Motivation is a tricky thing. You might get motivated after listening to a good song, or maybe after hearing some good news, or maybe you just wake up feeling great. But motivation is hard to depend on. So, today, we’re going to talk about how to get motivated and then how to schedule it.

Sounds strange to schedule motivation, right?

But the reason people fail or never get started is that they too often depend on motivation magically showing up. They make a vague plan that sounds good in the moment. But when reality hits (i.e. a lack of motivation) they thrown in the towel.

So, when it comes to goals, we wake up saying, or thinking something like, “I hope I feel motivated to exercise today.”

Or whatever it is you’re working on.

Scheduling my motivation

When I wrote my book I had the hardest time at first. I would write a little here or there, whenever I found a solid block of time and felt inspired. But those times were too few and far between. If I was ever going to get it finished I had to come up with a plan.

So, instead of waking up each day hoping to find time to write, I began scheduling it first thing each morning.

Every morning while writing the manuscript, I woke up at 5:00, poured a cup of coffee, grabbed my laptop, plopped myself down in the same chair, and began to write for the next hour and a half before everyone woke up.

How you can get motivated

So, let’s talk about how to get motivated.

When we think of motivation we often associate it with high-performing athletes and artistic performers. It leaves us asking, “How do they do it day after day? How do they motivate themselves every single day?”

Here’s the secret: They don't just set schedules and hope for the best – they build rituals.

In her book, The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp, a world-renowned dancer and choreographer shares how rituals have played a large role in her success.

Here’s a brief excerpt from her book – it’s a simple idea, but it’s very powerful:

“I begin each day of my life with a ritual; I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st street and First Avenue, where I workout for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.”

You can use this same idea if you want to…

Exercise more consistently: Use the same warm-up routine before working out.
Sleep better: Follow a “power down” routine each night before bed.

Okay, so if rituals are how we create motivation, then how do we use them to schedule motivation? As I’ve said many times before, habits lead to success. Diets don’t work, mainly because they’re impossible to make a habit out of.

4 steps to scheduling motivation

So, let’s get into scheduling motivation:

As we just saw, to make motivation a habit you need to develop rituals.

Step 1: Plan for it

For example, my exercise routine begins before I even start working out in the morning. Because the night before I set out my workout clothes and shoes so that I can see them sitting there. I literally have to step over them to get past. It makes it much more difficult for me to ignore it.

Step 2: Make the first step easy

Make the first step in your pre–game routine so easy you can’t say no to it. You shouldn’t need motivation to start your pre–game routine. Since I’ve laid my clothes out the night before, my first step in my routine the morning I workout is to simply put my workout clothes on and lace up my shoes.

Step 3: Make sure your routine moves you toward your goal

Your routine should get you moving toward the end goal.

A lack of mental motivation is often linked to a lack of physical movement. As Tony Robbins often says, the best way to change your mental state is to change your physical state.

Step 4: You need to follow the same pattern every single time

The primary purpose of your pre-game routine is to create a series of events that you always perform before doing a specific task. Your pre-game routine tells your mind, “This is what happens before I do (fill in the blank).”

Eventually, your mind connects this routine to your performance. And when that happens, you’ll automatically enter a mental state ready to perform. It’s not about finding motivation, it’s about developing a routine that you stick with each day.

How to Schedule Motivation