Transcript of How to Self-Motivate so You Can Take Action | Mel Robbins

I have been dying to talk to you about a particular topic. What is that topic? Self motivation. And the thing about self motivation is that it's something we all want, but it's something that we don't really understand. I mean, I'm sure that you may be thinking about things that you wanna improve or change in your life.

It's the time of year where everybody's doing it. It's time of year where businesses are planning big changes. People are thinking about what they want in in the next year. And so no matter when you're listening to this, I know that the story I'm about to tell you and the things I'm about to teach you about self motivation are really gonna help you. Because the fact is there are 2 truths about self motivation that are essential for you to understand if you wanna be able to hack motivation when you need it.

Because here's the thing. You know, when you're busy making plans or setting goals or deciding kinda what you wanna go do, you feel really motivated, don't you? But have you ever noticed that life has this funny way of taking the wind right out of the sails as soon as you really need the motivation? It's like, boom, no wind. You're not going anywhere.

And I have a personal story to tell you because this is exactly what's happening in my life right now. I got home a couple days ago. We were down in Boston taping a bunch of episodes down in our brand new studios. It's super cool. Right now, I am up above our garage in our little studio in Southern Vermont.

And when I got home a couple days ago, our son Oakley was about to hear back from his top choice for college. He, like so many kids, applied early decision, which means if the college accepts him, he is gonna agree to go. It's like a binding contract. And this particular school that he had applied to is gonna let all the kids who had applied early decision know by announcing the decision in an online portal at 8 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday. So it's Friday night.

I get home from a week in Boston. Chris is home. We have a dinner with Oakley. He's so nervous. We're nervous.

We're excited. And Chris and I set our alarm. Oakley sets his alarm. You know, we say good night. Excited for the morning.

And for the first time since I can remember, honestly, Oakley was awake and downstairs before Chris and I were because he couldn't sleep. He was so nervous and he was so excited to hear back from his dream school. And if I'm being honest with you, neither could I. I could barely sleep either. I was tossing.

I was turning. And you've probably had this experience. Right? Like, maybe you're waiting to hear back on a big job that you've been interviewing for, or you're waiting to hear back to see if you've got it in into graduate school. Or maybe it's a moment where 1 of the kids that you love is about to find out, did they make the orchestra?

Did they make the soccer team? And I gotta tell you, I was so excited for him because I watched him pour himself into the application for this college over the last couple of months. I mean, he's been writing and rewriting essays. He's been gathering up the recommendations. He's been working hard to keep his GPA up.

And you could tell he not only really wanted this, You could tell he was willing to pour himself into it. Right? Because unlike his sister, Kendall, he wasn't going to be auditioning for anything. And unlike a lot of his friends who excel in sports, he wasn't getting recruited by a school. And this particular school doesn't do interviews.

So his 1 shot was how he could present himself as an applicant on paper. And as somebody who is dyslexic, that's basically your worst nightmare. But he went for it. And that morning standing there in my PJs, I wasn't really nervous. I mean, I was so excited.

I was excited because it wasn't just about the college application, but I've seen how hard he's worked for 4 years straight. And I know that all these schools are now crazy competitive. But I said to myself, look, you don't need to worry about this, Mel. He's put in the work. He's in the zone of what the school is looking for.

And, you know, when you see him on paper, he did a good job. He's got a sick GPA. He's the captain of 2 varsity sports, senior mentor, won these awards, blahity blahity blahity blah. If you've heard him on the podcast, he's a great kid and has awesome emotional intelligence. So here we are.

His stomach is in knots. I'm really excited. We're gathered around the kitchen island. Chris places his hand on Oakley's back as he cracks open the laptop, logs into the portal, and then it's silent for about 10 seconds. And Oakley pushes back from the island and goes, it's a no.

I didn't make it. We sat there in silence. I I I don't know how much time went by. I honestly thought it was gonna go a different way. I thought he was gonna thread the needle on this 1.

And then Oakley said, they didn't even defer me. I mean, I was, like, flat out rejected. The only thing that I could say was, that sucks, buddy. And I'm really proud, of the fact that you went for it. I'm really proud of how much work you put into it.

And he kinda hung his head down low, and I said, well, tell me what you need me to do to support you today. Do you want me to make you your favorite bolognese sauce for dinner? Do you need us to just leave you alone? And he said, sure. Bolognese sounds great.

And then he said, I just I just need some time. And he kinda shrugged off the hugs we tried to give him, and he went right back up to his room and shut the door. And, you know, I was standing there, and I kinda looked at Chris. And it was 1 of those moments in life where you're not quite sure what to do with yourself right now. You know?

And and in the context of college, I'm sure you've seen those videos that have gone viral online where the kids are gathered around the laptop and their families are all around them. And all of a sudden they get the news and they scream and jump and shout and the family starts crying. And I kinda thought that was gonna be us. I don't think I've ever seen a video online of the moment where somebody gets rejected from their dream school. And yet life is full of rejections.

It's full of setbacks. It's full of heartbreaks. And you can know that intellectually, but, boy, is it hard when it hits? And it's hard when it hits you, and it's also hard when it hits somebody that you love. Thankfully, I am smart enough at this point in my life that I knew that that was not a moment to kind of crank up the motivational pep talk.

Right? Because that's the last thing that you wanna hear when your dream school says, nope. You're not good enough for us. Or that job that you've been interviewing for says, sorry. You don't have what it takes.

And there's a lot of layoffs happening right now. In fact, someone that is in my family just got laid off after working somewhere for 10 years, just completely out of nowhere. Their boss didn't even know it was coming. I'm sitting here talking about college applications with Oak. And the fact is you can pour years of your life into something.

And all of a sudden you hear, nah. I think we're gonna go in a different direction. And when that happens, let's just not even mince words. It freaking sucks. And you do need to wallow in it.

You do need to take some time. You do need to feel sad or frustrated. You do need to let all of that come up because you know what? Those are very appropriate emotions. In fact, they prove that you're mentally healthy because when you work hard for something and you don't get the result that you were working for, it does sting.

So don't rush past that feeling. But now let's talk about what comes next. Because 1 of the hardest yet most important skills in life is what you do after you've been rejected. Mhmm. That's what we're talking about today.

How do you self motivate? How do you pick yourself back up? How do you motivate yourself again when you feel like life just punched you in the face? And that's exactly what's going on in our house right now. Oakley now has, as I'm talking to you, exactly 11 days to complete all the remaining applications and essays that he needs to work on in order to apply to other colleges.

And it's because he was so motivated and excited about this 1 school that he figured, oh, you know, all the work that I'm doing for this, it'll help me get the other stuff done, and I'll wait until I hear. And hopefully, I'll get in. And if not, then I'll complete the other ones later. Right? It's easy to do that when everything's in front of you.

But now here we are. 11 days to complete all this. And not only do you have to complete all this, but you have to do it in the wake of feeling like you're not good enough for the place you wanted to be. So let me ask you a question. On a scale of 0 to 100, how motivated do you think he feels right now?

If you guess 0, you would be correct. He is the opposite of motivated. He is demoralized. He feels like he's not a smart kid. And, you know, if I can't get it, why even bother?

And he's not the only 1. Because when you have a moment where you feel like nothing's working out, that is the kind of emotion of it. Right? And for example, if you happen to be single right now and everyone around you oh my god. Everybody's getting engaged.

Everybody's getting married. And here you are. You're having to put yourself back out there again after a breakup yet again. When is this ever gonna be your turn? Or if you've ever had an issue getting pregnant, doesn't it seem like everybody around you is getting pregnant with ease?

This is exactly the feeling. If you're in the financials industry and you've gotta pass a huge exam for work, no matter how hard you study, if you don't pass it the first time, now you're gonna be panic stricken and you're gonna feel demoralized, which what? Makes it so hard to get motivated. I'll give you another example. You started selling real estate, which seemed like a great idea.

Right? You were super motivated in the beginning. But now it's been a year. And no matter how many networking meetings you have gone to, you can't get your own listing. And every time you look around, a new house is on the market and they're listed by somebody else.

And why is it that you can't get this? And then you stop to you don't feel that motivated. Why is this so easy for everybody else? And doesn't it feel like you're the only 1 who feels that way? But you're not.

And you can do something about it. And if you're in the position that I'm in right now, which is I'm the mom watching this go down with somebody that I love. And intellectually, I'm sitting here saying all the stuff I say to you all the time on this podcast. This is happening for a reason. Intellectually, of course, I know he's gonna end up in the right place exactly where he needs to be.

Of course, I know that college does not define who you are. Of course, I know all this. But you can feel 2 things at once. You can know that everything's gonna be okay. And you can also feel in your heart something breaking.

Right? And that doesn't change the fact that I can't want this for him. He has to want it for himself. And the truth is I can't motivate him. And we're gonna get into why I can't motivate him.

Do you know what I would give right now to have motivation on tap? Would it be so cool that instead of going to a bar for a pint of beer, if you could walk into a bar for motivation and just grab that handle and pour a pint full of liquid motivation and boom, all of this emotion is gone. All of a sudden, you're super excited, that would be so amazing. And I wanna stay on this example for just a minute of what I'm going through because I think everybody can relate to the dynamic here, whether you're the 1 that's been rejected or you're the 1 that's concerned about somebody who is. Because what our son does or doesn't do in the next 11 days potentially determines what the next 4 years of his life could look like.

And that family member of mine who got laid off after working somewhere for 10 years, what they do or don't do over the next few months can really matter in terms of what happens next. And that takes us back to our topic. How do you motivate yourself when you don't feel motivated at all? And here's how we're gonna tackle this. We're gonna break it down because I wanna give you specific tactics based in science for a moment like this.

And I also wanna make a a very important request. If this isn't you right now, I guarantee you someone you love is feeling this way. Please share this episode with them. Give them this information. Let them hear that they're not alone and let them feel empowered by the fact that there are simple things that you can do, period, to tap into that self motivation.

This is the closest thing I can give you to motivation on tap. This episode right here. Because here's what you and I are gonna cover. First of all, I'm gonna break down the true definition of motivation using the research so that you and I are using the word in the exact same way. Next, you can't talk about motivation without talking about the word dopamine because so many people and researchers and writers and podcasters talk about dopamine in relation to motivation.

There is so much interest in that, so we will talk about that as well. Then you and I are gonna cover 2 essential strategies that you need in a moment like this right now. These are 2 strategies based on research that, a, will help you locate that self motivation, and b, will really inspire you to not only get back up, but to bring your a game when you do. So don't you go anywhere. I'm gonna be waiting for you after a very short break where you can hear a word from our sponsors.

Stay with us. Hey. It's your friend, Mel. And do not skip this because I have something to give you for free. No kidding.

Say goodbye to 2023. Let's say hello to 2024. Make it the best year ever. I have a free 29 page workbook. I made this for you to thank you for being here on YouTube, watching all of our videos, supporting our work.

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Just click the link. Boom. I'll take you to the page. You'll have this puppy in your hands in less than a minute and be right back here with YouTube for me to motivate you. I love you.

Let's do this. Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel. I told you I would be waiting for you. We're gonna start with a definition of motivation.

Because I wanna make sure that you and I are on the same page when we're using the word. Now from a scientific standpoint, motivation is the general desire or willingness to act in a certain way. Another way that you may hear people define motivation in the context of kinda science and research is motivation is often used to describe this force that explains why you would initiate something or why you would continue with something or why you would quit something. That's an interesting thing that you have a motivation to quit something. Of course, you do.

That's the force that makes you take the action to quit. It's motivating you. And since you listen to the Mel Robbins podcast, you know, I like to simplify things. So I have just this very plain spoken definition that I use that takes into account all the science and research. And here's my definition of motivation, and this is what I want you and I to use as we're having this conversation.

Motivation just means you feel like doing something. That's it. Motivation means you feel like doing something. And that means a lack of motivation means you don't feel like doing something. Simple.

Right? And that's what's interesting about motivation. When you feel like doing something, it's easy to do. Right? Because you're motivated.

You feel like doing it. And if you Googled motivation or you've listened to podcasts on the topics, or you've read about the science of it, I know that you have bumped into the word dopamine. So let me talk about dopamine in the context of self motivation. Okay? Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter and hormone.

And dopamine is involved in so many different aspects of your body functioning. But when you talk about dopamine in the context of motivation, what researchers, neuroscientists, psychologists, everybody is talking about is the fact that dopamine plays a role in what's called the reward system in your mind. That's why dopamine is often referred to as the molecule of motivation. And when you are listening to anybody or reading about topics like behavior chain, habits, in our case, the science of motivation, it's really important to understand the role that dopamine plays. Because I think there's a tremendous amount of misunderstanding about what dopamine is and the role that it plays.

And a lot of people feel like, oh, dopamine. Dopamine what is what makes me motivated. If you could just put dopamine in a pill, I'd feel more motivated. Somehow that dopamine is sort of like that motivation on tap. That's not technically the case because dopamine is tied to cravings and to things that you want.

Dopamine is present to try to drive you toward things that you crave or toward things that you really wanna do. And I'm gonna give you a couple examples because once you wrap your brain around this, oh my gosh. You're gonna be like, oh my gosh. I totally get this. So let's just take a scenario.

You've been at work all day. You had an early lunch. You've been in meetings all day. As you're driving home, you're hungry. Right?

Now when you get home because you're hungry, you're gonna be very motivated to open the fridge, to look inside, and to figure out what to eat or cook yourself for dinner. Right? Why? Because you're craving food. You're hungry.

But have you ever noticed that you can be really motivated when you get home to make something to eat and to eat real quick? But the second you're done eating, it is so hard to motivate yourself to clean up the kitchen and to do the dishes. Why? Dopamine. See, you came home hungry.

You were craving food, which is why you were motivated to cook. You felt like doing it. Dopamine is present because it's tied to craving and to the thing that you wanted. And in fact, this is kinda cool research. Let's say that you really love steak.

And if you're coming home and you're craving steak, do you know how motivated you are to turn on the grill so you can grill that filet? In fact, your mouth is just watering thinking about it. The talk about the molecule of motivation. My mouth is watering just talking to you about it. That's how much I like steak.

And the research shows that foods that you like spike dopamine levels by 50%. Why? Well, because you both crave it and you want it. That's why you're motivated to cook it. And this is true with all things that you crave or things that you really, really like.

And these are not necessarily good things that I'm gonna list. But do you wanna know the top things that spike dopamine levels? It's not pretty. Meth, cocaine, nicotine, sex, social media, video games, sugar. See, people get motivated to find these things because they crave them.

You wanna know what's not on that list? College applications, updating your resume, putting up a dating profile, stepping on a scale, doing dishes. I mean, who on earth craves sticking your hands in a soapy sink with a bunch of greasy pans? Not me. That's why you never feel motivated to do it.

And look, there are so many people out there that are experts at biohacking dopamine. That's not what we're talking about today. You and I are talking about the reality in a normal person's life, which is, do not expect this molecule of motivation to rescue you in a situation where you feel down. You feel discouraged. You don't feel like doing what you need to do.

It's not coming. And yet you still need to pick yourself up and force yourself to do the work. And just like motivation, dopamine is wonderful when you have it. But this conversation is about the other situations, the 99% of your life when you don't feel like doing what you need to do. I don't feel like applying to college after I got rejected.

I don't feel like going to the gym. I don't feel like working on my business plan. I don't feel like eating healthy when I'd rather have a pizza. I don't feel like putting myself out there because I'm shy and introverted, and I got screwed over by the last person I did. I don't feel like cleaning out the garage.

I don't feel like having a mocktail, and I'd rather have a beer tonight. I don't feel like having that conversation with my mother. I've been avoiding it for 3 months, so why not avoid it another 1? And notice, when you don't feel like doing those things, you don't do them, do you? That's why you'll often hear me say motivation is garbage.

It's garbage because it's not there when you really need it. If motivation were on demand, if it were on tap, if we could just, oh, pop a pill, I would pour that sucker into a cup, man. I would drink it every day. And you know, you wanna know what else? If motivation were easy, everybody would have a $1,000,000 in bank.

Everybody would have 6 pack abs. Everybody would be having a side hustle their dreams and taking vacations because they would be motivated all the time to do all the things to get you those things. But that's not how life works, is it? Because knowing what you need to do, it's not enough. It's just not enough.

And here's the issue. And I know it because the clock is ticking. Waiting for motivation to strike is basically saying it's never gonna happen. And if you're in a situation like we are in in this household, you got 11 days. You got 11 days.

You cannot afford to let your feelings derail the actions that you need to take right now. And 1 more point about this. I personally am highly motivated to see our son push through the feelings of rejection and put in the work so that he is proud of himself, so that he knows that he put his best foot forward, that he didn't let this 1 school stop him. But I can't do the work for him. I can't just spray him with motivation.

In fact, the more pressure I put on him, the more demoralized he's gotta feel. He knows what the game's about. He knows what the stakes are. He knows what he's up against. But here's what I'm offering.

Even though you can't do the work for somebody else, and even though you technically can't motivate someone else, you can't feel it more than they wanna feel like doing it. There are things you can do to help someone tap back into the drive inside themselves in a moment like this. And these 2 steps are also what you need to do in moments where you are the 1 who needs the motivation. Step number 1, you must remind yourself of why this matters to you. I say that again.

Step number 1, you must remind yourself of why this matters to you. This is 1 of the most important hacks for self motivation. And that is understanding exactly what you want and exactly why you want it. Because number 1, if you don't really want it, you're not gonna feel motivated to do the work to get it. And if you don't know why you want it, you're not gonna feel motivated to do the work to get it.

And I'm gonna keep coming back to this example, because it's so relatable, our son and these college applications. So after he got the news, we just let him go for a day or 2. Right? You gotta be able to decompress. You gotta be able to take a deep breath.

And then we sat down with him. And we had a conversation about all the options on the table starting with, do you even want to go to college next year? Do you wanna take a gap year? Do you wanna do something else? Do you wanna get a job?

All the way to the other end, which is just because that school rejected you doesn't mean you can't get into another top tier school if that's what you actually want. And that's important. You can't want it because I want it. And I don't even want that for him. I want him to go to the place he wants to be.

And I reminded him of this. There are so many amazing schools out there that you could not only get into, but you'd probably love and be really happy at. So why not put in a couple applications to schools like that? So you have options. So we talked and talked and talked through all the options.

Don't go at all, apply to top schools, apply to schools in the middle. And here's what he said. You know, if I didn't put in a few more applications to some other top choices of mine, all of which are a real reach for me, I realize that. I know in my heart that I wouldn't have given it my all. And I guess, mom, if they reject me too, then you know what?

It's gonna make me feel better at where I ultimately end up. I love that. I love that because number 1, he's getting in touch with what he wants. And number 2, it really tracks back to something that you and I talk about all the time. That dreams and your goals, they are there for a reason, and they're not necessarily there because you're supposed to achieve them.

Dreams set a direction that you head in. Dreams are what you pursue in order for you to become the kind of person that you want to become. See, these dreams and goals that you have, these reaches that you go for, they force you to do things that you wouldn't normally do. And that's exactly what our son was talking about. He knows that by buckling down right now at the moment where he least wants to do this, this is the last thing that he wants to do.

But by doing it and going for it, he is demonstrating something that he cares in terms of his character. That's why he wants to apply. He's not doing it to get into a school. He's applying because that's the kind of person he knows that he wants to be. And I want you to think, like, where in your life have you gone for something simply because you knew pursuing it would cause you to become a better version of yourself.

And so let's circle this back and highlight step 1, which is you have to know why you want something. And let's talk about you. Let's talk about your why. Whether you're listening to me right now and you're picking yourself back up or you're cranking along. You got some big goal and you would just love to destroy it this year.

I mean, let's level up, let's amplify, let's swing for the fences, people. You wanna tap into that, like self motivation to really rocket ship this puppy. What is it that you want? What is it that you're working on and why do you want it? Why?

And as you ponder that, I wanna remind you that I can help you answer this. I created this incredible workbook that is free, 0 cost. It's my gift to you to help you gain clarity about what you want and why you want it, which is essential if you wanna tap into self motivation. It is 29 amazing pages long. You can hear me flipping through it right now.

And already, hundreds of thousands of podcast listeners from around the world have downloaded this puppy. They love it. They love the tools in it. This is a resource for you, and you can get it right now at melrobbins.com/bestyear. Please share it with your friends.

Share it with your families. And this workbook is gonna help you with step 1. What do I want? Why do I want it? Because the workbook begins with 6 clarifying questions that give you those answers.

And this is so important. And it's not just me saying it. It's not just common sense. There is breakthrough research that comes from the University of Oregon that has shown that you have to know your why in order to achieve your goals. Knowing your why matters.

And based on the research, it's because when you know why something matters to you, it helps you with self regulation. It helps you prioritize doing the work over other things that are as not as important, but are easier to do. And this is essential because if you know that something matters, you'll come home after ski practice instead of taking a few extra runs with your friends. And you'll work on college applications because you know why it matters. You'll get out of bed a little bit earlier to chip away at your resume instead of sleeping in this weekend because you'll know why it matters.

And so this is grounded in the research. And we talked about this extensively in a recent episode that I did on goals. In fact, I released it just a week ago if you wanna dive in deeper. You say that there are 3 different types of way that you can motivate someone or yourself to change. Can you what are the 3?

And then let's walk through them 1 by 1.

So 1 is social proof. Right? Social incentives. What are other people doing? It is relatively easy way to change behavior.

Right? Highlighting the positive action of others. And let me give you an example of how this is done. Maybe we'll start kind of, like, on a large level, then we go into our personal life. Great.

So, the British government, they used to send a letter to people who didn't pay their taxes on time. Mhmm. And they said, you know, it's really important to pay your taxes, and that didn't help very well. So then after that, they added 1 sentence, and that sentence said 9 out of 10 people in Britain pay their taxes on time. Right?

They're highlighting the good behavior of others, and that increased compliance by 15% and fought to bring the government £5,600,000,000.

So That's amazing. Easy. Okay. Now let me ask you, though, because here's the thing. If I listen to that example, I think to myself, if I were to march in and say to my husband, Chris, you know, Tali's husband is exercising every day of the week and he looks really great.

That would probably not motivate Chris. I don't think, but that's the social proof. Like, how do you use social proof when you're trying to nudge somebody else in a positive way?

Okay. The other kind of thing to think about when it comes to social incentives and social proofs is, again, we talked about this a little bit before, is that if you're trying to change a behavior, it's really helpful to model that behavior. Right? You want kids not to be on their phones and you're on the phone half the time. Right?

That's not good. Or you want them to eat well, but then, you know, you're not eating the apple. Well, that's not good. So you need to model that behavior. And so with, like, getting your husband to go out and run, you can come in and, like, be, like, all ready for a run and then, you know, try to convince him to come along with you.

Right? Maybe it's more, like, for you. Right?

Got it. You you know the joke of the example that I gave you is that Chris is the 1 that exercises, and I'm the 1 sitting on the couch. So I've another, 1 of the 3 ways to motivate people is immediate reward. Right. Can you give an example of how you can create an immediate reward from somebody else?

And how do

you even figure out what's a reward for someone else that they might respond to? So 1 clear immediate reward that everyone loves is kind of, like, reinforcing them social feedback. When they do something and you say, like, oh, that's great. So a friend of mine, anytime when I ask him about, like, oh, how are your kids are doing? Or we or I asked him about something that he told me he was having trouble with.

He was trying to get over. There's, like, sometimes colleague that he was having a problem with. And then, like, a week later, I was asking, oh, how did what happened? What he always says is, like, oh, thank you for asking. You know?

And by saying thank you for asking that causes me to want to do that kind of thing again. Right? To be kind of perceptive about what what, like, what people are telling me, to ask about it. So he's basically reinforcing this behavior by giving me an immediate reward. The moment I did this, he said, thank you for asking and that's my reward.

Right?

This is so fascinating, and I think it's really important. And so I wanna see if I am tracking with you Mhmm. And go back into our living room where that unsuspecting person is sitting on the couch happily watching golf, and you walk in the room and you're really stressed out. And if we take what you just told us to do based on the research, if you were to do something negative and you were to pressure that you should go or whatever, I'm not gonna let you turn off, that you're basically saying the brain doesn't even absorb it. They just tune you right out and they are not motivated.

But if you were to go, hey honey, you know, it's beautiful outside. And if you go outside and you actually get your run-in after this golf match is over, you're gonna be so much more energized tomorrow morning that that would be a better way.

Yes. Absolutely. I had someone tell me that, they learned about this, and then, they went back to their teenage boy, which usually they had a lot of struggles in the evening about when to go to sleep. Right? And they usually said, well, if you don't go to sleep by 10 PM, you're gonna be tired the next day and so on.

It didn't work. But then after reading the book, she went back and she said, if you go to sleep early, you'll look better and be more energetic for your girlfriend. And she said that worked perfectly well.

Well, I mean, it's such a simple trick, but it makes so much sense. Yeah. And I'm even thinking about it with myself. Like, I'm constantly shaming myself. Oh, I should get up.

I should do this thing. I should do that other thing. Versus thinking about, well, what do I actually care about? Mhmm. Like if I were to do this, I'm gonna feel better in an hour.

Right. Versus, you know, you and I guess that brings me to the next question, which is we all know what we could or should be doing. Right? You know that if you wanna be healthier, you need to exercise today. You know that if you wanna write the book, you need to be writing today.

You know that if you'd like to be in a different job in a year, you better dust off your resume and do it today. Why is it so hard to make ourselves do those things? Why do we procrastinate when we know what that positive thing is that we do want?

So that positive thing in all the examples that you just gave, they're in the future. Right? While the good stuff is just in front of you. Right? So the chocolate cake is there.

I can have a bite now and immediately I'll get a sugar rush. Immediately, it's certain. Or the drink is there. I'll drink it. And for the immediate time, it will make me feel good.

Right? Or I can sit on the couch and watch golf or Netflix show or whatever, and that will be an immediate gratification. The joy is immediate. For all the other things that you said, I will do the action now, but, mostly, the rewards will be in the future. So I write the book now.

It'll be published, like, in 2 years. Right? I, exercise now. I will eventually fit into my genes, but it's not gonna happen immediately. Right?

So there is this problem between it's a temporal gap between what we need to do, which we need to do it now, and the reward that we will get, which be in the future, versus the stuff that's probably not good for us, but the reward is immediate. Right? So that that's a problem. And part of the problem is what's known as temporal discounting or present bias. What does temporal mean?

Oh, temporal is just time. Right?

Okay. Great. So there's a huge gap of time between the action I need to take and the long term benefit of taking this action right now.

Right. And there's this thing called temporal bias, or temporal discounting, which is basically this phenomena, which makes sense, by which we value things in the present Mhmm. More than things in the future. It's not that we don't care about the future. You care about the future.

But if, for example, I I tell people, what would you rather have? A $100 now or a 110 next week? Most people will take a 100 now. We discount the future to some degree, which, if you think about it, makes sense because the future is uncertain. Right?

Maybe I'll go to the gym and I won't actually end up, you know, being able to get into my genes. Maybe I'll write the book, but it'll be a failure in the future. So the future is very, very uncertain. So it makes

Plus, you've also taught us that we have this imperative personally to stay in control. And so what is also in my control right now is the $100 that you're about to hand me or the Netflix show that's on right now. And so that is that playing a role in this too?

Yes. I think because we have more control now. Right? At least a perception of it. In fact, if I do something now, it will impact the future.

So I do have some control over the future. But because it's relatively uncertain, because there's so many days and everything can happen, maybe I'll die tomorrow. Right? So I put all this work in, and then I'm dead in a week. Right?

So it's easier to just go with the immediate. It's it's more attractive. Right? And is there

a trick to get yourself to act now and do things now that are hard that actually make your life easy in the longer run?

The number 1 trick is to give yourself immediate rewards. What do I mean? Let's say, usually, when you think about going to the gym, you say, I wanna go the up. I don't want to, but I need to go to the gym so I can get these future rewards, which I'll be skinny and healthier and whatever in the future. Right?

But think about what will you get immediately. Or you can do that for someone else. Right? What will you get immediately if you go now for the to the gym? Not only what will you get to the future.

So let's say, for yourself, it might be someone told me they anytime they go on the treadmill, they allow themselves to watch, like, a trashy show that usually they don't allow themselves. Right? That's the immediate reward. Or you go for a run and you listen to a podcast. Right?

Immediate reward. And you can also give it to someone else. There was a woman who came to me after a talk and she said she wanted to get her husband to go to the gym. Yep. And he didn't really like it.

But then, eventually, he went 1 day. And when he got back,

I don't think he was intentional, but she kind of, like, touched his arm and was like, oh, I can really feel your muscles. Right? And she said, well, that did it. Right? He that caused him to go back the next day.

So that was the immediate reward. You know what else I'm gaining from your research is that if the mistake that we've been making by pressuring, judging, guilting, all that other stuff highlights the bad behavior. Then when you give your love and attention appreciation to calling out the good behavior, you are really now helping them move toward that. Instead of creating that paralysis, you're actually fueling the tank, so to speak. That's super cool.

Yeah. And make sure to do that. For some for some reason, like, our kind of automatic reaction is kind of to focus on, oh, they're not doing that enough. And when they when people do do, we just, like we might, in our heads, say, oh, that's nice. But we have to actually verbalize that.

You know? Yes. My daughter, for example, she, in general, doesn't eat much or doesn't like to eat, you know, anything that's healthy for sure. We went out, and she ordered a a sandwich that had, like, vegetables in it. And I was like and I said, Olivia, like, well done.

I'm so proud of you. You know? So you have to highlight that when people do do these things. Yes. A lot of people read that

A lot of people read that, like, condescending though. You know how, like, sometimes if somebody, like, is I I I don't know if there's any advice or research on this, but I find that sometimes when people are really defensive or at least I've that scenario with the kids, when our son finally started eating things that were green instead of a chicken nugget and a French fry. And I'm like, finally, that's great. A vegetable. Fine because I double digits, at least.

Me mid get like, we were way into the double digits.

1. 1 is eating fine, but the other one's is not.

But so, like, you there's probably before you let it out of your mouth and it's kind of calling out the finally you're doing it. It's I'm really proud

of you. The way that you do it with adults, for example, like, my husband has this new thing where he gets up. He doesn't wake me up. He gets the kids ready to school. He takes him to school, and I just get to sleep.

And how amazing is that? Right?

Train him to do that?

I don't know why he decided 1 day to to start that. And he knows I I don't like mornings. And, you know, if I can sleep just like another hour without anyone waking me up, that's great. But I make sure to say, like, oh my god. Thank you.

You know? That was so great. You know? And I and I think that's that's good for everyone.

Of course. Of course. The 3rd, way you can motivate people to change that we've talked about is progress Mhmm. Tracking. How do you use that if you're trying to help somebody get better with money?

Okay. So a lot of progress tracking I mean, there's a lot of apps for all of these things. You know? There's a reason why lots of these apps, whether you're tracking your steps or you're tracking, you know, your your expenses. You know, there's apps for all of these things.

Maybe you don't want me to track everything. I don't know what it is that the goal, but think about what the goal is and then you can track the specific elements that are related to that goal. How does

the progress fuel into your motivation to keep going? Because there must be a connection based on the research.

Right. So it bring it's just the joy that we feel from progress. Right? When we see that we're progressing, that is really what's causing us the joy. When we do well, that is also joyful, But it is doing better, right, that is even more joyful.

Like, imagine, like, you're running a marathon and you're doing really well. You do, like, 3:30, like, 3 hours, 30 30 minutes. And then the next year, you do 3 hours, 30 minutes. It's still very good. But imagine it's like, oh, now it's 3 hours and 28 minutes.

Right? It's so much better because there's some kind of progress.

Right.

We really like seeing ourself. And, in fact, if we kind of just even if we're in the top of our game, if we are not progressing, we're just, like, just maintaining Yeah. That can actually be extremely demotivating. We always need some progress in our life, and it makes sense that our brain has evolved to be like that. Right?

Right.

Because what that does, it causes us to try to to progress. Right? It causes us as an individual, but also as a species, to kind of go ahead and then because imagine, like, it think about your first entry level job. When you got it, you were probably really, really happy. Yeah.

But, of course, after a while, you kind of are hoping for something else. You're hoping for that promotion. You wanna see some progress. And, I mean, it's just the way that we are wired up and there's a good reason for it. 1 of my favorite experiments, actually, that that show this is about hand washing.

K.

So we all know that hand washing is really important. Right? And especially important, I mean, for the to avoid the spread of disease and that's especially important in hospitals and in in restaurants. So in a hospital in New York state, a camera was installed to see how often medical staffs actually wash their hands before and after entering a patient's room. Ew.

And they found I don't know if I wanna know this. They found that only 1 in 10, only 10% of the medical staff wash their hands before and after entering a patient's room. Now this was before the pandemic. Okay. Hopefully, numbers are different now, but still 10%.

Okay. So they put an electronic board. And and to also to be clear, the medical staff knew that the camera was installed. Right? So it's not like it was a nanny camera situation.

They knew the nanny the camera was installed, and yet it was only 10% that actually washed their hands. And then they made 1 change. They put an electronic board that told the medical staff how well they were doing. Every time they washed their hands immediately, they got positive feedback saying, well done, good shift. They could see it.

The electronic board was above the patient's door. Right? Wow. And they saw the numbers going up of the current shift rate and the weekly rate of people washing their hands and the compliance. So the number of people who can wash their hands went from 10% to 90 percent.

Holy cow.

Huge, and it stayed there for quite a while. I mean, it was such a big effect that they wanted to make sure that it was real, so they replicated it in another division in the hospital. And here, they found they found something very similar. It started at 30%, so 1 in 3 washed their hands, put the electronic board with, you know, the feedback, the well done, good shift, and it went up to 90% again. And so why does that work?

It works for all the reasons that we just discussed, which is the normal approach is just to tell the medical staff, if you don't wash their hands, there will be bad things in the future, illness and disease, so you have to wash their hands.

Right?

And, a, it's in the future. B, it's it's something bad, so it doesn't cause me to act. So now they flipped it over, and now you're washing your hands to get a positive message, which is immediate and it's positive. Right?

And how about the fact that you're also seeing that other people are doing it? Does that impact your desire to move toward it and and adopt this positive behavior? Right. Absolutely.

So there's 2 other really important things here. 1 is it's social proof. Right? I'm seeing that 60%, 70%, 80% are doing it. I don't wanna be the 1 who doesn't.

Right? I wanna do the good stuff, which is what other people are doing. This is very helpful. I know that sometimes when you take, 1 of these, like, city bikes, there's actually, a little electronic board telling you how many people have taken these bikes Really? Today in the city.

Okay. And that's kind of like that makes you feel like, oh, a, I'm part of this big group. Yep. And, b, like, a lot of people are taking bikes, you know, being green. Yep.

Yep. That motivates me to do to do the same. So that's social proof. And the other nice thing about it, the numbers keep going up and they the same thing with the bikes. They kept going up.

Because people are taking bikes all over the city. Right? So you're kind of there, you're about to take a bike, and you see the numbers going up. And when you take 1, you know, the number goes up as well. So that's very gratifying.

Yes. And same thing with the hand washing.

You wash your hands, numbers go up, you see it going up, there's progress. So you're a parent. How the heck do we apply this to our life? Like, how do I use this to maybe get the kids to do chores, to get everybody to help out? How do we apply this?

So,

in fact, I I would say with kids is the easiest thing to do.

Okay.

Right? So first of all, let's start with the very beginning. You don't wanna control or give them a sense of their control. Right? That you're telling them what to do.

Mhmm. So, for example, let's say you want them to eat vegetables instead of saying here eat your carrots say do you want carrots or would you like cucumbers. Right? So there's a choice. Right?

Okay.

Or even better make your own salad. So they're in control. Right? Or, you know, a lot of times you may ask do you want me to choose what your vegetable, or do you want to choose yourself?

Oh, that's sneaky. I like that 1. I like that 1.

Sometimes they prefer, you know, like, especially I mean, my kids are now and they're not that old. They're 8 and 10. But they, you know, dress themselves as that. But, like, when they were younger, sometimes I would choose their outfits. But I would ask, hey, do you want me to choose your outfit or do you wanna choose it today?

And, so, sometimes they want me to choose. But telling me that they want me to choose is a choice. So, now, I'm not taking the control out of them. Right? Yes.

They're giving it to me. It's a bit different. So they're still maintaining their agency. This comes to play a lot. Right?

Instead of telling someone let's say, it's like an employee. Instead of saying, okay. This is what you're gonna work on. Right? This is what you need to do.

Give people options. Right? Yep. Same thing with clients. Even if you're a doctor, you could say, well, this is a treatment I think.

Or you could say, well, here are a few options. Gotcha. Let's talk them through and see what's best. Right? So you're kind of and you don't wanna give too many.

This is also interesting. You don't wanna if you're whether you're a doctor giving options to people or or whatever it is, you don't wanna give too many options because that can be overwhelming. There's, a famous study where people are given an option to choose between 60 different jams in a store and some people are so overwhelmed they just leave empty handed. Right? Right.

But 2 or 3 options. That's an easy way. Giving people a choice is an easy way to maintain their sense of control, agency, and their motivation. Like, for example, you know, if, so I bike to work, and I don't always put a helmet on. And so because you're the exception?

Right. Come on, doc. What are you doing? You're not following your own advice. Not

good. Right? Right. And so what I do is I say, okay. Anytime that I get to work and I have my helmet on, I'm allow you know, I can have a little Hershey chocolate or something like that.

Something small. Right? So that's a reward. Right? Can I just underscore something?

You're a like, 1 of the number 1 neuroscientists in the world. If anyone's brain needs to be protected, it's yours. So I love the fact that you just admitted after trying to teach all of us how to change other people that you yourself believe you're the exception and you have to reward yourself to put a helmet on.

Yeah. I have to say I probably I mean, it's probably true that, like, it's partially because I think I might I'm the exception. But it is an odd thing and it's more about convenience. Right? I won't well so in in London where I bike, I had this really bad helmet.

So I did put it on every time, but it was obvious that it's not gonna help. Right? It was just, like, not even fitting. And I knew Are you literally And

I knew I finally doing for why we don't wear the helmet?

No. Finally. No. I was like, I was wearing the helmet. No.

I was wearing it, but I knew that it was just to tick a box. Yes. But it wasn't like, it it wasn't even fitting. If something happened, it wouldn't. It was like wearing a hat.

The helmet was so bad. And it months months months until I finally and I kept telling myself I have to go buy it. Finally, I did. But this was months months months of biking in London with a helmet that absolutely wasn't protecting me at all.

Here here's what I've learned. You needed to attach an immediate reward to that helmet and to the wearing it. Otherwise, you're going to avoid doing it at all costs.

Right. Well, I mean, I did this in this specific example. I was wearing it. It wasn't good. I had to what what what I was trying to do is get myself to go to a store to buy something that's better.

Right? And I was like, well, I don't have time. When are we gonna go? Right?

Of course. Speaking of motivation. Right? So I I think when your motivation comes from the right place, then you are impervious to the circumstances around you affecting your motivation.

Oh, woah. Okay. I know we're gonna dig deep into that, but I wanna make sure as you're listening to doctor k, you really just got what he just said. When the motivation comes from the right place, you're impervious to all the external things that are going on.

Absolutely. 100%. So ended up, you know, getting rejected a lot. After 2 years of applying to med school and not getting in, people in my family were like, hey. Maybe you should think about something else.

Like, you know, this is your GPA is set in stone. Right? But I said, I'm gonna go ahead and do this again. Ended up getting into med school, went to Tufts for med school, and then also had decided to do psychiatry. So, originally, I was gonna do, like, holistic cancer treatment.

So I'd studied a lot of Indian medicine in India and alternative medicine, yoga, meditation, all that good stuff, but did psychiatry because my favorite organ was the mind, and, really noticed a lack in the West of our understanding of the mind. Because we do things based on population based studies. Right? So we can say motivation comes from this part of the brain. But as a human being, how do you take that fact and apply it to your life?

That is what was missing for me. Or what I saw was missing in the field. Yeah. So ended up, doing my psychiatry training at Harvard down the street at Mass General Hospital and McLean Hospital was an awesome experience. And then a couple years in, I had this kind of, like I I had a pretty large group of people coming to me, wanting, like, holistic mental health treatment.

So how can I conquer this depression or anxiety or narcissism or sociopathy? Worked with a lot of CEOs and and kinda high performers in, like, finance and and places like that. And then I realized that there's, like, no shortage of people trying to help this group of people. Right? People who can pay a lot of money for, like, really high quality support and to really unlock their potential or maximize their potential or whatever.

But there were a bunch of people who no 1 was helping, and those are the degenerate gamers. These are, like, the 22 year olds who finish college and never get a job. These are people who drop out of college. These are people who are 25 years old living in their parents' basement, and, like, no one's helping them. They can't pay anything.

So I started streaming on Twitch and doing mental health content on Twitch and was stunned when we became the fastest growing stream on Twitch for a period of about 3 months.

Wow. So for the person listening who does not know what Twitch is, could you kind of explain what you mean when you're giving mental health content on Twitch?

Yeah. So Twitch is a live streaming platform that usually streams games. Yep. So what I noticed is that in my office, I was having gamers come in, and I was, like, teaching them certain concepts. I wasn't actually doing therapy.

I was like, here's how your mind works. Here's the effect of dopamine on your brain and your motivation and things like that. And so I just had the same conversation over and over and over again. So what I started doing was streaming conversations on Twitch. So I would talk to people, and I would start teaching some of these principles, Almost like a podcast where I just like, some random person would call in, and I do, like, q and a, or they'd be like, you know, I struggle with motivation.

I'd say, okay. Like, let's understand the neuroscience of motivation. So we kinda dig into that. And what I really discovered is that if you look at, like, people today, right, so we're being so shaped by our environment. Other people decide what kind of thoughts we have.

So we're seeing, you know, companies get better at advertising. We're seeing short form content. So other people are shaping your views about yourself. They're shaping what you think will make you happy in life. So we're bombarded with all of these images of what it means to be happy.

Right. Then what happens is there's a deficit. So our brain notices, oh, look at all those happy people over there. I am not doing those things, and I am unhappy. And then they try to sell you something.

And so then so this is where there's there's a lot of very, like, intentional shaping of people's unhappiness and then selling people shaping of people's unhappiness and then selling people solutions. So as all of these kinds of effects are going on, we don't know how to fight against that. So true. And we'll say, like, okay. Just cut back on technology use, but it's become a part of our our work.

It's become a part of you know, it's how you keep track of like, I get emails from my kids' music teacher to tell them classes cancel, so you have to stay plugged in. And so we're not equipped with the tools to fight against this external environment shaping us.

That makes a lot of sense. And so it's almost as if there are 2 pieces that we need to really dig into. And the first 1 is the internal and really understanding, which I think you very eloquently explained to us, that you go to school and you learned all of these sort of subsets of skills and knowledge call like, I'm not even speaking correctly, but you learn all of these subjects, but you don't learn how a human being or how you operate from the inside out. And so I think we're all scared of the way that our environment and tech is shaping us and where I wanna start, especially given the number of people that are following you online and the kind of advice that you're giving on YouTube. I mean, millions and millions of people, doctor k.

What are we getting wrong about motivation?

So much. So so so so in the west, what we call motivation, there is no motivation center of the brain. Motivation is an emergent property. So, like, when I say if I look at you, Mel, and I say, you're motivated, how do I know that? It's because I'm observing some kind of behavior.

K. So there's no 1 place that motivation comes from. Right? Motivation is an internal drive that comes from emotions, comes from what you should be doing, comes from issues of, like, ego and identity, comes from issues of comparison. Right?

So there's so many different things that motivate us. So this is the first thing is that motivation is not a thing. It is lots of different things. And I think the second thing that we the biggest mistake we make with motivation is that we try to increase it. And I know it sounds weird, but let's understand what motivation is.

So let's say you're motivated to do something. Is it easy for you? Yes. Okay. So now what happens is your actions, that's a problem.

That's not a solution. It's a problem.

Why is it a problem if something's easy for me?

Because you are not in control. Right? So if you feel motivated, you're trying to make your life easy instead of being in control of yourself. So an alternate solution is imagine if you could act independent of motivation, even if you didn't feel like it. Because everyone's trying to increase their motivation because we're so burnt out all the time.

We don't have the energy for it. I'm looking to make it easy for myself. When my body, my brain, and my mind are sending us signals, Don't do this. I don't feel like doing this. And we're ignoring that.

We're trying to and so then what we try to do is we try to create situations that make it easy for us to act. But this creates a fundamental flaw. How so? Because if the situation changes and your motivation changes, then you're screwed.

So you're basically saying just take the simple thing of getting out of bed in the morning. Right? So the alarm rings. And the second the alarm rings, most of us have some sort of emotion that we feel about the act of simply getting out of bed. Something we've done thousands of times in our lifetime, we know how to do.

It is relatively simple set of actions to roll out of bed and stand up and start your day. But we so many of us are relying on this feeling of motivation, which is, I guess, the way that I would describe it is this emotion of wanting to do something and feeling like it's going to be easy. And if that feeling is there magically in the morning, I get out of bed. But if it's not, I don't take the action. So is that a good example of what

you're talking about? So so let's, like, play that tape through. Right? So that means that if the motivation isn't there

Yes.

The first thing that happens, your alarm rings Yeah. And then your cognitive willpower starts to drain because you already have to overcome something. Yes. Right? So you start the bed you start waking up and getting out of the bed tired Yes.

Because you don't feel motivated. Correct. So that that makes a lot of sense. But I the crazy thing here is that if we look at motivation. Right?

So this is where if you think about it, what that means is that your wants control you. So if I want to do something, then I'm motivated. And so that means that what I want to do controls my life because those are the things that I do. So now the question becomes, what's better? For you to be in control of your wants or for your wants to be in control of you?

I think I just got something. So you were addicted to video gaming. It's what caused you to fail out of college. It's also, in many ways, what drove you and inspired you to speak to all of us about the brain and about, understanding your internal drivers and yourself. And if you look at it in the negative, all addiction begins with wanting to do something and allowing your wants to be in complete control.

I wanna eat that thing. I wanna drink that thing. I wanna play that video game. I wanna just have sex with somebody that I don't even know. I wanna ignore that obligation.

I wanna do this. And so when you start to live a life where your wants and your desires in the moment are controlling what you do and what you don't do, you're out of control.

Is that what you're saying? 100%. Not only are you out of control, you'll be unhappy. Right? So if we look at addiction,

there's a

couple of basic there's a couple fundamental problems with wanting stuff. It just doesn't work. So first thing is if we look at addiction, we know that there are uniform pathways of addiction in the brain, and all addictions do 2 things. 1 is they give us pleasure, and the second is that they take away pain. So if you look at all addictions, and this is true of opiates, heroin, and social media video games, they activate this part of our brain called the nucleus accumbens, which is where our dopamine reinforcement circuitry is.

Dopamine does a lot of things. It also does like movement. But if we look at, like, our drive towards something, then the nucleus accumbens gives us 3 things. It gives us pleasure when we, get something, and it also gives us craving. So if you think about, like, eating a cookie, it's delicious.

Let me have another 1. Right? So this is where we're in a huge there's a fundamental problem with dopamine and gratifying our wants. The second thing that that it all addictions do is they suppress our negative emotional circuitry. So if you look at eating a cookie, if I'm having a bad day and I eat a cookie, I feel a little bit better.

I'm feeling burnt out. I'm feeling tired. Let me hop on my phone. Let me browse social media for a little while, and it pushes the tiredness away for a time. But when you get off of your phone or do you feel energized?

Do you feel like, now it's time to, like now I have the energy to go and cook a meal and and go take care of this stuff and send an email to my boss. No. All you're doing is delaying your tiredness. Right? And this is what we see with addictions is that they they suppress our negative emotional circuitry.

And in my case, what was going on is I was failing out of school every single day. I was skipping class. It got to the point where I had so many absences that, you know, the the max I could get was, like, a 70. If I got a 100% on all of the rest of the stuff, I could get a 70 in the class. And so what we see in addiction is as your life gets worse and worse and worse, the only way you can manage that pain is by utilizing the substance or in my case, playing video games.

Well, I

think this is a really important explanation as we dig into this concept of motivation. And doctor k, you've already said, like, gosh, we get so much wrong about it. Because I think what happens for so many of us, and you've certainly been there, whether you're at a state where you would say you're addicted to something that is slowly ruining your life, or you are just in 1 of these negative spirals mentally where you feel unworthy or you feel not good enough, and every day you wake up and you're like, today's the day I'm gonna work on my resume, or today's the day I am going to exercise. And then you see yourself just like you said, I was failing out of class every day. You see yourself every single day failing at the simple things you wanna be doing.

And so, doctor k, what else like, what do you want us to understand about motivation as we start to look at what I think most people struggle with, which is this feeling every day that I'm not able to follow through on some of the simple things that I really want to be doing, but I for whatever reason, I'm not, quote, motivated to exercise or eat healthy or make that phone call?

It's a great question. So let's understand a little bit about where motivation comes from.

K.

And we'll draw on both principles of, like, Eastern spirituality that Yogi's practicing meditation in the Himalayas figured out a couple 1000 years ago that have now been verified by neuroscience. So let's start with when I act. Right? So you're saying I I have struck struggle with follow through. So that's the problem with motivation, is that motivation waxes and wanes, because motivation is oftentimes highly emotional.

So if we look at the part of our brain that creates behavior, our emotions are very powerful. So if we look at, like, what is the evolutionary function of emotions? Emotions give us information, and they give us motivation. So if I feel if I feel angry, I will feel like doing something. If I feel afraid, it will motivate me to run away.

Mhmm.

The problem though is that emotions vary. That's the way they're supposed to be. They don't last forever. Right? So if I I can have the perfect wedding day, it does not mean that I will have the perfect marriage.

Right? I won't be happy for the rest of my life because I have this 1 perfect day. So our brain has this very natural principle of homeostasis, which means that we experience joy, and then the joy goes away. And so then what we end up doing is chasing those things that bring us joy. That would be great, except there's another principle in the brain of tolerance.

So if I eat 1 cookie, it's delicious.

Right.

If I eat a second cookie, it's not quite as tasty. If I had a third cookie, now I'm feeling full. True. Right? And even then, oftentimes if I think about getting that cookie tomorrow, it's not gonna be as good as the first time I have it.

So now we're kinda stuck because our motivation is gonna wax and wane with our emotions. We're trying to cultivate these past experiences over and over again to try to keep us motivated, and it just doesn't work. So what can we do? This is where we're gonna focus on a a principle from kind of Eastern philosophy called karma far. So karma is action, and far means fruit.

So there's a really simple principle that, the more that you devote yourself to your actions instead of outcomes, the more easier life will be, and the more you will be in control of your behavior. Now this may sound weird because oftentimes in life, we are conditioned to focus on outcomes. So I don't care how much you know, I care what your GPA is. I don't care how healthy your company is, I care what the stock price is. So in our life, the way that our life is structured right now, we're all focused on outcomes.

We're focused on goals and things like that. And every 1 may think, well, yeah. Duh. Right? Like that's the way that it should be.

But if you stop and think about it, we have a society that is increasingly focusing on outcomes, and we also have a society that the human beings are increasingly burnt out and lack motivation. And those 2 things are tied. So let's understand a little bit about why. So if we're not gonna focus on outcomes, then how the hell do we get motivated? Right?

So let's understand a cup another thing about the brain. So we our brain does this thing called an action success calculation. So what it does is anytime we're thinking about doing something, our brain knows, okay, what's the likelihood of this to succeed, and what's the likelihood of this to fail? And the problem is that if you're trying to cultivate motivation and you put in a lot of work and we're focused on the outcome and things don't work out, then I won't reinforce the behavior. Right?

So if I say, like, I'm gonna study really hard for a test, and I don't do well on the test, what does my brain learn about the value of studying?

That it doesn't help. It doesn't help. So is this 1 of the reasons why so many of us give up either going on a healthier diet or going to the gym and working out because you're not seeing the results?

So you start to go, this isn't working. Absolutely. So absolutely. Right? So so this is a really fascinating principle from motivational interviewing.

So we look at behavioral change. We have 1 evidence based technique that helps people change their behavior, which is something called motivational interviewing.

So what is motivational interviewing?

It is a way to talk to people that increases their motivation.

Oh, my God. So can we use this with people in our life too, not just with ourselves?

Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. So we're gonna learn Okay. Not just with people in our life.

I mean, I'd say we do it in psychiatry with other people. The beautiful thing is you can do it with yourself.

Oh my god. Let's go.

Okay. So let's understand. So this is a beautiful thing about motivational interviewing. We figured out that most human beings are conflicted. Okay?

So I want to go to the gym, I don't wanna go to the gym. Now before I go to the gym, the pain of going to the gym is a hypothetical. The pleasure of staying home is also a hypothetical. Right? So when we when we start out, neither of these 2 things are realities.

So I think about the gym. I think here's the cost. Here's the benefit. But it's a hypothetical. Right?

Right.

Because I have gone. I'm just making it all

up to my mind. As I go to the gym, what happens to the pain induced by the gym?

Lowers because I'm going in.

Right? On the contrary. So when you go to the gym, as you start going, as you move towards the thing that is difficult, the hypothetical pain becomes real.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Right?

You're right. So so so as I actually start, I can think about working out. That's not painful. Actually working out, huffing and puffing, I wanna stop. This is my body's like, don't do this.

My knees are hurting. The pain actually increases. So anytime we move towards an action, the pain increases. Right. The reason we wanna engage in the action is because at the end of the pain is some kind of pleasure.

Right? There's some kind of outcome that we're devoted to. Yes. And then we hope that the pain will be worth the pleasure. But our brain doesn't see it that way.

What our brain sees, and you'll notice this if if you're kinda like, you know, thinking about something in your life where you think about doing something and you know it's gonna be painful. But when you start to do it, it's actually painful, and it actually decreases our motivation. So moving towards our goals oftentimes comes at a cost before a benefit.

That makes a lot of sense. So just so I can break this down so everybody's tracking, intellectually, you can know you wanna do something, but you are going to think about what it's like to get out of bed, or think what it's like to go to the gym, or think what it's like to work on your resume. Right? And because it's gonna require you to move toward the pain before you get the payoff, motivation decreases as you move toward this thing that you really wanna do. And and Got it.

Okay. Absolutely. Right? And this is also presuming that the reason for your motivation is the positive outcome. Right?

That's why we're motivated because I want to be healthy. I want that sexy beach bod.

Right.

But the problem is that when we actually engage in the behavior, when I go to the gym, I don't get a sexy beach bod. No. So then my brain is looking at this and it's saying, wait. What the fuck? Yes.

Why are we doing this? Correct. This is just pain. There's no benefit. Yes.

This is dumb. Yes. And then we wake up the next day, and we're like our brain is like, don't do that thing. And then we all get confused. This is why we need to separate ourselves from the outcome because our brain makes this calculation and says this pain in the gym today is not worth the payoff today, obviously.

Right? And then it's gonna turn around and it's gonna say, don't do this thing.

What's so fascinating is you are revealing the mechanism internally that's at play that most of us are unaware of. And so we are engaged in all of this sort of, like, mind battles with ourselves to try to force our like, we're we're we're calling ourselves lazy. We're saying that we're this. Like, why can't I do this? When you're simply saying, honestly, this is how your brain works.

You're not gonna see the result right away. You're wired to move away from the pain, and so you cannot focus on the result because that is not gonna get you through this little, like, contradiction in your brain.

Yeah. Abs beautifully said. Right? So what I would say is we are spending our whole lives swimming upstream. Instead of understanding our motivational circuitry, we are trying to conquer it.

Instead of utilizing it, we're trying to fight against it and overcome it. So instead, understand how your motivation works, and then you can craft your life so that, like, action becomes easy. And outcomes will improve too. There's, like, tons of data on this. So now let's start by understanding that I have this positive goal Yeah.

That comes with a reward. But my and when I make the when I think about working on my resume or going to the gym, I'm looking for that positive reward at the end. I'm not really anticipating the pain. Right? So instead, what we wanna do is we actually want to let go of that goal.

And in motivational interviewing with someone who's addicted to alcohol, here's how this looks. So people will say, I wanna be sober for a year. I will say, you can't be sober for a year. It is impossible to be sober for a year. Literally, you cannot do it.

People will be like, what on earth are you talking about? You can't be sober for a year. If I said, Mel, get up right now and be sober for

a year. Could you do it? I don't know. I don't I don't know. I I

Sober for a year is not an action. You can't do it. It is not an act. Do you get that? It is an outcome.

Oh, hold on. Okay. Because you're right. When you said be sober for a year, my little brain went do do do do do. 365 days, not drinking okay.

Box check, buy and I jumped to I accomplished it. I I I totally fell into your trap, doctor k.

Absolutely. Right? So if you

think about it Well, I I do wanna break it down because I think the person listening and myself, we are so hardwired to think about the things that we want that you're trying to get us to understand that we've got to interrupt the way that our brain jumps to the end and start to think a different way to make this work for us. Is that what you're saying?

A 100%.

Because I think, like, half the people listening are probably going, well, I'd like to find a significant other. I'd like to lose weight. I'd like to have a $1,000,000 in the bank, all goals and outcomes, and that is what is keeping you're basically saying that kind of thinking keeps you stuck swimming upstream and not able to activate what you need in order to get in order to act in the way that you need to act.

Beautifully said. So I I'd love to add a couple different points to that. Let's just, like, tunnel down into that. Okay? So now remember that if I go to the gym, you you asked about follow through.

So if I go to the gym, it's painful. I don't see the yield today. So then where does the motivation of going to the gym come from? So the motivation of going to the gym comes you wake up 1 day and you look at yourself in the mirror, and you're like, I'm tired of looking like this. You're you're driven by negativity.

Yes. So this doesn't work. So when you your drive to go to the gym is pain. Yes. Right?

So, like, I don't like the way that I look. I'm unsatisfied. Right. Our brain gets confused because we're moving away from pain into pain, and our brain is like, this doesn't make sense. So this is why people don't have follow through.

They pendulum. I'm going to the gym this week. I'm not gonna go next week. Right? Because it's you're always listening to your negative part.

You're saying I'm unhappy with this. I'm unhappy with the amount of money I make. I am trying to resolve my unhappiness by engaging in an I'm unhappy with the amount of money I make, so I'm gonna work harder at work, which is not a pleasant experience. So we keep on ping ponging between, like, negativity and negativity. This This actually

makes a lot of sense. I was with somebody last night who has been in a job for 2 years where they keep promising promotion. This person keeps delivering what they're supposed to do, and it's not coming. And yet and there's a lot of, like, I can't stand this situation, and yet I don't know what to do about it. 1 week I wanna quit.

1 week I'm working harder. And it is this pendulum thing that you see. And from the outside, you go, why don't you just get another job? But from the inside, you really do see somebody trapped between 1 situation that's painful, which is trying to double down in a job that's not working versus the other situation that's painful, which is organizing your resume and putting yourself out there and looking for a job. And so that to me makes a lot of sense as to why we swing between these spurts of exercising and not.

Eating healthy and then not. Drinking and then not.

Absolutely. So if you look at the mechanism of that, and that's a beautiful example, what we find is there's no actual fluctuation. You are following through 100%, which I know sounds weird. What you are following through with is you're always moving away from your negativity. Right?

So on this particular day, I want to be recognized. I don't like being unrecognized. I feel undervalued. I'm moving away from my undervalued. And then on the next day, you know, you're you're moving away from something else.

So you keep on running away from the negative things in your life, and you stay stuck. You are still being controlled by those desires all the time. So consistency doesn't come from list, doesn't come from obeying whatever emotion you're feeling in the moment. Right? Like, that makes perfect sense.

We just don't realize. We think about that in terms of things like love. Right? So, like, today, I fell in love. To tomorrow, I fall out of love.

Fair enough. We don't think about that in terms of professional life. Right? That it's all just listening to your instead of your circuitry listening to you. The point of the human body, the human brain, and the human mind, these are all instruments to serve you.

You don't exist for their benefit. They exist for your benefit. My arm, my tongue does not dictate what I do with my life, and yet we let our brains and our mind dictate what we're doing with our life. It's absurd. The key is to focus on the action, not the outcome.

When the mind thinks about action, the outcomes improve. And when the mind thinks about outcomes, sometimes you get there, sometimes you don't. You get into this motivational problem. K. So kinda going back to my life, I decided I'm gonna apply.

That's what I'm gonna focus on.

And you're talking about the fact that over the course of 3 years, you applied to a 120 medical medical schools until you got in.

Until I got in. Right? So and people think, like, oh, doesn't the first 10 failures weigh on you? Don't the next 10 failures weigh on you? Because that's how most of us live our life.

Right? Yeah. But the beautiful thing is if you think about it, what is the difference, Mel, between applying for the for to the 1st medical school and the 100th medical school?

Well, when you think about the actual action, there is 0 difference because you are filling out paperwork, you're organizing a bunch of stuff, and you're hitting submit.

So then where does the difference come from? You're a 100% right?

Your emotion and the stories you tell yourself about the difference between the first of application and the 100.

So I want you to think about this. The action is exactly the same. The only thing that is holding me back is the weight in my mind that I have failed 99 times before. That is not reality. That is a thought in your head that is telling you that you have failed 99 times.

And as long as that is the way that your life is working, you will never be in control. Because if my mind wakes up, some people say 20 is too much. Some people say that 20 failures or 20 denials of a job, I feel weighed down. For some people, they can tolerate 40. For some people, they can tolerate 60.

And the people who quit after 20 look at the people who try 60 times, and they say, I wish I could be like that. I wish I could follow through. I wish I could have more discipline. They're all doing it wrong. Each action that you take in life is individual.

100%.

I like, I I'm constantly astonished by the number of people who write in because they feel like they're either too young or too old, right, to do the things that they wanna do. And for me as a 56 year old woman who launched this podcast 18 months ago, I just go, well, I just put my head down and just focused on the simple things every single day that lead to launching a podcast. And all of that garbage that you're telling yourself, like, I'm too young or I'm too old or I'm too this or I'm too that, It's complete fiction. And the action proves the action is actually the only way that you prove that that crap in your mind is a lie.

Yeah. I mean, beautifully said. Right? So and I I think the the challenge is that so we are so conditioned to thinking that our thoughts are reality.

So how do I use motivational interviewing to tap into this wiring inside me in an effective way, doctor k?

So great question. So if you wanna be consistent every day, step number 1, abandon every day. What? Abandon every day. You can't do something every day.

Focus on today. Okay.

You see how deeply it is? Yes. I see that I'm screwed.

So so I'll give you a great example. So when we think about every day, successes become failures in my mind. So if I say to myself, I'm gonna meditate every day. And I meditate for 39 days. And day 40 rolls around.

Did I meditate every day, Mel? Have I succeeded in my goal?

You did for 39 days.

It's still a failure.

Because you didn't do it on the 40th.

So now I'm looking at 39 days of success, and I'm calling it a failure because I didn't do it on day 40. Crazy. Crazy. I work with people who are addicted to substances. Right?

So I was my day job was an addiction psychiatrist. And these are people who will be sober for 48 days, and then they will have a relapse. And then this is no longer sober. It becomes binary. And then what does the brain do?

The brain says, what's the point of resisting alcohol for 39 days if we're just gonna drink on day 40? We demotivate ourselves. So what we wanna focus on is the action. Focus on the present. Focus on doing the thing.

And so if you're waking up and you wanna use this tool in your life and there's something that you would like to make more consistent, which is still not a thing because I I I see how quickly I default to I wanna do it every day. I wanna be more consistent. I wanna lose the weight. I wanna make more money. You're how do I use this technique to get myself to focus on what I need to do today, doctor k?

Couple of very good things that you can do cognitively. The first is focus on the negative. Anticipate the negative.

Meaning what?

Meaning that if you're thinking about going to the gym Yeah. Let's say you wanna go tomorrow. Right? So what you wanna do is well, tomorrow when I wake up, I'm not gonna feel like going to the gym. Mentally prepare for the difficulty.

K.

So there are studies that show that predicting or anticipating the difficulty is a very, very important part because that doesn't, then you're not caught off guard by it. Right? You're not thinking see, when everyone thinks about going to the gym, they're thinking about the positive. They're not thinking about the negative. And then when they run into the negative, the pain of actually going through the act, that their brain gets confused.

Because I'm thinking about this as a good thing, but my experience of it is as a bad thing. So the first thing that you actually wanna do is anticipate the difficulty of the action that you wanna take.

And that makes a lot of sense to me. I can give you as you're listening an example. I've been doing a lot of the cold exposure climbing into a I hate it. And I do not try to motivate myself, so to speak, or get myself all hyped up. I'm literally like, this is gonna blow.

I'm gonna do it. It's gonna be 90 seconds of my life, and I'm just getting in the damn barrel. And it there's something about saying it that it's almost like this sort of internal resistance lowers. I don't know how what is happening in your body when you use this? Like, I'm gonna have a healthy dinner tonight, and it's gonna suck.

And I know I would rather have a delicious, juicy, like, whatever cheeseburger, but I'm going to just eat the salad and the clean protein, and that's gonna be that. And that's what I'm doing. What happens in your brain when you do step 1, doctor k, and you anticipate the negative?

So the first thing that it does is it it doesn't let you get caught off guard. So you're you're you're changing your expectations from a positive thing to a negative thing, and what we know about human beings and expectations is nothing basically lives up to your expectations. So we have this imaginary capacity in our brain, and no reality will measure up to that. So the interesting thing is if you look at something negative and you say this is really gonna suck, you don't wanna tell people, like, who are getting injections and stuff like like vaccines, like, that this is gonna suck. But you can tell people, hey.

This is gonna hurt for a little while. You just want an accurate representation. Don't try to pump it up, and don't try to let it down. K. The beautiful thing about that is that once you remove, once you kind of bypass all of this, like, positivity and stuff, when you actually do the thing, it's usually not as bad as you expected.

The other thing that you're doing which is very, very important is you are taming your brain. You're telling your brain it's not about motivation because motivation is about gratification of the brain. Right? It's like I wanna do this thing, and I wanna feel good. It's all about positive.

It's about getting that reward at the end. It's about the outcome. We are separating. We are divorcing the action from pleasure or pain or anything. We are learning to be independent of pleasure and pain.

My I say I'm gonna do this. That's what I'm fucking gonna do. I do not care what my brain wants. I do not care. It's fine.

Like, we're gonna do this. You do it, and this is what happens. You're separating yourself.

Love this, doctor k. I wanna make sure you got this because this to me, this is something you have to understand. I even want you to visualize it. This makes so much sense to me now that you have taught us that motivation really is about pleasure and craving and drive and all that stuff over here. And you, when you say step 1, I am just going to anticipate the negative.

I'm gonna tell myself this is gonna suck, I'm gonna focus on what I'm doing today and by doing that you are literally cleaving the the like a separation between pleasure seeking part of your brain

And pain avoidance.

And pain avoidance to literally activating the ability to see that something's not gonna be enjoyable, but you're gonna do it anyway. Absolutely. This makes so much sense. You're basically flipping the switch on the part of the brain that activates to go, woah. Woah.

Woah. Woah. Woah. Don't want you to do that. And going, um-mm.

I see this coming. You can you can take a nap because we're gonna go and have the healthy meal. I have a question. Are you frustrated because you haven't made it yet? Be honest.

You start to think, I'm never gonna find the time to make it happen. You'll never be talented enough. You could never be that funny, smart, or innovative. Right? The truth is a 1,000,000 likes online doesn't mean anything until you like yourself.

A $1,000,000 in the bank ain't worth nothing if you've got no self worth. So before you give up, you have to understand the only thing that matters is the work that you're putting in, not the end result. And if your social media feeds are bringing you down, just remember, you're only seeing the end game. Anyone who is truly successful did 1 thing, and it's the same thing that we all do. They put in the work, and that work, that work is what you don't see online.

Every single day, you make choices. You choose to drive or you choose to slide into the passenger seat of life. Which is it gonna be? The thoughts you allow yourself to spend time on determine if you get what you want because your dreams matter, but you're the 1 who's gonna have to make them happen. I mean, look at this post from Lin Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton.

This was 3 years before Hamilton hit Broadway and he was ready to give up Ed Sheeran. He was working on his dreams way before he was a Grammy Award winning artist. Are you working? If you're not working, are you waiting for permission? Stop.

You don't need permission. You just need to push yourself to take that first step and then to keep going. Will you fail along the way? Of course. And you know what?

I hope so, and here's why. A study of entrepreneurs found that when you fail once, you double your chances of success. Failure doesn't make you give up. Failure happens when you give up. Those of you who succeed are the ones who get back up over and over and over again.

Wait. What did you say? You're afraid of judgment? Of people criticizing you? Welcome to the success club.

You don't belong if you don't have haters. Lady Gaga had so many people who doubted her that they formed online groups around the topic of her failure. It's a great sign when you have critics because it's life testing how bad do you want it. Instead of thinking game over, how about thinking game on? Don't wait to feel ready because that's not gonna happen.

The bottom line, it's keep going. Keep going because no 1 is coming to save you. No 1 is coming to do the work for you. No 1 is coming to walk over and turn off Netflix. No 1 is coming to tell you to get out the door and go on a run.

No 1 is coming to tell you to pick up the phone and make the phone call. It's up to you, and it's always gonna be up to you. And whether you succeed or whether or not you fail is up to you. Your dreams, they don't expire. And that's why every single day, you gotta wake up and you gotta renew your commitment to that dream by trying 1 more time every single day.

Hey. It's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here.

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