Wisdom-Trek / Creating a LegacyWelcome to Day 494 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomGet Motivated by Taking ActionThank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 494 of our trek, and today is Motivation Monday. Every Monday we hike the trails of life that will encourage and motivate us to live rich and satisfying lives this week. Today let us explore the trail called Get Motivated by Taking Action.We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. If all goes according to plan, we will have returned from our trip to Mesa, Arizona by now. I am recording a few episodes in advance while we are away from our office. We have several activities and goals planned for the remainder of this month, but we realize that to accomplish them, we must take action which will motivate us in the future to complete our tasks.As we break camp and head out on our trek for today, let us invest time exploring the concept of…Get Motivated by Taking ActionYou may struggle to find the motivation you need to achieve the goals you want because you are wasting too much time and energy on other parts of the process. If you want to make it easy to find motivation and get started, then it helps to automate the early stages of your behavior.1. Schedule Your MotivationMany people never get around to starting tasks because they are always wondering what they are going to do next. You could apply this to working out, starting a business, writing a book, and building most habits. Here are some examples:If your workout doesn’t have a time when it usually occurs, then each day you’ll wake up thinking, “I hope I feel motivated to exercise today.”If your business doesn’t have a system for marketing, then you’ll show up at work crossing your fingers that you’ll find a way to get the word out (in addition to everything else you have to do).If you don’t have a scheduled time when you write every week, then you’ll find yourself saying things like, “I just need to find the willpower to do it.”In other words, if you waste resources trying to decide when or where to work, you’ll impede your capacity to do the work.Setting a schedule for yourself seems simple, but it puts your decision-making on autopilot by giving your goals a time and a place to live. It makes it more likely that you will follow through regardless of your motivation level. There are plenty of research studies on willpower and motivation to back up that statement. A personal example is that I get up at 5:30am every weekday to exercise. I rarely feel motivated when I get up, but I take action knowing that it is part of my overall goal for maintaining a healthy lifestyle.Stop waiting for motivation or inspiration to strike you and set a schedule for your habits. This is the difference between professionals and amateurs. Professionals set a schedule and stick to it. Amateurs wait until they feel inspired or motivated.2. How to Get Motivated (Even When You Don’t Feel Like It)The most successful creative people go beyond schedules to set up rituals that they stick to in order to accomplish what they desire.In his popular book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, author Mason Currey notes that many of the world’s great artists follow a consistent schedule.Maya Angelou rented a local hotel room and went there to write. She arrived at 6:30 AM, wrote until 2 PM, and then went home to do some editing. She never slept at the hotel.Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon writes five nights per week from 10 PM to 3 AM.Haruki Murakami wakes up at 4 AM, writes for five hours, and then goes for a run.The work of top creatives isn’t dependent upon motivation or inspiration, but rather it follows a consistent pattern and routine. Here are some examples of how you can apply ritual and routine to get motivated: