Motivation for the Unmotivated-Chapter 1

Release Self-Doubt, Build Mental Toughness and Cultivate a Positive Mindset

For years, I waited for motivation to strike like a bolt of lightning—some magical force that would propel me into action, erase my self-doubt and make success effortless. Spoiler alert: it never came. Instead, I found myself stuck in a cycle of hesitation, frustration and the exhausting belief that I needed to feel motivated before I could act.

It wasn’t until I hit a breaking point—a moment of sheer stagnation—that I realized I had it all backward. Motivation isn’t the spark that starts the fire; action is. Every small step forward, even when fuelled by nothing but stubborn discipline, builds momentum. The mental toughness grew and what once felt like an impossible grind became a series of intentional choices that reshaped my mindset.

It took me four years to write and publish my first book, four years of waiting for some kind of motivation to show up. I woke up one morning and spoke to myself. I asked the question, for how long will this continue? Will I move forward with this kind of attitude? What followed after this soul searching was a complete transformation. I realised that I didn’t had to wait for motivation, I needed to act first, then motivation would follow.

I did just that. I wish I acted four years earlier. I set myself a target of writing one page a day. Since publishing that first book last year, I have gone on to publish over 40 books whilst juggling with a demanding full time job. I cannot believe it, but that’s what happens when you decide to start even in the absence of motivation. It is possible and it is liberating. Those small, tiny actions add up. They’re the building blocks to something incredible.

This book is for anyone who’s ever felt paralyzed by inertia, convinced they’re "just not motivated enough." It’s a roadmap to dismantling self-doubt, forging resilience and rewiring your brain to embrace progress over perfection. You don’t need to wait for motivation—you just need to start.

I’m sharing these insights because I know how isolating it feels to struggle with motivation, to question your own potential and to wonder why everyone else seems to have it figured out. This book isn’t just theory—it’s the hard-won lessons from my own journey, packed with actionable strategies to help you break free from mental blocks and take control of your progress.

Whether you’re stuck in your career, fitness or personal growth, this book is designed to meet you where you are and push you forward.

Motivation for the Unmotivated will soon be available on Amazon website in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia market places.

This week, I will share excerpts of Chapter 1 & Chapter 2

CHAPTER 1: THE MYTH OF MOTIVATION

The Waiting Game We All Lose

The alarm blares at 5:30 AM. You set it last night with grand intentions; today would be the day you finally start that morning workout routine but as consciousness creeps in, so does that familiar voice: "Just five more minutes... you're too tired... you can start tomorrow when you feel more motivated."

Does that sound familiar?

We've all been there, waiting for that perfect wave of inspiration to wash over us before taking action. Waiting to "feel like it" before starting the project, making the call or lacing up those running shoes. It's as if motivation is some mystical force that visits only the lucky few, leaving the rest of us waiting and waiting and waiting.

This is called the motivation myth; the deeply ingrained belief that motivation must precede action. That we need to feel inspired before we begin. That the successful among us somehow possess an innate wellspring of motivation that the rest of us lack.

I'm here to tell you that it is completely untrue.

As someone who spent years of my life paralyzed by this very myth, I've learned through both painful experiences and extensive research that we've been thinking about motivation entirely backward. What’s the truth? Action comes first. Motivation follows.

This single insight changed everything for me and it can do the same for you.

The Neurochemistry of Motivation: Why Waiting Doesn't Work

Before we dive into solutions, let's understand why the "wait for motivation" approach is scientifically doomed to fail.

Our brains are wired for conservation, saving energy whenever possible. This was brilliant evolutionary design when our ancestors needed to conserve calories for survival. Today, it means our default setting is resistance to unnecessary effort.

Dr. Robert Sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University, explains that our brains are constantly performing cost-benefit analyses. When we contemplate taking action especially something challenging or uncomfortable, our prefrontal cortex (the rational, planning part of our brain) battles with our limbic system (the emotional, comfort-seeking part).

The limbic system often wins this battle by flooding us with doubt, excuses and the desire to procrastinate. It's not personal; it's just your brain doing what it’s evolved to do, protect you from unnecessary exertion.

This explains why waiting for motivation rarely works. You're essentially waiting for your brain to spontaneously override its own energy-conservation programming. Good luck with that.

The real magic happens when we flip the script.

When you take action first, even small imperfect action, your brain chemistry actually changes. Movement triggers the release of dopamine, endorphins and other neurochemicals that create feelings of accomplishment and yes, motivation.

This isn't just theory. A 2018 study found that physical movement improved motivation and cognitive function, suggesting that action literally creates the neurological conditions for motivation to flourish.

The J.K. Rowling Effect: Creating Magic Through Action

Few stories illustrate the "action first" principle better than that of J.K. Rowling during the creation of Harry Potter.

Picture this: Edinburgh, Scotland, in the early 1990s. A young single mother sits in a café with her baby daughter sleeping beside her. She's clinically depressed, recently divorced, living on welfare and by her own description, "as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless."

This woman had every reason to wait for "better days" before pursuing her dream of writing a novel. Every reason to say, "I'll start when I feel more motivated, when my circumstances improve."

Instead, J.K. Rowling did something remarkable, she wrote anyway.

"It was enormously liberating to think that I had one thing that I could do even at my lowest point," Rowling later reflected. "I had my daughter and I had my imagination and that was it."

She didn't wait for inspiration to strike. On many days, she felt anything but motivated. Yet she showed up at that café whenever her daughter fell asleep, pulled out her notebook and wrote. One page became two. Two became a chapter and eventually, those chapters became "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", the first book in what would become one of the most successful series in literary history.

What's particularly fascinating about Rowling's story is how her motivation grew through action. In interviews, she's described how the act of writing, of making progress, however small became its own reward. The more she wrote, the more she wanted to write. The motivation didn't precede the action; it emerged from it.

"Sometimes you have to get your writing done in spare moments here and there," she once said. This wasn't the romantic vision of an author struck by divine inspiration. This was someone who understood, perhaps instinctively, that waiting for motivation was a luxury she couldn't afford.

The result; A woman once on government assistance became a billionaire author whose work has touched hundreds of millions of lives.

The Universal Pattern: From Depression to Creation

Rowling's experience isn't an anomaly. History is filled with examples of individuals who created their greatest work not during periods of peak motivation, but often during their darkest hours.

Vincent van Gogh created his most prolific and now celebrated works while battling severe depression and mental illness. He didn't wait to "feel artistic"; he painted as therapy, as necessity, as action against his demons.

Abraham Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation while suffering from what many historians believe was clinical depression. He didn't wait until he felt presidential enough, he acted because the moment demanded action.

Maya Angelou wrote through tremendous personal trauma and struggle. "I try to live what I consider a poetic existence," she once said. "That doesn't mean I have to live a poetic life. I just mean that I can find the extraordinary in ordinary things."

These individuals didn't succeed because they were blessed with extraordinary motivation. They succeeded because they took action despite its absence and through that action, they discovered something powerful; motivation isn't the precursor to success, it's the product of it.

The 5-Second Rule: The Bridge Between Inaction and Action

So, if we know intellectually that action precedes motivation, why do we still struggle to get started? Because knowing something and implementing it are two very different challenges.

This is where Mel Robbins' "5-Second Rule" comes in, one of the simplest yet most powerful tools I've encountered for breaking the paralysis of waiting for motivation.

The premise is deceptively simple: When you feel yourself hesitating before an important action, count backward from 5: 5-4-3-2-1, then move physically before your brain can stop you.

Why does this work? Robbins developed this technique based on both personal experience and scientific understanding of how our brains process hesitation. When we count backward, we engage our prefrontal cortex, the decision-making part of our brain, interrupting the habit loop of procrastination that our limbic system tries to initiate.

The physical movement that follows the countdown serves as a pattern interrupt, bypassing the brain's tendency to overthink and overanalyse. It's like a mental defibrillator that shocks you out of paralysis and into action.

Let me share how this worked in my own life. For years, I wanted to write a book about my experiences helping people overcome self-doubt. I had notes, ideas and even an outline but I kept waiting for that perfect moment when I'd feel "ready" and "motivated enough" to start the actual writing.

That moment never came.

Then I encountered the 5-Second Rule and decided to try it. The next morning, instead of checking email first thing (my usual procrastination technique), I counted: 5-4-3-2-1, then physically opened my laptop and document before my brain could object. I committed to writing for just 10 minutes.

Those 10 minutes became 30, which eventually became a daily writing habit. Six months later, I had a completed manuscript not because I suddenly became more motivated, but because I stopped waiting for motivation and started acting instead.

The beauty of the 5-Second Rule is its versatility. It works for:

• Getting out of bed when the alarm goes off

• Making that difficult phone call you've been avoiding

• Starting your workout when you'd rather stay on the couch

• Beginning a project that intimidates you

• Speaking up in a meeting when you have something to contribute

It's not magic, it's neuroscience applied in a practical way and it bridges the gap between knowing that action creates motivation and actually experiencing it first-hand.

The Action Triggers: Setting Yourself Up for Success

While the 5-Second Rule helps overcome momentary hesitation, we can go further by designing our environment to trigger automatic action. This approach, based on habit formation research by experts like BJ Fogg and James Clear, helps bypass the need for motivation altogether.

Implementation Intentions

One powerful technique is creating what psychologists call "implementation intentions", specific plans that follow an "if-then" format:

• "If it's 6:00 AM, then I put on my running shoes."

• "If I finish lunch, then I work on my most important project for 25 minutes."

• "If my alarm goes off, then I put both feet on the floor immediately."

A study published in the British Journal of Health Psychology found that participants who created implementation intentions for exercise were twice as likely to follow through compared to those who merely had good intentions.

Why? Simply because these specific triggers eliminate the decision point where motivation would typically be required. You're not deciding whether to run each morning, you've already decided. Now you're just following through on a pre-made decision.

Environment Design

Your physical environment can either facilitate action or hinder it. Consider these strategic adjustments:

• Reduce friction for desired behaviours: Sleep in your workout clothes if morning exercise is your goal. Keep your journal and pen on your nightstand if you want to write daily. Place a water bottle on your desk if you want to stay hydrated.

• Increase friction for unwanted behaviours: Put your phone in another room while working. Unplug the TV if you watch too much. Use website blockers during productive hours.

• Visual cues: Post your goals where you'll see them daily. Use progress trackers that create visual evidence of your consistency.

I worked with a client who wanted to play guitar daily but kept "forgetting" or "not feeling like it." What was the solution? We placed her guitar stand in the middle of her living room, directly in her path from the front door to the kitchen. The visual reminder combined with the physical need to move the guitar made it easier to just play for a few minutes than to avoid it. Within weeks, she was playing daily not because her motivation increased, but because the environment triggered action.

The Two-Minute Rule: Shrinking the Action Gap

Sometimes the biggest barrier to action isn't lack of motivation but the perceived size of the task ahead. This is where James Clear's "Two-Minute Rule" becomes invaluable.

The principle is simple: When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.

• "Read 30 books this year" becomes "Read one page."

• "Run a marathon" becomes "Put on my running shoes."

• "Write a book" becomes "Write one paragraph."

This approach works because:

1. It makes starting ridiculously easy, eliminating the need for motivation.

2. It focuses on the gateway behaviour that leads to the larger habit.

3. It recognizes that showing up is often the hardest part; once you've started, continuing is much easier.

Clear explains: "The point is not to do one push-up but to build the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved."

I've seen this work repeatedly with clients who were chronically "unmotivated." One woman wanted to establish a meditation practice but kept putting it off. When we reduced her goal to "sit on the meditation cushion for just two minutes," she finally began. Three months later, she was meditating 20 minutes daily not because we gradually increased the time requirement, but because once she started, she naturally wanted to continue.

The Two-Minute Rule works because it acknowledges a fundamental truth: the hardest part of any action is starting. By making the start absurdly small, you remove the need for motivation entirely.

The Motivation Feedback Loop: How Action Creates More Action

Once you begin taking consistent action even small actions, something remarkable happens. You enter what is called the "Motivation Feedback Loop," where action creates results, results create confidence, confidence creates enthusiasm and enthusiasm fuels more action.

This positive cycle explains why the most productive people rarely talk about motivation problems. It's not that they have more innate motivation; it's that they've been riding this feedback loop so long that motivation has become a by product of their process rather than a prerequisite.

Let's break down how this loop works:

1. Action → Results
Even small actions produce tangible outcomes. You write one paragraph and now you have one paragraph more than you had before. You do five push ups and your muscles have been engaged. These results might be modest, but they're real.

2. Results → Confidence
Seeing these results builds evidence that you can do what you set out to do. This evidence counters the self-doubt that often masquerades as "lack of motivation." Each small win is proof of your capability.

3. Confidence → Enthusiasm
As confidence grows, so does your enthusiasm for the activity. You begin to identify as "someone who writes" or "someone who exercises," and this identity shift generates authentic interest in continuing.

4. Enthusiasm → More Action
With increased enthusiasm comes a natural desire to take more action which starts the cycle again, but from a stronger position.

This explains why prolific creators often say they're most motivated when they're already in the middle of a project. The novelist Graham Greene famously wrote exactly 500 words every morning not because he always felt inspired, but because he knew that consistent action would generate its own momentum.

The Consistency Principle: Small Actions, Massive Results

One of the most powerful aspects of the "action first" approach is the compound effect of consistency. Small actions, performed regularly, yield exponentially greater results than occasional bursts of motivated effort.

Consider these examples:

• Writing 200 words daily produces a 73,000-word book in one year.

• Investing $100 monthly with average returns creates over $150,000 in 30 years.

• Improving any skill by just 1% daily makes you 37 times better in a year.

This math is straightforward, yet we consistently undervalue small actions because they don't provide immediate gratification. We want to feel the rush of motivation driving us to heroic efforts, rather than trusting the unsexy power of tiny, consistent steps.

Darren Hardy, author of "The Compound Effect," puts it perfectly: "It's not the big things that add up in the end; it's the hundreds, thousands or millions of little things that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary."

I worked with an aspiring author who complained of writer's block and lack of motivation. When I suggested writing just 300 words daily, about one page, he initially balked, feeling it was too insignificant to matter. Six months later, he had completed a 60,000-word manuscript without ever having a single day of extraordinary output. The consistency principle had worked its magic.

Redefining Motivation: From Feeling to Decision

Perhaps the most important mindset shift in overcoming the motivation myth is redefining what motivation actually is.

Most people think of motivation as a feeling, an emotional state characterized by energy and enthusiasm. By this definition, you're at the mercy of your emotional weather patterns, waiting for sunny skies of inspiration.

I propose a different definition: Motivation is a decision to act regardless of how you feel.

This reframing is powerful because:

1. It puts you in control rather than making you a passive recipient of motivational feelings.

2. It acknowledges that consistent achievers often act without emotional enthusiasm.

3. It recognizes that the feeling of motivation is usually the result of action, not its cause.

Olympic athletes don't always feel like training. Successful entrepreneurs don't always feel like tackling difficult business problems. Bestselling authors don't always feel like writing. What separates them from others is their decision to act anyway.

As author Steven Pressfield writes in "The War of Art": "The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like."

The Motivation Emergency Kit: When You Need It Most

While the core message of this chapter is that waiting for motivation is a losing strategy, there are times when you need an immediate boost to get moving. For those moments, here's your motivation emergency kit, five science-backed techniques to generate just enough momentum to take that first step:

1. The 10-Minute Promise
Commit to just 10 minutes of the activity you're avoiding. Tell yourself you can stop after that if you still don't want to continue. Research shows that once we start a task, the psychological burden of continuing is far less than the burden of starting. More often than not, you'll continue past the 10-minute mark.

2. The Dopamine Jumpstart
Create a quick win before tackling your main task. Clear a small item off your to-do list, organize your desk or complete any simple task that gives you an immediate sense of accomplishment. This triggers a dopamine release that can provide momentum for the bigger challenge ahead.

3. The Physical Reset
Change your physiological state through brief physical activity. Do 25 jumping jacks, run up and down stairs or stretch vigorously for 60 seconds. Research from the University of Georgia found that even a brief bout of low-intensity exercise can reduce fatigue and increase energy.

4. The Visualization Sprint
Spend 60 seconds vividly imagining how you'll feel after completing the task you're avoiding. Focus not on the process but on the relief, pride or satisfaction you'll experience. This activates reward centers in your brain similar to actually experiencing those positive emotions.

5. The Social Leverage
Text a friend that you're about to start the task you've been avoiding and promise to update them when you're done. This creates social accountability that can override your reluctance. A study from the American Society of Training and Development found that committing to someone else increases your chance of success by 65%.

Remember, these aren't substitutes for the fundamental principle that action precedes motivation, they're just tools to help you take that first critical step.

The Mindset Shift: Action Creates Motivation

As we conclude this chapter, let's crystallize the paradigm shift that can forever change your relationship with motivation:

Old belief: "I need to feel motivated before I take action."
New truth: "I need to take action to generate motivation."

This isn't just semantic wordplay, it's a complete reversal of how most people approach achievement and productivity but unlike many self-help concepts, this one is backed by both scientific research and countless real-world examples.

When you embrace this mindset shift, several powerful changes occur:

1. You stop waiting for the "right feeling" before starting important work.

2. You recognize that motivation fluctuates naturally and that's okay because your actions don't depend on it.

3. You begin to trust in systems and habits rather than emotional states.

4. You experience the paradoxical truth that the less you require motivation, the more of it you tend to have.

Your First Action Step

If there's one thing I've learned from studying motivation and working with thousands of clients, it's that knowledge without application is worthless. So, let's end this chapter with a concrete action step:

Choose one important task you've been postponing until you "feel more motivated." Commit to taking just five minutes of action on it immediately after finishing this chapter.

Don't wait until tomorrow. Don't wait until you've finished the book and definitely don't wait until you feel motivated.

Use the 5-Second Rule if necessary: 5-4-3-2-1, then move physically towards that first small action. Experience first-hand how action creates its own momentum.

Here's the beautiful truth: You don't need motivation to get started. You just need to start and once you do, motivation will find you-not the other way around.

Key Takeaways

• The Motivation Myth: Waiting for motivation before taking action is a fundamental misunderstanding of how motivation actually works.

• Neurochemical Reality: Action triggers the release of dopamine and other neurochemicals that create the feeling we call "motivation."

• The J.K. Rowling Effect: Even in difficult circumstances, taking action generates its own momentum and motivation.

• The 5-Second Rule: Counting backward from 5 and then moving physically can interrupt the brain's hesitation patterns.

• Action Triggers: Design your environment to prompt automatic behaviours rather than relying on motivation.

• The Two-Minute Rule: Make new habits ridiculously small to eliminate the motivation barrier.

• The Motivation Feedback Loop: Action creates results, which build confidence, which generates enthusiasm, which fuels more action.

• The Consistency Principle: Small actions, performed regularly, yield exponentially greater results than occasional motivated bursts.

• Redefining Motivation: True motivation is the decision to act regardless of how you feel.

• The Mindset Shift: "Action creates motivation, not the other way around."

In the next chapter, we'll explore how self-doubt creates a motivation barrier and develop practical strategies to overcome it. But remember, the most important step is the one you take right now, before you feel ready, before you feel motivated.

It is because that's how motivation is born.

---