Tiffany Han [00:00:00]: Oh, if only you were more motivated to do the things you say you want to do, to make those habits that you keep starting and stopping real, and to have the life that you want. How familiar does that sound? Today we are going to be talking all about motivation, and I am going to give you five motivation shifts that are going to help you start taking action today on the things that you say you want to to do. Now, really today, that is my goal. So let's get into it. Welcome back. I'm Tiffany Hahn. I am a life and business strategy coach. I've got 13 years of experience, and I have helped hundreds of highly creative humans take bold, inspired action towards their goals.

Tiffany Han [00:00:44]: I am here to help you have less overwhelm and more fun with everything you do. Let's set the stage. As you're listening to this, I want you to have one goal in mind. Can this apply to everything? 1000%. And if you try to apply it to everything, you're probably going to end up applying it to nothing. So instead, I want you to approach this with one goal in mind, and I want you to try to take note of the whispers that show up as you are listening to me. Why? Number one, those are going to be great nuggets of things that you can do and actions you can take. Number two is that we are so good at not listening to our intuition.

Tiffany Han [00:01:29]: And what I want you to tell you is right now, there's this perfect alignment between what you want, what I am going to share, and the parts that your intuition grabs onto. So be listening to that and know that a big key to hearing from your intuition more is starting to listen to what it has to tell you. In our high achieving, the work is never done. How hard are you willing to go to get it? There is a myth that motivation, the lack of motivation means that you don't want it enough. And we are going to bust that myth wide open. I want to start by looking at the definition of the word motivation, because it doesn't mean what we think. It means that motivation equals how badly you want the thing. If only wanting the thing badly enough were the answer, all of our problems would be solved.

Tiffany Han [00:02:26]: There are two definitions that I want to look at for motivation. The first one is motivation is the reason for acting a certain way. Okay. The second is motivation is the general desire or willingness not to have an outcome, y'all, but to do something. What do these two definitions have in common? They're both pointing to the action that one needs to take over and over again, not the goal. Can you see that? And can you see where we think, oh, if only I want it more, then I'll have the motivation to help me get there. Not the answer. So now let's move into those motivation shifts that I want you to look at.

Tiffany Han [00:03:18]: The first one might feel like a magic trick. We are going to take what might be a vague outcome. I want to get healthier, and we are going to turn that into a specific action. I want to walk 500 miles this calendar year. Great. Now that's one of my personal goals for the year. I also have a goal to do 100 strength workouts. Both of those goals are in service of me getting healthier.

Tiffany Han [00:03:46]: And if I only said I should get healthier, I've said that for years. It doesn't get me healthier. The problem is that, number one, it is a vague, undefined result. And number two, it's not actually attached to any action that I can take today, because even if I'm sitting around eating potato chips for dinner, I still should get healthier. What I want you to think about instead of the thing you want is get really clear with yourself. Tell me, what actions do you both want to do and are you willing to do? What action are you willing to take towards this thing that you want? You can write it down right now, you can tell me in the comments, or you can send me a DM on Instagram. Yes, I would love to hear. Listen, if you can't answer that question, you may not actually want the goal as bad as you think you do.

Tiffany Han [00:04:56]: For example, I wanna run a marathon. I don't. Spoiler alert, she doesn't. Let's say I wanna run a marathon. I wanna run a marathon. Am I willing to train for a marathon? Nope, I'm not. But without recognizing that, I'm only going to remain frustrated that I'm not running a marathon. Do you see how that works? What we want to make sure is that you're attaching the motivation to something that you can do.

Tiffany Han [00:05:41]: And even if you can't run a marathon yet, can you go run for ten minutes? And are you attaching it to something that you can do today? If you can't do it today or tomorrow, you might need to walk that action back a little bit because it might be too big. Motivation shift number two, tell yourself the truth. Often when someone comes to me, this is just an aside, a little life hack aside. When someone comes to me and they're having a problem and they don't know how to process it or what to do or they're feeling really conflicted with something. My first line of advice is often, have you told the truth? Maybe you need to tell the truth to someone else. And is there a way that you're denying yourself the truth? So one of those truths might be, I'm not ready to go start training for that marathon today. I can't go run 10 miles. But it might also be, I actually don't enjoy running.

Tiffany Han [00:06:39]: If you are trying to create motivation by denying your something that's true about you, can you see, can you see how that's not going to work out in your favor? Your life's purpose is not to white knuckle your way through to some externally defined end result that you are not connected with. If it was, we'd be there. We'd all be running marathons. That's not the purpose of your life. So think about is there somewhere that you need to be honest with yourself? Something I ask myself all the time is, do I want to write a book or do I want to just have a book in a bookstore with my name on it? Ooh, ooh, ooh. Yeah, that one doesn't feel good to ask myself. Sure it doesn't. And wakes me up.

Tiffany Han [00:07:47]: And what it does is it leads me when I'm like, oh, how dare you, self? Then what it says is, so what you gonna do about it? If you're offended by the truth question, what am I gonna do about it? What am I gonna do to prove that I actually wanna write that book? I can find out. Am I willing to? We'll see. The other thing that comes with telling yourself the truth, I want you to practice doing it with grace. We're not here to shame ourselves for not wanting to do something, or not being people who run a marathon, or not being someone who even wants to write a book. Even though I have been told forever and ever and ever, that is what I should want. Give yourself grace to want what you want. Give yourself grace not to want what you don't want. And all of that grace is going to lead to freedom.

Tiffany Han [00:08:50]: Number three is I want you to think about the Venn diagram of the three components of motivation. Our three motivation components are, number one, activation, number two, persistence, and number three, intensity. Let's break it down. Activation. Let's look at my goal of walking 500 miles this calendar year. Part of my activation was, number one, telling people the goal. Number two, making my goal tracker number three, taking my first walk. Number four, taking my second walk.

Tiffany Han [00:09:27]: Number five, taking my third walk. Let's say you want to write a novel? Activation might look like signing up for a novel writing class at your local community college. And on a micro level, activation is going to look like going to class, doing your homework, doing your thousand words a day, or whatever intermediary goal and action you've set for yourself. Persistence is a willingness and ability to keep going. Not only to be able to keep going over the long haul, but to be able to keep going right in the class, keep your butt in the seat. I'm going to keep going. Persistence for me is that I keep taking walks that macro level, and also that if I'm out on a walk and I'm like, oh, I'm tired, sometimes I turn around, but often persistence looks like, let's finish the walk. And then intensity, how hard are you willing to work to get it? Listen, y'all, I am all about ease.

Tiffany Han [00:10:32]: I love me some ease. And we could do a whole video about bringing ease into everything. And sometimes we need to be able to work hard to get what we want, that we can make it as easy as possible to do so. But are you willing to show up to it? And are you willing to show up to it with the intensity that it requires? The answer is no. No shame. What are you willing to do instead? We can swap it out. It might feel weak in the moment. Ugh.

Tiffany Han [00:11:07]: You're not weak, you're amazing. But by swapping it out for something that you actually are willing to do, you are increasing your chances of hitting that goal exponentially. So it feels weak and it feels lazy. And forget that. Because none of that is helpful to any of us, nor to reaching our goals, nor to, I don't know, the world. So instead, what are you willing to do? We're going to tell ourselves the truth. We're going to attach it to an action that we're willing to take instead of an outcome. And we're going to think about activation, persistence and intensity on that micro and macro level.

Tiffany Han [00:11:47]: Do you see where or just pushing yourself to be more motivated is not going to be giving you the specific information that you need. Motivation, shift number four, I want you to consider the how rather than the what or the why. So the why is pointing towards that big goal. The what is pointing towards the action. Maybe you want to refine, but you might also want to refine the how. How are you showing up? How are you tracking your progress rather than just the outcome? How are you celebrating what you're doing? How are you celebrating yourself for the steps that you're taking? And listen, I am not talking about, oh, I'll celebrate when I hit the goal. No, no, no. I am talking about creating these moments of celebration every time you take an action.

Tiffany Han [00:12:59]: For example, when I get to color in my walk tracker, every time I do it, it is a way for me to celebrate and honor the action that I'm taking. Even though, whoo, I got a long way to go before I hit 500 miles. That's okay. I'm willing to continue doing the work. And part of what helps me be more willing is that I celebrate the action. Another how that I do to make walks easier, to make myself more likely to hit that goal, to make myself more motivated, which is not just make myself want it more, is I arrange walks with friends that help me get up and moving in the morning when otherwise I would just be a sloth in my bed. That makes it easier. Can you make it easier for yourself to take action? Where or how can you reduce friction? Part of my friction is that I don't like waking up early in the morning.

Tiffany Han [00:14:03]: So what do I do? I make plans to meet somebody so I know that someone is going to be waiting for me, probably a couple mornings a week. If I don't get out of bed. Does it solve every single problem? No. Could I try to arrange walks with more people? Yes. But what it does is it helps me guarantee that at least twice a week, at least, I'm getting six mile walks, 6 miles in a week, and then I can figure the rest out as I go. One other thing with the celebrations is that you might have goal milestones. We're taught to have milestones and things to check in and quarterly planning and da da da, sure. But we're gonna reduce it down.

Tiffany Han [00:14:49]: I want you to celebrate inch stones instead. Every time you make progress, you make that celebration another way that you can shift your how. Stop making your goals unreachable. Stop it. The moon not for your to do list. The moon not for your put it on your vision board if you want to shoot for the moon. But your to do list. Be more reasonable.

Tiffany Han [00:15:16]: Oh, my gosh. I'm a life coach telling people to be more reasonable. Yeah. Yeah. Because you know what hitting goals at smaller levels teaches you? Teaches your brain that you can keep going, and it helps you build that confidence muscle. It also helps you build your action taking muscle. Both of those are needed to design and live and maintain and sustain the life that you want. Finally, our last motivation shift, and probably the most important one, save the best for last.

Tiffany Han [00:15:54]: Don't forget about your capacity you cannot out motivate your capacity, nor can you use motivation to solve a capacity problem. I wish you could, but you cannot. So if I want to run a marathon, if I want to walk 500 miles this year, and I am consistently getting 4 hours of sleep a night because my anxiety is keeping me awake, it's not going to happen because I do not have the capacity to hit that goal or to take action. I might be willing, but if I'm not able, it's unaligned. And no amount of desire and no amount of willingness to do it is going to change that. So don't try to lean on motivation to solve your capacity problem. Also, let's underscore that with stop calling yourself lazy. You are not lazy, I promise.

Tiffany Han [00:17:00]: You are not lazy. I promise. You are sitting here watching a YouTube video about motivation. You are not lazy. I promise. Please stop calling yourself that and please stop thinking that that is a problem that you are solving for. It is not. Ugh.

Tiffany Han [00:17:18]: It is nothing. All right, there you have it. We've journeyed through the land of motivation. Tell me, what are you excited to try? What are you excited to do? What are you excited to let go of? They all count. If you want to learn more about capacity, check out my video about setting your yes. Foundations. If you want to learn more about grace, check out my video about the five pillars of radical self belief and creating that raise your hand, say as lifestyle and that radical self belief lifestyle. The way to keep going all the time.

Tiffany Han [00:18:35]: Keep me posted. If you have questions for a future video, ask away. Please don't be shy about that. Thank you for being here and I will see you soon.