MOTIVATION - DON'T WAIT JUST DO IT!

This weekend will see 25,000 or so people from all across the world converge on the streets of London to run the London Marathon. It's a wonderful day, I know because I ran it myself in 2005. I ran in aid of the spinal injury charity Aspire and raised over £ 4500. Pleased as I was with the fundraising, the real winner that day was me. I learned a lot about myself during the training and the race, lessons that have served me well ever since.

As a GP I often hear my patients say that they would love to do something eg. stop smoking, lose weight or start to exercise, but they don't have any motivation. If I know them well or I've feeling mischievous, I stop and hunt around in my desk drawer for a while before saying - sorry I don't seem to have any in here for you today, I'm fresh out of it! That usually makes them laugh or at least smile. I haven't yet had my face slapped but there's always a first time.

My point is that motivation is not a thing, it's a concept. In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) it is what is referred to as a nominalisation. Think of this as something you can't put in a wheelbarrow. So if it's not a physical thing, maybe it's something you don't need? At least not initially.

Back to the marathon. Although I played fairly regular sport, at the time I started to train for the marathon I was most definitely not a runner. An April marathon involves doing most of the long, hard miles in the winter and I trained very early in the morning. If I'm honest I didn't often wake up and think yes, it's blowing a gale out there, let me out there into that horizontal sleet! What I can say though is that once I'd got myself out of the door and a few yards down the road I always felt better for it - and then I loved it.

You don't need to wait for motivation to come before you start something. As they say on the Nike ads - Just do it, the motivation will follow.

Knowing this opens up vast new possibilities of achievement. Just start and see what happens. If you start and really don't enjoy it, then maybe it isn't the right goal for you - more of that in a later blog. My bet (and I did have the winner in the Grand National last week) is that once you've started you'll develop momentum. Do something a few times and you develop a habit. Once good stuff has become a habit then you are bound to achieve great things. It doesn't matter how small your steps are - as long as you are going in the right direction you will get to where you want to go.

So to recap:

      Motivation is not a thing.
      You don't need it to get started.
      Once you are under way motivation will follow.
      You'll develop momentum and be on your way to your goal!

So as you watch those runners plod along, spare a thought for what they've been through. Maybe running a marathon doesn't float your boat but take inspiration from them and use it to create something wonderful in your own life.