CM 100: Jeff Haden on How to Get Motivated

Many of us view motivation as the spark we need to achieve our goals. But Jeff Haden, author of The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win, explains that it is actually the reverse. To feel motivated, we actually need to take action, that is, to complete at least one small task toward our goal. That is because accomplishing an initial task causes our brains to release dopamine, the reward and pleasure chemical. The good feeling we get when we do this can spur us on to accomplish more. And who better to talk about using motivation to achieve lots of goals than Jeff Haden, the most popular columnist for Inc.com and one of most widely followed influencers for LinkedIn. Jeff is also the author or co-author of 50 nonfiction books, and his work has also appeared in Time, Fast Company, Business Insider, and Entrepreneur. In this interview we discuss: Why motivation is not something you get but something you create How accomplishing tasks associated with your goal can create a virtuous flywheel of motivation, achievement, and happiness Why successful people set a goal and then forget it How focusing on big goals can overwhelm and even defeat us and what we should do instead When we focus on accomplishing the daily tasks associated with our larger goal, we maintain motivation and feel happier Why serial achievers are happier and experience less regret and why we should all aim to be them Why, for most of us, choosing that one thing we might want to do for 40 years is unrealistic Why we need pros rather than coaches to achieve new, challenging goals How pros can pave the way and prevent us from reinventing the wheel The fact that pros hold the key to our success as they have done the thing we most want to do To gain willpower, we need less willpower, provided we structure our environment in ways that reduce our options How maximizing our edge time can help us achieve more The fact that doing what others around us are doing will only get us what they have gotten -- we need to work harder and smarter to achieve something different How successful people work on big goals serially, rather than concurrently How paying attention to the details and making small changes can improve our performance Why the proud feelings you have in accomplishing hard things creates momentum to achieve more How taking productive, rather than relaxing, break can help you achieve What success means to Jeff -- and it has nothing to do with cars or houses or stuff Episode Links Venus Williams Jerry Seinfeld Tony Robbins Friday Night Lights Not Impossible by Mick Ebeling Choice architecture Jim Whitehurst and RedHat David Brailsford If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!