You're Not Entitled to Motivation, You Earn It

Most people think that motivation is a requirement for the journey and that you'll have to always be motivated if you want to see results.

The way that the process actually works is a lot less inspiring. Motivation isn't this constant feeling of inspiration or desire - if all it took was inspiration or desire that would makes success kind-of redundant wouldn't it? What's the point of going for something that depends on your ability to keep yourself in a great mood?

Rather, motivation is a lot more like a stop at the gas station. You drive for a long time, relying on your understanding of the way, sometimes encountering major obstacles. Eventually after driving for a while, your car starts to run out of gas, then just at the right time - a gas station! So you quickly rest and refuel, and continue the journey to your destination with new energy and fuel.

I noticed that success is a lot less about being continually motivated, but actually more about being continually unmotivated, and doing it anyway. Eventually those that stuck through it enough get recharged by way of a great win or progress, thus they continue.

You might think to yourself that the more successful you become, the more you win, so the more motivated you'll be. This isn't true. When I started coaching I thought getting $2,000 from 2 clients in 1 day was a huge deal, so when I achieved just that, I was pumped up, jumping up and down, called my friends and took a trip to Amsterdam.
Nowadays I might close a client or 2 for $3,000 and I won't even get excited. Sure, I would be happy, but I wouldn't get pumped up and excited like back then. That's because as we become more successful, our tolerance for success is stronger and so we have to create higher levels of success to fuel ourselves again. That's why people who become successful but don't continue building and growing that success often fall into depression and boredom and destroy it anyway, this happened to me multiple times and I've learned from it that the process of growth never ends.

Your job isn't to motivate yourself, at-least not in the traditional sense. Your just is to do your job, and the best way to do it is obviously to know why you're doing it and have a clear enough purpose, it's also paramount that you have the right habits put in place, this you develop.

In closing, don't look at success as this sprint that you run towards hoping you won't get tired, it's more like a long walk to your grandma's home where you mostly complain on the way "when are we getting there already!?" only to be treated with occasional beautiful views that help keep you engaged and motivated to go on.

This is why enjoying the journey is so important. I won't even call it "enjoying the journey" since I think that's a lie. But let's just call it "accepting the journey and not hating it". As long as you can make sense of moving forward, you'll keep moving forward. As long as you keep moving forward, you're bound to get there at one point or another.

Look back at your longest, toughest and most boring trip - everything ends. There's always a destination for those that keep walking. So... Make sure you know where you're going and why you're going there, stop to rest and refuel and the occasional gas-stations, but mostly, just keep walking. It's always worth it.