Episode 106 - Listen To This If… You’re searching for motivation

Transcript

Jen (00:00:11)

Hello, hello. And welcome to another episode of Listen to This If…., one of my very favourite places to be, where Michael and I, the team from Let's Talk SciComm try and condense our top tips on a particular problem into a very short amount of time. For people who like to talk, five minutes is very short.

So Michael, today I'd like to hear your top tip please for what you do when you are searching for motivation and it is not forthcoming.

Michael (00:00:39)

I know, it's terrible isn't it? I feel like we all have some experience with this. Look, the thing that I would say is it's kind of like you know, when you lose your sunglasses. You know, if you search for them, you're you know, you're never going to find them. You have to, you know, do some other actions and they'll, you know, magically appear. Maybe that's not a good analogy.

What I'm trying to say is you will never find motivation by searching for it. You get motivation by making a start. And the important thing is you have to make a start on that task that you don't have motivation to do. You have to be comfortable with starting before you feel ready.

Jen (00:01:22)

Yeah.

Michael (00:01:23)

I think that's what it comes down to because if you, if you're always waiting to feel ready before you start a task, then you will never start.

So... and then maybe make that start something fun as well, you know. Maybe you can be a little bit creative and playful in how you begin that task.

For example, you know, you're going to start off by doing the task, walking in the park. I don't know, is there some aspect of it that you could do while you're going for a walk. You know, maybe recording some voice notes. Or you know, having a, having a bit of a think, you know. Yeah. Be a little bit creative there. It doesn't have to be boring.

So I think that's probably my, my main tips. Make a start. Then the motivation will come. And if that first thing that you do is fun and enjoyable, you'll probably be more likely to want to continue doing it because you had a first, you know, good experience.

Jen (00:02:24)

Yeah. I think that's... you've just absolutely nailed it, Michael. And I think anyone who's had this realisation, this lightning bulb moment will agree with us that the thing to know is that motivation follows action. It's remarkable how unmotivated you can feel about something until you just take even one really small step towards working on it.

And all of a sudden that momentum builds and you suddenly feel this sense of agency and you don't feel like such a lousy, useless procrastinator anymore. All of a sudden you feel like someone who's capable of going out and slaying that dragon. And all of a sudden you feel motivated and, and it builds, you know. Like you end up kind of with this great momentum and you get on a roll and suddenly you're, you really are achieving things. So yeah, motivation follows action.

You know I have lots of post-it notes around my monitor. That is one of them. Motivation follows action.

And I guess the other tip I would use is to play the five why game, which we probably don't have time to demonstrate, Michael. But anyone who's seen this done will know it's really useful.

So whatever the thing is that you need to do that you're not feeling motivated for, ask yourself, why am I doing this? And your first answer [will] probably be something fairly superficial, like Well, you know, I need to, I need to do this assignment so I can pass the subject or whatever.

And then you ask a second why. And as you go through the five whys, you, you get deeper and deeper into your motivation for why you want to do this. And I think for a lot of people, when it comes to doing tasks that maybe aren't that much fun, it's an assessment task, it's writing something. You know, whatever it is.

At the very bottom level of the why is usually something along the lines of because I want to make a contribution in my one precious life. I want to do something useful. I want to make a difference to people or the planet. I want to... You know, I really want to do something that I believe is valuable with my life. And if you can tap into that level of motivation, then often it becomes much easier to start the thing, to do the thing.

So the five whys, I have found a very useful tool, you know, in the past. 'Cause the superficial why is often not very motivating at all. But the deeper why is often something that makes you feel quite fired up. And yes! This is something that I want to do with my time.

Michael (00:04:43)

Yeah, so important. I think we can definitely get caught up in the weeds of the, you know, the day-to-day activities and day-to-day tasks.

But yeah, taking that step back and thinking, you know, what does this mean in the bigger picture? And trying to tap into that motivation is really important so...

Yeah, I'm feeling motivated.

Jen (00:05:00)

Yeah, so if you've never... If you've never heard of the five whys, you can look them up. And there's just a sequence of you know, my answer to the first why is this, but why do you want to do that? My answer to the second why is this. Why is it that you want to do that?

And you just kind of yeah, get deeper and deeper. So yeah, let's go slay some dragons, Michael. Let's go do some tasks now that we are motivated.

Michael (00:05:20)

Ooh, yeah! Good luck.

Michael (00:05:20)

Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed the episode and a huge thanks to our production team, Steven Tang and Madeleine Kelly.

That's it for this week. See ya.