Friday, Mar 4, 2022 • 27min
10 Ways to Get Things Done Even When You Don't Feel Like It
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There are times when you’re full of energy that you get to be productive and efficient throughout the day. There are also times when you feel drained, exhausted, and unproductive, you just want to scroll through your phone, do nothing at all, or just sleep it off. During days like this, how can you find the motivation to stand up and do something worthwhile and productive? How can you push through despite not feeling like it?
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Jay Shetty
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Jay Shetty
00:32
We don't plan for the voice in our head, we go, okay, I've made this commitment. I've decided J that I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow. I've decided that I'm going to work on my book for four hours. I've decided I'm going to start a podcast, and we think when we make that decision, there's going to be no opposition. But every decision you make will have opposition in your head. You wake up early, the voice says, go back to bed.
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00:58
Hey everyone, welcome back to on purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now, we've been having an incredible number of lessons right now, and that is thanks to each and every single one of you.
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01:22
It means the world to me and I wanted to take a moment to read your reviews again when you leave a review, please leave your name because I want to say, I want to shout you out, and then I want you to come up to me one day and be like, "Jay that was my review," and then I'll give you a big hug, and it would just be amazing.
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01:37
This is from LG, "Jay, you're such a young, refreshing voice of wisdom. Thank you for your positive messages and teachings in such a way that I can pass along to my young adult kids. They love you too. Thank you, LG". LG, I appreciate you, and I'm so grateful for you.
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01:55
This is from Rochelle. "I tried to listen every day, this is the best podcast I've ever come across. Thank you, Jay, for all your thoughtfulness and attention to details. You have not only helped myself, but also my husband, we typically listen to episodes separately and then discuss them together of what we learned."
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02:17
That is such a great idea, by the way, "I have your book, and I'm reading it now. I take it with me through the day, and even looking at the cover makes me stop and be a little more present. The meditations you've done on
YouTube
have been incredible. Thank you for making those."Share
02:31
By the way, check out the ones on Cham, calm. com/jay. Thank you for being you, Rochelle. I really, really appreciate these, amazing, amazing messages. Thank you so much. I'm going to find one more. I'm literally scrolling through the app right now. This is Felicity, this is special.
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02:47
"Been listening since 2019 when I was fresh out of college and didn't know my place in this world, you helped see a different perspective of life. I continue to listen and grow into a completely different person who's always trying to express love and compassion wherever I go. Thank you, Jay, keep making this killer podcast and I will continue to thrive." Felicity, thank you so much.
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03:11
Those are just three of the incredible messages and reviews that I've seen recently. Please keep leaving them. I do read them myself, I do love sharing them. We're at 17,300 reviews. I would love to go to 20,000 this year. It helps podcasts so much.
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03:28
So I want to dive straight into today's topic because this came from a question, and I've thought about this again and again and again. Someone asked me recently, "Jay, what's the most important skill you have, or what's the most important skill you think the people that you respect have?" And I spent a lot of time thinking about it, I was like is it meditation? Is it knowing how to set goals? Is it being resilient? Is it having motivation?
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03:57
Like, I was trying to figure out what it was and the honest answer that keeps coming up again and again and again, is that this skill is to get something done even when you don't feel like it. This is the number one skill to get something done to do something to make it happen, even when you don't feel like it.
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04:25
Because you're not always going to feel like it. People think when you do something you love, you always want to do it. We think that we should always want to feel like doing things, but our feelings are not always aligned with who we want to be or how we want to feel.
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04:45
I'll give you an example of what I mean by that, chances are that you don't always feel like doing the things that are good for you, chances are you don't feel like doing the things you need to do, but we all know that when we do them, we feel better about ourselves.
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05:02
We know when we do them, we create a stronger sense of confidence and identity. I never felt like going to public speaking classes or drama classes that my parents forced me to go to. Today, I am so grateful to them. I never felt like doing my homework and learning in the evenings, but today I'm so grateful to my parents for making me do that.
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05:26
I don't think I ever felt like going to work, but by going to work, I was able to learn how to share meditation in those spaces. I don't think I ever felt like moving country or moving city or moving state, but when I did, it expanded my vision. So many of the most amazing things, not just in my life, but in the lives of the people, you admire, the people, you respect, the people you look up to, they did things they didn't feel like.
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05:57
So let's dive into what are the ways to get something done, even when you don't feel like it, because you have this idea that I should feel motivated. I get that question a lot. "Jay, how do I feel motivated?" It's like I want to feel motivated before I do something. I want to feel inspired before I do something. And the thing about motivation and inspiration is you can keep filling your life with those to try and do something, but you're not always going to be motivated.
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06:25
I'll give you an example, comedians don't always want to tell jokes. Therapists don't always want to listen. Basketball players don't always want to play. Everyone has to do their job, even when they don't feel like it, and that includes us. But today I want to share with you the ways to make it powerful and potent in a way that will change your life.
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06:52
The first thing I want to talk to you about is intrinsic versus extrinsic motivators. So extrinsic motivators are like, I'm doing this because it will help me buy that house. I'm doing this because it will help me get that car.
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07:07
I'm doing this because it helps me go on vacation every year. These are extrinsic motivators. It's tied to an external tangible thing that you want to get. And that's where motivation runs out. That's where inspiration runs out. That's where we stop wanting to feel like we want to do it because we go, well, maybe I don't need that.
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07:28
Maybe I don't want that. Now, studies show that intrinsic motivation leads to greater persistence. This study by
Adam Grant
talks about how pro social motivation is essentially being motivated by a desire to protect or promote other people's well-being without seeking to gain any personal benefits. When intrinsic motivation is high, does it have any impact on pro social motivation and persistence as a result?Share
07:59
Adam Grant
study again, another on purpose guest we've had, suggests it does by acting to strengthen the relationship between the two in the research, firefighters who reported high levels of both pro social and intrinsic motivation then went on to demonstrate greater persistence By subsequently working considerably more overtime hours per week over a two-month period.Share
08:24
The desire to help others had resulted in increased effort and increased levels of persistent. That's an intrinsic motivator. So I know that my podcast serves you, it helps you. So there are days or weeks when I'm tired when I am thinking I don't have that much time. But I know that I'm going to prepare, I'm going to research. I'm going to get my notes ready, and I'm going to do this because I know you're waiting on the other side, I know that you're expecting this now.
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08:56
If I was really tired, I'd be honest with you and say, "Hey guys, I'm tired, I'm not sure, but I just want to be here with you, right? I just want to be present with you. I would always be honest with you, but I like showing up for that reason.
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09:10
There's a 2012 study from Cho and Perry that showed that intrinsic motives have three times the impact on employee engagement levels compared to extrinsic motives. The research found that intrinsic motivation was positively associated with employee satisfaction and unsurprisingly was negatively associated with the intention to leave, right?
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09:34
So, the idea of intrinsic motivation is shown across the board, no matter what area of life we are in now, they also linked intrinsic motivation to learning. One of the findings in
Grand Valley State University
identified that these kinds of external motivators can actually slow learning down and lead to students making more errors during the learning process.Share
09:59
What really matters is the level of intrinsic motivation and how much the student wants to learn. If the students learning because it's fulfilling them, and it's enjoyable rather than because they're fixated on getting high grades.
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10:13
So, I ask you this today, when you don't want to do something, is it because the external reward is not good enough? And you may be one of those people. I have a lot of people in my life. He said, I'm not ambitious, I don't want more money. I don't want a bigger house. I'm happy with what I have.
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10:30
Sure, but we still have to get joy from what we do, we still have to experience it now. But how do we get things done when we don't feel like it, we remind ourselves of that intrinsic motivator. Why are you doing it? What is the reason you're doing it? Why are you here right now? Why are you turning up? Make it about that intrinsic motivation
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10:53
The second way to get everything done, even when you don't feel like it, is everything must be in your schedule. If you don't have a plan, you don't have an approach. It's easy to miss the stuff you don't feel like when I wake up and look at my schedule in the morning, it already has everything I have to do today.
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11:11
And when I look at everything I have to do today, I know that I will get it done because it's in my calendar, it's properly planned out. But if I didn't have it, then I might miss the stuff I don't feel like, and that's what we do, we avoid the stuff we don't feel like doing, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
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11:28
It gets harder and harder and harder. And then by the time you get to it, you know, you're saying to yourself, why did I do this to myself, right? Like, why did I put myself in this position? Why did I start earlier schedule?
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11:42
Put it in your calendar, break it down. Stop putting things off because you don't feel like doing them because when you don't feel like doing something, it's going to feel a lot harder in the long run to actually do it. Make a plan, put it in your schedule, commit to it and prepare everything the night before. I know the night before, when I'm recording my podcast, that my record and my microphone are already here on my desk.
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12:09
So I don't have to think, "Oh, I need to go and get it from somewhere." It's like, you know what it's like, it's like when you want to watch TV and then the remote on the other side of the room, and you're like, "Oh it's all the way on the other side, right?"
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12:20
Or my charger, "Oh no, it's in the bedroom, I'm not going to get it." Make it easy for yourself, make it simple for yourself. I leave a book in every room that I spend time in so that in a spare moment instead of jumping on my phone, I'll jump to a book. I keep my workout clothes ready the night before.
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12:38
So that when I wake up in the morning, it's not a long process to convince myself to put them on and go to the gym. I create the mic right on my desk right now where I am recording this because I want to make it easy for myself, schedule it, planet and make it really, really practical.
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12:54
This third one is probably a huge one, it's a big one, actually. It's a really important one for me because I spent a lot of my monk life doing this. Plan for the voice in your head. We don't plan for the voice in our head.
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13:08
We go, "Okay, I've made this commitment. I've decided Jay, then I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow. I've decided that I'm going to work on my book for four hours. I've decided I'm going to start a podcast." And we think when we make that decision, there's going to be no opposition. We think when we made that decision, there will be no resistance. But every decision you make will have opposition in your head.
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13:35
You wake up early, the voice says, go back to bed. You're trying to eat healthy, the voice says it's okay, a little bit, won't hurt. You're trying to start something, a new habit, a new focus, the voice says, just relax, calm down, who cares?
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13:56
And when we hear that voice, we either follow it, we resent it. We get mad at ourselves. We judge ourselves, we become critical of ourselves. Why can't I just do this? What's wrong with me, or we follow it, and then we regret it. And we said, "Oh, I wish I didn't follow it. I knew I shouldn't have, okay, let me go back, never again will I ever eat unhealthy food ever again."
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14:18
How do we get things done even when we don't feel like it? We plan for the voice in our head because it's the voice that doesn't feel like it's not us, we know it's important, you know, it's important to read more to work out more to eat healthier, you know, it's important to serve more, to help people, you know, it's important to overcome your ego, you know, it's important to not fight over little things, but then why does the voice in our head mislead us?
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14:47
Here's why? Because we don't create an alternative script to communicate and converse eight with that voice. When that voice becomes strong, our voice becomes weak. When the volume on that Voice turns loud, the volume on our voice goes weak because we don't have a script.
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15:10
So one thing I did when I lived as a monk is that for every emotion I felt, which is something I didn't want to feel, like the idea of pride or ego or the idea of arrogance. I created a script when the voice in my head would start saying, "Don't wake up for today's meditation, you are okay to have a big ego."
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15:33
I would create a script that I would not only right out but that I would practice, I would even role play so that when that voice came up in my head I actually had a script to combat it with. So when my mind says, "You don't need to go to the gym," so how do I get something done when I don't feel like it, I don't feel like going to the gym, that's the voice in my head.
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15:52
But my script says, "You always feel amazing when you leave." My script says, "You want to be fit and healthy to serve." My script says, "If you don't work out today, you'll regret it tomorrow." My script says you deeply enjoy being a healthy-focused individual. "My script says," You're able to do better mental work when you've done a physical workout ".
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16:17
Notice how if you have all those arguments ready, it's almost like planning for a debate. If you deeply understand your weaknesses, you can create strength in your debate and now when you hear that voice, you already know how to talk to yourself, so you don't just listen to it.
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16:35
So how do you get things done, even when you don't feel like it, you have a script to talk to that voice that doesn't feel like it because it's not you, that doesn't feel like it's that voice and that voice has been built on conditioning and patterns. And the human laziness and complacency to say of course I'd rather sit around all day.
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16:56
But if I just sit in bed all day because I don't feel like getting up, chances are I don't feel better later on. That's the interesting thing, right? The mind tricks us, the voice tricks us, it says, "Don't get out of bed, you don't feel great."
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17:09
But then if you spend your whole day in bed, you don't feel great either. So we have to learn, not always, to trust how we feel in an instance, right? And I'm not telling you to not trust your feelings, but you can't trust how you feel in a millisecond of a moment and expand that feeling out.
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17:29
Number four is pushed through and measure how you feel after, not before. Focus on the feelings after. Now, this is a memory thing. The mind holds onto negative memories and negative experiences stronger than positive ones. This is why it's so important to take a mental picture, a physical picture and journal about positive experiences.
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17:54
So when I come back from the gym, I will write out why it was an amazing decision. I may tell my friend that I went, I'm a tell Rowdy to remind me that I loved it. Like I'll come home and say Rowdy tell me that I loved the gym. Journal, journal, journal. When you have a positive experience.
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18:13
Look how long your Journal entries are. And when you have a negative experience or a challenge. Look how long your journal entries are. I promise you your Journal when you negative experience are longer than when you have a positive one. It's fascinating, isn't it, that we do that to ourselves.
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18:31
So what I encourage you to do is journal about positive experiences. Take pictures, take mental pictures, honored them, share them, talk about them. Imagine you missed a flight last week, you tell everyone about it, but if the flight was on time, you wouldn't tell anyone about it. If last week you unfortunately got caught in an accident, you tell everyone about it, but if you had a beautiful drive, you don't tell that many people about it.
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18:56
Why is it that we tell people about things when they go wrong versus when they go right. Studies from very well mind show that as humans, we tend to remember traumatic experience better than positive ones, recall insults better than praise.
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19:11
We think about negative things more frequently than positive things, right? Now, research says that negativity bias starts to emerge in infancy. Very young infants tend to pay greater attention to positive facial expression and tone of voice, but this begins to shift as they near one year of age.
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19:32
Brain studies indicate that around this time, babies begin to experience greater brain responses to negative stimuli. This suggests that the brain's negative bias emerges during the latter half of a child's first year of life. There is some evidence that the bias may actually start even earlier in development.
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19:54
One study found that infants as young as three months old show signs of negativity bias when making social evaluations of others. So what we have to do is we have to make our positive experiences more powerfully memorable, or we have to create stories through the challenging experiences of what we learned from that scenario or at least learn to laugh at.
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20:23
So those are two ways of overcoming this area. How do you get things done when you don't feel like it? Well, you pushed through because you remind yourself of how things felt after you did them because you deepen your understanding of it being beneficial for you. But we have to make that memory imprint stronger because our negativity bias is so high.
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Break
Jay Shetty
22:08
Now step number five is, see how it fits into the bigger picture, constantly zoom out, right? When you look at the thing for what it is, when you zoom in, you may not feel like it, but when you zoom out, you realize, "Oh, I totally get it."
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22:22
There are so many times when I get asked to do something last minute, or I have to work late, or I have to work a weekend and if you ask me do I want to work a weekend. The truth is I don't want to, I don't feel like it, but when I zoom out, and I think wait a minute, this connects perfectly with what I'm trying to do next month and actually this is going to be so synergistic, oh this is amazing, I should definitely do it, right? So when you zoom out, you get to check in with perspective now. If you zoom out and there's nothing there either, that's fine.
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22:50
I'm not telling you to only do things in life that you don't feel like. What I'm saying is that sometimes your feelings mislead you, sometimes your feelings distract you from what you really want and who you want to be. Because if you follow your feelings, you may never learn any of the lessons that are useful.
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23:10
Now, the next step is create accountability, do it with someone as a peer or ahead in your journey. I find this to be the biggest, easiest one that I think we're missing out on. Accountability partners are everything, finding someone to do something with, finding a coach, a mentor, someone slightly ahead on the journey to commit to, having a commitment to show up. I would cancel going to the gym every day if I was doing on my own.
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23:34
But because I'm doing it with my trainer, I have to turn up because you're doing it with a friend, you have to turn up. This is the simplest fix to anyone who's saying, I don't want to do something, find someone to do it with and commit to them. And ideally someone who's a little ahead on the journey than you.
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23:51
Number seven: Give yourself a reward. Mine is always a break. I find my favorite reward for working hard is taking a break. That break could mean going to a spa, it could be going on a walk, it could be being outdoors in nature could be doing nothing, it could be taking myself out for brunch, it could be just being with myself is my reward to myself for doing things even when I don't feel like.
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24:19
If I had a whole week of doing a lot of things, even when I don't feel like it, I will give myself a full break that weekend and that reward for me is so motivating that by Monday, I'm ready to go at it again.
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24:34
What I'm trying to help you understand here is that even I have days where I do things, even when I don't feel like it, that doesn't mean I don't love what I do. It doesn't mean that I don't deeply appreciate what I do, and I'll get to that. What it means is that you're not going to be able to control how you feel every day, but you can control what you focus on so that you feel better at the end of every day.
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24:57
If you follow your feelings at the beginning of your day, you may not actually feel better. You will probably feel worse, but if you ignore your feelings at the beginning of the day, you might actually do the things that bring you great joy.
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25:10
Number eight is obviously if you're trying to get something done constantly, you never feel like it, sure, outsource it, right? If you never feel like doing something usually in our life, what it is sometimes we feel like, and sometimes we don't. It's rarely that it's completely extremes, but if you don't feel like doing something ever, yes, we should get rid of that in our life, right? If you never ever feel like doing something, we should remove that from our lives if we can.
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25:38
Now the last two principles, number nine remember how it was when you couldn't do this or didn't have the opportunity, remind yourself what that was like have gratitude. This one is huge for me.
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25:50
Today, there are so many opportunities come my way that I would have begged for in the past. And it's so easy to get complacent, it's so easy to think, "Oh, I don't want to do this anymore." But gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. I promise you some of the stuff you don't feel like doing today, that job, you don't feel like going to the person you don't feel like connecting with, there was a time when that was really important to you.
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26:15
And that doesn't mean that you have to stay there. But it doesn't mean we have to have a sense of gratitude because if we can't be grateful for a dream, we used to have, we won't be grateful when we reach the next dream. That's what we don't realize.
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26:26
If you're not grateful for the dream, you used to have that you have now this next dream won't satisfy you either, so practice gratitude. How do you get something done? Even when you don't feel like it, you feel grateful for the opportunity, you feel grateful that you even get to do that. You feel grateful that that has even come across your way. Gratitude is huge in this area.
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26:49
And number ten, one of my personal favorites, "Create an announcement," an external announcement, you're gonna do something. I'm going to write a book and launched by this date. I'm going to record and upload one episode of my podcast every day, announced it on social media, tell people.
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27:05
They're expecting it. Now, I'm going to post once a day every day, and every day in the person I'm gonna put day one of 100, day two of 100, day three of 100. Taking an announcement, making a moment out of it, creates a commitment. And that commitment drives you because you have promised people something, create a promise to your community, your audience, your friends and show up for them.
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27:29
I want to thank you all for listening to this episode. I'm so grateful that you made time for this, and remember that having bad thoughts is not bad. Having bad feelings is not bad. Nothing is bad. But what's better and what's healthy is that you find a way to get things done even when you don't feel like it because when they're done, you'll feel better for it. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. I'm so grateful you joining me today, and thank you for being in the On Purpose Community. I look forward to meeting you one day.
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