you see them. Make the wrong thing harder to do. Put the remote control in a drawer. You work with your world, not against it.

Then, we make decisions easy with “When-Then” Planning. Don’t decide in the moment when you are tired. Decide ahead of time. Say, “WHEN my alarm rings, THEN I will get up.” It is a simple rule. You just follow it.

Last, we make peace with being messy. We Embrace the Ugly First Draft. Nothing is perfect the first time. Your first try is just for you. Let it be bad. Let it be wrong. A bad draft can be fixed. A blank page cannot.

This is your new path. It is not about magic feelings. It is about simple steps.

You don’t need to find motivation. You need to create it by moving. Start small. Change your space. Make a plan. Let it be ugly.

I want you to try it. Pick one thing. Just one. Use this blueprint. Do a micro-action. See what happens.

The power was never in waiting for a spark. The power is in your willingness to strike the first match, even in the dark.