ATG 21: How to build a Motivation Portfolio

Why is staying motivated during a goal so difficult?

When your motivation for a new goal disappears, the temptation may be to believe that you've picked the wrong goal to work on, but most of the time, I don't think that's the issue at all. Motivation is notoriously flighty, so the key to success is learning how to bring it back every time it takes off. In this episode, I'm sharing my #1 motivation tool so that you can keep making progress on your goals even if your excitement starts to fade.

Links from today's episode:
Jon's book Finish
The FREE 5-day Beyond Perfect Challenge
The Finish Calendar
Read the first chapter of Soundtracks here

Follow Jon on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

Order Soundtracks, Jon's newest book available wherever you find quality books!

Transcript

Jon Acuff: 0:02

Hey everyone, and welcome to the All it Takes is a Goal podcast. The best place in the entire world, including all of Canada, to learn how to build new thoughts, new actions, and new results. I'm your host, Jon Acuff. And today, I'm going to teach you the number one mistake that people make with motivation and how to fix it with a tool you're going to love. It's something I call a motivation portfolio. But first, today's episode is sponsored by Medi-Share. Have you guys ever had buyer's remorse? You know that feeling of intense regret because the thing you thought you just had to have was only something used once or twice? For me it was the time I bought a really expensive road bike because I thought I was going to get into cycling. I proceeded to hang it on the wall in my garage and feel ashamed for six months. Well, I know some of you are experiencing buyer's remorse right now for something much more frustrating. You know what I'm talking about. It's the healthcare you rushed to get during open enrollment last December. Well, I have some good news for you. You've probably heard me talking about our main sponsor for this podcast, Medi-Share. And these guys have the answer to healthcare buyer's remorse. Check this out, members of Medi-Share save up to 50% or more per month on their health care costs. They say the typical family saves up to $500 per month. And here's the best part, you can become a member at any time. So that means it isn't too late to ditch your buyer's remorse and switch to a more affordable health care that will save you money and help you sleep better at night. If this is your first time you're hearing about Medi-Share, it is the best alternative to health insurance that allows you to share the burden of medical bills, offers access to 900,000 plus health care providers, and has a proven 25 year track record. Plus in addition to saving hundreds per month, as a member of Medi-Share, you will also have access to free telehealth and free telecounseling. You won't find that with any traditional health insurance provider. Guys, it only takes two minutes to see how much you could save. Go investigate that for yourself and your family at Medi-Share.com/Jon. That's Medi-Share.com/Jon. Remember Jon doesn't have an H in it. So it's a M-E-D-I, that's Medi, share, S-H-A-R-E dot com slash J-O-N. Alright, let's start today by discussing the word hustle. That's a really popular word on the internet. And it's so overused at this point. Everyone is always posting photos on Instagram of their yacht and their watch with captions like"Every day I'm hustling.-Abraham Lincoln" and I think to myself "I'm, I'm pretty sure that was Rick Ross, not Abe Lincoln, but they're they're very easy to confuse." Wasn't it old Honest Abe that woke up in a new Bugatti? I once saw a guy in the lobby of my dentist who owned a purple Lamborghini. I know he did because we were the only people there and I didn't own the purple Lamborghini and there was definitely a purple Lamborghini outside. So when I saw him in the lobby I said "Oh wow, Rick Ross has a song about purple Lamborghinis." And he, I'm gonna be honest with you, he did not seem amused. File that one under Jon's Adventures in Awkwardness. We see the word hustle everywhere. But what is it? I think of hustle like, here's how I define it, I think of hustle as an act of focus, not frenzy. That's my definition. Hustle is an act of focus, not frenzy. It's not frantic. It's not manic. It's not panicked, or other words that rhyme with those three words, because that works well. It's deliberately choosing the actions that matter most to your goal, and then consistently doing them over a sustained period of time. It's one of those things that separates high performers from average performers, but it is difficult. I mean, hustle is not easy. But the good news is it's not impossible. In fact, hustle is a whole lot easier when you have motivation. Call it being fired up, call it inspired, call it passionate, use whatever term you want. But you know it's true, you'll hustle more when you're motivated. The problem is that we tend to believe a powerful myth about motivation. This is the number one mistake people make with motivation. We believe that motivation grows during a goal. We tend to think that the longer you work on a goal, the bigger your motivation will be. We imagine that we start at a one on the motivation scale. And then as the goal grows, so will our motivation. You see this myth mess up people at races. There's a real temptation to run too fast at the beginning of a race and then fall apart in the middle. When I ran my first half marathon, this is back when we lived in Atlanta, we lived in Alpharetta, Georgia which is like north of downtown Atlanta, I ran my first half marathon. It only took me seven and a half minutes to finish the first mile. That's that's pretty good. Seven and a half minute pace? I can live with that. I was excited. I was so hopeful. That was great. Unfortunately, I walked the last four miles at like a 13 or 14 minute pace. It's always humbling, by the way, when you do a race that has both a half marathon and a marathon on the same course, and you get lapped by people who have run 26 miles while you're crawling to bust out your 13.1. You'll also never want to get left by the six people who are running together while carrying a giant P.F Chang's dragon. Now getting passed by a juggler, there's no shame in that I got crushed by a juggler. Not a juggalo, by the way. Big, big distinction. No offense to the Insane Clown Posse. As a general rule, I don't mess with Texas, or the ICP. A dude juggling during a half marathon passed me one day going so fast. I felt terrible until I looked up the statistics on people who run while juggling. There's a whole subculture that you probably didn't know about. The record for fastest half marathon while juggling is one hour and 20 minutes. My best time is one hour and 47 minutes. There are some fast jugglers out there. But I completely overran during my first race. When I came home, I crawled into the tub until the water turned frigid. Like I stayed there so long that the water just turned really cold. And eventually my wife said"Hey, I got to run some errands and you have to get out of the tub. I think you might drown otherwise." What's interesting about that phenomenon, the tendency to run too fast at the beginning of a race is that runners use musical soundtracks to fight it. One hack is that when you start a race, you listen to really slow songs at the beginning. I wrote a book called Soundtracks recently about how changing the thoughts we listened to can change our actions and our results. So I'm really interested in soundtracks. The goal of the book is to teach you how to retire your broken soundtracks, those repetitive thoughts that hold you back, how to replace them with new soundtracks, and how to repeat the new ones so often, they become as automatic as the old ones. Retire, replace, repeat. We'll link the book in the show notes. Instead of listening to Welcome to the Jungle or something like that, that gets you hyped at the start of a race. Runners will put on a slow ambient song or George Winston's December, because the music will chill you out, it will calm you down. That fixes the issue of running too fast the beginning of a race. But how do we make sure we have motivation during the entire length of our goal? How do we make sure that we have internal positive sound tracks that push us forward? Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to understand how flighty motivation really is. The very first thing to leave during a goal is your motivation. Sometimes the problem is how we divide goals in our head, if you ask someone and I've asked 1000s of people this question, how would you divide a 30 day goal? If you ask them to label the beginning, the middle and the end? Here's what they tend to say. They say, "Okay, the beginning will be days one through 10, the middle will be days 11 through 20. And the finish will be days 21 through 30." And that sounds right, you know, three chunks of time 30 days divided by 10. But that's not how goals work. What really happens is that in a 30 day goal, it breaks down like this. Beginning, day one. Middle, days 2 through 29. Finish, day 30. This isn't just motivational hype either. I've taken 1000s of people through goals. In fact, I'm doing a brand new free five day challenge called Beyond Perfect, Winning the Race Against Perfectionism in June. You can sign up for free at Acuff.me/challenge. We'll also link that in the show notes. When I do a challenge, and it's free, it's online, there's 1000s of people that do it, do you know where we see the biggest drop off? When people quit, like more people quit in a 30 day challenge on this day than any other day. And by quit I mean they stop opening the emails, they stopped participating in the Facebook group. They quit. Most people guess that it's day 10, maybe, maybe day 15. It's not. The greatest day that we see the greatest number of quits is day two. That's crazy, right? Why does that happen? Because on day one, your goal is just a wish. On day two, it turns into work. That's the transition, day one wish, day two work. And motivation gets real flighty whenever work shows up motivation is like "Whoa, I didn't think you were serious that we're gonna do this thing. I just thought we like, ahhh, we have a new year's resolution, what?" And I wrote about this in my book Finish. I call this phenomenon "the day after perfect," which is the day after your perfect vision of how the goal is going to go falls apart. One of the soundtracks that I use in my life, you know, a positive soundtrack, is prepare for the day after perfect. Because here's the thing. I know it's coming at some point. Eventually some part of my goal is going to go sideways, maybe in spectacular fashion. I might as well prepare for it. We'll link that book in the show notes too. If you're a perfectionist, and you're like "Whoa, wait a second. I need that book. Our moment of feeling motivated disappears when the work shows up. And we feel like maybe, maybe I should give up. That's your first bit of homework today. I give homework on these podcast episodes. Now I'm like,"Hey, what if you tried this? I think this might help your life." Here's what I want you to think about. What's something that steals your motivation? Finishing your goals, which is what this podcast is all about, involves a lot of self-awareness. And that's what this question will help you build. In the past, on other stuff you've worked on, when you've worked on a goal, worked on a resolution, whatever word you want to call it, what stole your motivation? Often, there's a broken soundtrack related to that thief. For instance, for me, one of the things that steals my motivation are unspoken, unrealistic expectations. They're not realistic, they're not possible. And I haven't said them out loud. If I said them out loud, if I shared them with somebody else, if I even wrote them down, I might see how crazy they are. But I haven't done that. They're just, they're in my head. They're internal. And I'll think, Okay, I shouldn't be able to lose 10 pounds in a week. I should be able to write 20 pages of new words in a day. I should be able to sell a billion copies of my new book in a month." And then when I can't, when the results take longer than I expected, longer than my broken soundtracks told me they would, I get disappointed. I lose my motivation. And I give up. So that's the homework. First bit of homework, what steals your motivation? You could say,"What steals my motivation is when people criticize me and my goal." I think that's a great answer. People criticizing your goal can steal your motivation. What I would add to that is that there might be a broken soundtrack in the mix. You know which one you might be listening to. Maybe right now you're listening to the broken soundtrack that says, "Everyone will like this idea" or"Everyone will support this idea." That might sound hopeful on the face of things. But it's not because broken soundtracks always travel in packs, and the one behind that is going to tell you, "If anyone doesn't support your goal or dream, it must be the wrong thing to pursue" or"If they don't feel as excited about it as you do, it must be the wrong thing to chase." So now, if you don't get 100% approval rating, you'll give up. That's a motivation thief right there. Write down a few answers to that question, what steals my motivation? Now that we've talked about a few broken soundtracks, let's talk about a new one we can replace them with. Here's one I really like. Motivation is a mission, not a moment. Let me repeat that because sometimes I'm a fast talker. Motivation is a mission, not a moment. It's something you actively work at. It's what will keep you going when you want to quit. It's the fuel for endurance. And if you want to sustain it, you need as many sources as you can get your hands on. Some people think motivation is like a soulmate. Like you'll find one true north that guides you for the rest of your life. One perfect source of inspiration that you look back on in troubling times and that'll keep you going. I love that idea. It's so quaint. It's romantic. It's fuzzy. It's like a Hallmark Christmas movie. The one I think about all the time, like my favorite one is where the busy single executive who has lost sight of the meaning of Christmas, but then a Ryan Reynolds type like not Ryan, but like budget Ryan. The Ryan they could afford, who is like a firefighter, lumberjack, and kindergarten teacher. He shows her the meaning of Christmas, like the real meaning, and they kiss at midnight in the small town that she grew up in, and they probably save her dad's farm in the process. Have you Have you seen that one? It's the best. I wish motivation was like that. I do. But it's not. You need more than one form. And here's why. If you only have one form of motivation, when that quits, so will you. Today I'm going to teach you how to build what I call a motivation portfolio. What happens when you don't care as much about your one form of motivation? What happens is that you end up giving up, you don't endure. My favorite thing in the world, for instance, is to speak on stages. I love doing live events with companies. And it's been so fun to see speaking requests come through this podcast. People are filling out the form going, "Hey, I'm on Acuff.me, I saw your podcast, I listened to it." I love that there's a connection there. But it's my favorite thing in the world. I've had the chance to speak to teams at Microsoft, Walmart, Comedy Central, Nissan, and there's a magic that happens at a live event, but it's just the best thing in the world. So that said, guess what is not happening a lot right now? Live events. Now they're starting to slowly return. But in the meantime, I have to practice and perfect an entirely new skill, virtual events. So how do I stay motivated? Well, some days, I think about my kids. They're working their butts off jumping back and forth between virtual and in-person school. Seeing their great attitudes is really motivating. Other days. I think about how fun it is to get positive emails from clients after an event. I might not get the same feeling I get from hearing laughter in a room but that's really motivating to me as well. The other day, a client emailed my agent and said, "Hey, if anything, Jon is underpaid." That was so kind to say. That's really motivating. Some days I think about my financial goals. Like the goals. I'm trying to hit financially. I have six big things in my future that I want to pay for. Number one, a car for LE, my oldest daughter. Number two, a car for McRae, my youngest daughter. Number three, college for LE. Number four, college for McRae. Number five, a wedding for LE. Number six, a wedding for McCrae. Will my daughters get married? Who knows. But I would love to be in a position financially where I could send them out into the world, like launch them out into the world, with a paid for car, paid for college education, and a paid for wedding. Do you know what a head start that would give them? Other days, when I need to be motivated, I think about how happy I'll be a year from now when I spent 12 months honing the skill of speaking virtually. I'll be thrilled that I learned how to be comfortable in front of a camera. All the work I've put into virtual events has helped me put on free challenges, for instance, online. Other days, I think about how tough it is for musicians in Nashville. They're out of work. I live in Nashville and musicians are out of work and they can't do consulting like I can for teams and the restaurant jobs they used to rely on are gone too. That motivates me with gratefulness. I believe in having a portfolio of motivation, a motivation portfolio. I want you to have a long list of things that motivates you. I want you to have 20 things that motivate you. Why? Because some days 10 of them won't even show up. The mission of your company won't move you. The interaction with the customers won't move you. The commission or check won't move you. Like how you weigh won't move you. Fitting into clothes won't move you. A photo of your family won't move you. On those days, you'll have to dig deep. Where will you dig deep? Your motivation portfolio. That's your main homework today. Again, I don't know if podcasts are supposed to give you homework. I don't know. I'm very new to podcasting, maybe not. But I just want you to spend a few minutes after this and write five to 10 things about your goal that will motivate you. They can be big, they can be small, they can be money, they can be a positive Instagram account, they can be something amazing happened with a customer, they can be anything, as long as they are personal to you. This is your motivation portfolio, not mine. Let's use a health goal as an example because I think a lot of us have those. Say your goal was to lose 10 pounds. And you listen to the soundtrack that motivation is a mission not a moment. What could you put into your motivation portfolio? Here are a few examples. Number one, going on long walks with friends motivates me. Number two, listening to my favorite workout playlist motivates me. Number three, maybe write down when I lose five pounds I get to buy a pair of shoes. A reward can definitely be part of your motivation portfolio. Number four, listening to your favorite audio book or podcast while you work out can be motivational. Number five, a new outfit that you want to fit in could be motivational. Number six, a community of other people exercising can be motivational. I love seeing boot camps in random parking lots around Nashville as people work out together. Number seven, maybe just crossing off the day on your calendar that means you did the work motivates you. I do that with my Finish calendar. Number eight, watching numbers add up and an app like Strava can be motivational. Number nine, a race or an event in the future can pull you forward. I want to do the Disney half marathon at some point with my youngest daughter who is a runner, and that's motivational to me. Number 10, the endorphin boost you'll get when you do the work. Now there's no wrong answer here. This should be the easiest homework a podcast has ever assigned you. I want you to come up with at least three things for your motivation portfolio, each thing you put in there has the potential to be a soundtrack that keeps you going. How? Well for example, my daughter McCrae recently had to run a mile in eight and a half minutes for her lacrosse team. She had six weeks to train for it. And one of the things that she put into her motivation portfolio was the lacrosse team jacket that she would get as a member of the team. So we'd run together. And I'd say to her things like "That jacket is going to be so awesome. That jacket is going to look so good. It's going to be the best jack you've ever owned." And she would say those same things to herself when I wasn't with her. That coat became a soundtrack and it helped her accomplish her

goal. She ended up with a 7: 18:58

48 mile. seven minutes 48 seconds, she crushed that goal. She hustled. And again, hustle is hard. But it's, it's not impossible. And it's a whole lot easier if you have a motivation portfolio. Start building yours today. Here are the three soundtracks we talked about. Number one, hustle is an act of focus, not frenzy. It doesn't mean you're frantic, it means you're focused. It means you focus on the things that matter. Number two, prepare for the day after perfect. It's not going to be perfect. It's not. And number three, motivation is a mission, not a moment. Don't wait for a moment of motivation. Don't wait from moment of inspiration. Build a motivation portfolio. I hope all three of those encourage you this week. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Please make sure you follow the podcast and give me a quick review. And if you like anything in this episode, I think you'll love my brand new book Soundtracks about overthinking. Here's what Jim Gaffigan, one of my favorite comedians, said about it. He said, "Are you an overthinker? If you had to think about it, you should get Jon's new book." Now you can read the first chapter for free at SoundtracksBook.com. We'll link that in the show notes. So many links today so much stuff. All the show notes are gonna end up being like an encyclopedia. That's a wrap. See you next week and remember, all it takes is a goal. This episode of the podcast was brought to you by Medi-Share. Text JON, J-O-N to 474747 for more information. Huge thank you to Medi-Share for sponsoring it. J-O-N to 474747.

Producer: 20:45

Thanks for listening. To learn more about the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast and to get access to today's show notes, transcript, and exclusive content from Jon Acuff, visit Acuff.me/podcast. Thanks again for joining us. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast.