Tips for Motivation

All right. Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of gay men going deeper, a podcast series by the gay men’s brotherhood, where we talk about all things, personal development, mental health, and sexuality today, your hosts are magical. Matt, Michael and myself Calan and collectively, we have over 40 years of experience in the personal development world.

And if this is your first time listening, then we want to thank you. And we want to welcome. Welcome you. Jeez. We each have been in coaching practice for what is my brain doing? Okay. I’m starting this again. We are now starting the recording again. I was just going with that. Okay. We each have our own coaching practice,

but in this podcast we are giving it all away to you. All the good stuff today, we’re going to be talking about tips for motivation and Kalyn is going to get his head on straight for the rest of the today’s episode. We’re going to be unpacking questions. Like what helps you get motivated? What are your biggest motivation distractors and how do you avoid them?

And what keeps you on track when your goals with your goals and your deadlines? I think this is a super important episode, especially for what’s going on right now in the world, especially for when we’re going through those languishing moments of like, oh, I just have zero motivation. Sometimes it’s great to just sit in that other times, he just needed a little pick me up.

We’ll continue these discussions on the last Thursday of every month inside the gay men’s brotherhood zoom hangout, where you’ll have your chance to share your experience. So if you’re not in the free gay men’s brotherhood group, you can check the link for that in the show notes, be sure to join. And then you can find out when we do those free zooms,

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So hopefully we’ll see you in there. And I know that we got lots of good stuff coming your way. Now let’s jump into today’s episode, but first I want to read over a view from a listener. So this comes from Dani buns in the U S thanks, Donnie bun. He says, thanks guys. It gives us five stars. And he goes,

I’m 39. I’m on episode three. And it has already helped me deeply. Thank you so much. Well, we are so grateful that it is helping you Donnie buns. Thanks for listening. We love to happen our listeners. So let’s get into today’s episode and let’s hope the count’s brain can turn on today. We’re going to be talking about tips for motivation,

which clearly I needed, because today I did not want to get out of bed. As you can tell, my brain is not functioning is not working, but we’re going with it anyways. So just for motivation, what helps you get motivated? My goodness. Well, today it was you guys. I was like, I need to record a podcast today.

So things that help keep me motivated, I’ll start there. Motivation is one of those things that it’s just like, do you push through and do you force yourself or do you want to go with ease? And I’m constantly in this in-between state of like, no, I want to go with the flow. I want to feel it. I want like,

you know, and then this other part of me, that’s like, no, you need to like knuckle down and like, get things done sometimes. So it’s like, it’s just like balancing marriage act between the two states that I’m constantly in. And so when I’m finding myself kind of at a lower state and especially like recently, like I’ve, I’m admitting I have recently been in a lower state a lot more recently just because in Toronto,

we went back into another like pseudo lockdown, like it’s locked down with, I dunno, anyways. So it’s like finding the strength to like still get up and still do things and still show up for yourself and still show up for everybody else can be very difficult at times. Pardon me? So, one of the best ways that I like to help myself kind of get out of that it’s music,

huge motivator. I have like my Google programmed to like turn on with music in the mornings so that it like, has a feel good song that comes on so that I’m like, oh, Hey. Yeah. Like this is actually like waking me up and putting me in a good mood. Sometimes it doesn’t. But for the most part, it like puts me in a good mood.

It sets the tone for the rest of the day. Another thing that really helps me with motivation is like I said, YouTube, like you guys get me motivated cause I have to show up for you. So having that responsibility to show up makes me show up. So that gives me motivation to do it. So I have a written down buddy system because a buddy system can be so important.

If you’re trying to show up for yourself, man, it can get so hard. It goes back to the lone Wolf and all the other things that we’ve talked about. But when you have other people in your kind of like accountability group that you like, Hey, we’re going to show up for each other. Then you have a reason to show up,

not just for yourself, but for somebody else. And it’s kind of crazy, but we’re more willing as human beings. It’s wild to show up for other people more than we are to show up for ourselves. It’s wild. But honestly I will show up way more for other people than I will actually show up for myself. And I know that that probably has like some self work and stuff I need to do around that.

But it’s true. If you’re having a difficult time, motivating yourself, finding an accountability, buddy, get somebody in your corner who you can tell, be like, Hey, this is what I’m doing or have them. If they want to do the same thing, you can do it together that you’re going to show up together. You text each other,

you, you know, have meetings once a week or every other week. And you like track your progress together because Hey, it’s going to make it more fun. And B, you’re going to have somebody who’s going through it with you. And that goes to another part of like countability is community. When you have community to go through something with it goes,

okay, I’m not alone in this. Whereas if you’re trying to just force yourself to do it alone, it’s like, oh, I’m struggling. This is so hard. Why do I have to do it alone? And it’s because you’re not allowing yourself to kind of accept an accountability buddy or community help support you through that. And then two other points that I have for this one is setting goals and taking a course or an online program.

Cause I know that that really works for me is if I have a specific goal and a specific thing I need to show up for, if I have a course, I will show up for that course. Like I will do it and I’ll mark it on my calendar each, each day, each week, whatever it is and I’ll show up and I’ll do it at that time that I said,

I will, I’ll talk more about that later about how, you know, I keep on track with things, but having that really helps me kind of get into the rhythm of things and build that habit. And then once you build that habit, it’s a lot easier to continue on with that habit. So that’s my, that’s my 2 cents for the first question of what helps you get motivated.

But I’m very curious. I’m going to go with Michael. How do you help motivate yourself? Oh, All right. Yeah. I think, I think using this actual podcast is a great example because I’ve said many times it’s not a surprise. I usually have very tense or nervous before podcast recording or any kind of recording. So I think I like that example.

I’ll try to weave it through today. Okay. So what helps get me motivated? I think for this, for this question, I like to talk about the concept of fuel and as my analogy, you guys know, I love analogies get ready for another one. So in order for like a car to get from point a to point B, it requires fuel.

So the fuel in this, in this case is, is motivations is the analogy so you could use dirty fuel, right? So feel that pollutes that, that it gets you there, but it pollutes the environment. Doesn’t it doesn’t add much. Or you could use clean fuel, which still gets you there, but it has a lot less negative by-product shall we say?

So when it comes to motivation, I like to use the concept of clean, fuel and dirty fuel for most of my life. And for most people out there, I think we use dirty fuel, which is like, shame-based we kind of talk to this a little bit on our last episode, a person transformation episode, kind of like, it sounds more like I have to do this.

It’s very constricting. It doesn’t feel very good all the time. And it really is fields from a place of needing to prove oneself or, or needing to do it because trying to prove your worth somehow, maybe not. It might not seem that way at the surface level, but that’s really what the underlying fuel is that worked for me. But I felt terrible.

Like it just did not, did not feel good in my life. So once I got to my destination, once they achieved my goal, I still was not feeling good. I was exhausted. I was still carrying all that shame. So, you know, what’s the point aware as what I’ve been learning and what I’ve been moving more towards and keep in mind again,

this is not a, you know, you can’t just flip the switch and go from dirty fuel to clean fuel. It takes time. But noticing when I’m in the space of wanting to be motivated from a place of, I want to like, I want to do this, not I have to do this. I need to do this. It’s it’s from a place of genuine desire for me in my body,

it feels more expensive. Whereas the other one felt very restricting and like pressure. The clean fuel feels like I really want to do this. Like I’m excited. I want to see what happens. I want to know what will come of this. And ultimately it’s comes from a place of not shame. So it can be any other emotion, but it’s not,

it’s not a shameful one. It’s something that feels a bit better. So that I think has been one of my biggest lessons about motivation in general. But I’ll give you, I’ll give you some of the things that work for me and keep in mind that everyone has their own versions of clean, fuel and dirty fuel. Like, like we all are motivated by very,

very different things and that’s okay. I think it’s important to know what motivates us and then asking yourself, okay, is this something that feels good as a motivates me? So for me to answer your question, I have a little process that I use. I, I need to be in a good head and heart space. So what that means is usually for me,

my issue is I lack either energy or inspiration. So, you know, when we record this podcast, it’s usually the energy that I’m lacking. So what do I do similar to what Calvin said before? Every episode I have a shower, whatever it is that just wakes me up, I listen to music. So I put on some music and I kind of danced around and move around my bedroom right over here.

And that really helps with just moving my body, getting into that energy, putting on some favorite, favorite songs that helps give me the energy. If what I’m looking for is inspiration. Then I will listen to a podcast or a YouTube channel or one of my teachers or someone that just really inspires me to, to be motivated, whether it’s, you know,

depending on what I need at the time, Abraham Hicks is one that I use a lot because she just really helps get me there. It really depends on what I’m going for. I’ll just go on YouTube sometimes or scrolling through my social media. That helps too. So that’s the first thing is getting into the right head and heart space. Then I need to just quickly.

And this is a very quick one. Remind myself of my, why we talked about this also last time, just a quick check-in as to, why am I investing my time and energy into doing whatever it is I have to do. So if it’s this podcast, why am I doing this podcast? And I just remind myself, oh, okay. Yeah.

There’s a lot of people out there that I want to help. There’s a lot of people out there that need to hear whatever it is we’re sharing on this podcast, doing it for, for saying for, for you guys, right? You guys are my accountability buddies in this. And then that usually just brings me back, gets me out of my mind,

drama about why I don’t want to do it and brings me back into the oh, right. Yeah, this is why I am doing it. And I would say another tip in general for, for creating that motivation or helping me get motivated is making sure my environment is tip top and conducive to work in. So, you know, Carolyn, I know you recently did a shift in your setup and it’s the same kind of thing.

Like making sure that my desk, where I am now, I’ve got lots of inspirational sticky notes behind the camera. I’ve got my little vision board right up here. I’ve got my diffuser, just I’m looking outside, I’ve got sunlight. So whatever that I need to do for my environment really helps me feel like, okay, this is a space that I want to be in.

Right. And then that helps me get motivated and then finally a reward for myself. So it’s really important for me that I give myself some kind of high-five kudos after I do something. You know what? I don’t actually do it with this podcast, but this works for me a lot with going to the gym. I used to resist going to the gym so hard.

I hated it. And now I’ve completely turned around and I, I love it. And actually I miss it when I can’t go. But how I did that, partially one of the things that helped was giving myself a reward after the fact. So for me, that was having, I mean, the good thing is when I go to the gym,

I have to walk there or bike there. So even just the Walker bike there for me was a reward. Also having music. Like I would use that time to listen to my favorite music, to listen to my favorite podcast, giving myself something good to them about being there, even though that’s really the last place I want it to be at the time,

then eventually I kind of started looking forward to it. So yeah, those are some of the big ones reminding yourself of your, why, making sure your environment is conducive to work and it’s motivating and feeling you and then giving yourself a reward. That is how I keep myself motivated. Keep in mind guys, as I’m saying this, this is a practice.

Like anything we share here, it is not always the case. Trust me. I use that dirty fuel a lot sometimes. And the goal is to sort of shift my, my dependency from it onto something better. So that’s me. And I want to hear about what Matt has to share on this one. Okay. Jeez, you guys have some really,

really good ones. I would say my relationship with motivation has been, I’ve never really struggled with it pretty much. My whole life. I’ve been very, very motivated and very disciplined, but the fuel to use Michael’s analogy has been very dirty and the fuel for me, it’s shame-based I think that’s the root that’s the unconscious, the conscious is pressure. Just like putting myself in a pressure cooker,

forcing myself to do things that maybe I wasn’t in alignment to very, very motivated by perfectionism, how other people will perceive me was probably my biggest motivator. Most of my life, wanting to make sure that people saw me as worthy because internally I didn’t feel worthy, which pretty much to shame. Right. That’s shame right there. So my, my relationship to motivation actually just in the last year has completely shifted because I have been feeling unmotivated because I’m no longer using those old strategies.

And I stopped shaming myself. I stopped using perfectionism. I stopped using pressure and I found myself just being like, fuck it. Who cares? Why am I doing all this stuff anyway? Right. Like, so I can prove to people that I’m worthy or whatever. So it’s like, as I started to do this deep inner work, you know,

and we talked about that, like the inside out job, I started to focus like just flip the switch to working from the inside out. And now I’ve integrated naps to my day, which I’ve never done my whole life. Never napped, except for probably when I was a baby, the, because I would lay there and I would, I would just be thinking about all the things I should be doing that I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Right. So again, I’m just shaming myself, like, oh, you better get up. You put more pressure on yourself. So, you know, so I’m, I’m kind of in this like little bit of, of, of, I call it like a space in between, right. The space between where I’m like learning healthy ways to motivate myself again and,

and steer away from the, the old things. And I think just the word allowance for me is just such a big thing because it’s like, whenever I experienced pressure, now my experience of pressure is misalignment. And whenever something’s in misalignment, I just won’t do it. Like I I’m very much in this almost kind of like a cutthroat energy right now of like anything that doesn’t feel in alignment to me.

I just can’t like, my body is just like screaming at me. Like, don’t do it. So I’m finding now, like what does motivate me would be one of them would probably be looking back and seeing how far I’ve come. Like just how much of a truly accomplished in my life. And that I can just breathe for a bit. Like I can just breathe,

you know what I’ve done? I’ve done a lot of beautiful, wonderful things in my life. And I think now it’s like, it’s okay to just let myself breathe. And, and the more breath I take, the more oxygenated I am and the more oxygenated and I am the more like motivated I am. And I think I love Michael, how you talk about energy and an inspiration.

And I think for me, like my inspiration was like suffocated because it was coming from pressure. I’ve never struggled with energy. I’ve always had really good energy, but, but inspiration has been such an like an ebb and flow. It’s just been so up and down, up and down, up and down. And I think I’m finally kind of riding a nice wave of like,

just allowing myself to be inspired by the things that are more like rooted in humility and not like having to like compete with people or, or measure myself up right. Using comparison. Like, oh, I have to do this because this person’s doing this. So I have to make sure I keep up with the Joneses, you know, and I think,

and I think this comes, like, I talk about this a lot in my coaching. And, and even in these podcasts, like about my feminine energy and like the yin part of me, like I’m allowing that to kind of really fully come online now. And I think that for me is just been a game changer because my masculine is very competitive and loves to compare and loves to make sure that I’m like staying ahead of everybody.

And my feminine is the opposite of that. It’s like the collaborator, you know, like the, the weed, you know, the co-creative part of me. And I think for me, that’s been a big part of it because like, like you said, Callen, like I have this desire to want to be accountable and to work with people. And,

and I think that’s a, that’s a motivator for me too, with the asterix being alignment. Right. Like I want to make sure that what I’m doing has has a good amount of alignment because then I feel like I can stay motivated. So accountability and making it fun. I think like playfulness has never been a big part of my life. Like I’m,

I’m, I’m can be very serious and I can be very like, okay, let’s just like get to the point, but I do have a very, very playful, silly, goofy side to me too. And I don’t really let him out very often. And I think, I think for me, like when there’s fun, involved in it, it is playful.

I think I’m more likely to want to engage and, and the more I want to engage, the more motivated I am. But I do think too, like if I, if I look at my life and the way that it’s all played out, like I’ve been very motivated by ego. And I think that’s what’s happening now is that my ego is like becoming more flexible and like less rigid.

And I think I’m like learning how to be more motivated by my soul’s purpose. And, and there’s nothing wrong with either. I want to just really highlight that because my, my ego is like, my ego wants, you know, like significance, money, power control, like these sorts of things. And there’s nothing wrong with it, as long as you’re conscious of it,

right. When it’s wreaking havoc in your life. And you’re not conscious of that, I think it’s unhealthy, but there’s nothing wrong with being motivated by the ego. But I think right now where I’m at in my life, I’m being called more towards soul motivation, which is I have a desire to be of service right now. Like I’m just creating infrastructure that can help people move away from suffering and,

and closer towards like, I guess maybe the word that all encompassing word Ruby, like authenticity, like more, just more towards like what makes them feel good? Because I think that is my biggest motivator in the work that I do. And I actually discovered that just recently, like I always kind of knew, but I, I think I had lost sight of it.

And my, my best friend asked me, she’s like, why do you even do what you do? Like what, why can’t you do it? And I thought about it and I’m like, I actually don’t really know right now. Like I’m feeling kind of like stuck. And then she’s like, well, you know why? Like she started to kind of probe me.

She’s also a psychologist. And so then I thought about like the first book that I wrote is all about teaching people, how to move away from suffering that the mind causes them. And then I’m like, I was so lit up when I wrote that book and I was so excited. And that’s my, that’s my why my, why is because I want to help people learn how to not suffer because I’ve,

I’ve suffered a lot in my life. And I think that it fucking sucks. Right. And I, I have a lot of empathy. So when I see someone in suffering, it really, really, it hurts. It hurts me to see other people suffering. So I have a strong desire to be of service so I can help people become more functional and happy and peaceful.

So, yeah, I think that’s a big thing for me right now is learning how to use my, my, my service as a way to motivate me. So Yeah. Wow. Lots of good stuff up in today’s episode, getting deep today. I love it. Those are both really good, really good answers there. Everybody has their own things and you know,

I get what you’re saying that too, with like the ebb and flows of things, how it’s like, sometimes you’re feeling super movie sometimes you’re not. And like, but recognizing where it’s coming from, I think is the biggest part there, right? It’s like, well, why are you not feeling motivated? Is it because you just, you genuinely need a break and you need to breathe and you need to take that nap or is it because you’re trying to motivate yourself from a place that that’s not genuine motivation.

That’s like, you know, shame, like you were talking about Michael, so good stuff guys. Cause wow, next question we have is what are your biggest motivational distractors and how do you avoid that? Oh boy, I got all of them. So Betty, this is so many, I can say all the things, but the, my big three for myself that I wrote down are my phone TV and focusing on everyone else instead of staying in my own lane.

So I’ll dive deeper into these, but I know for me, especially with the times that been going through recently, like it’s been really difficult to stay motivated, like so fucking difficult to stay motivated. And it’s sucks, man, because I I’ve found myself torn in these spots where it’s just like, I love what we’re doing. I love what I’m doing.

I love, you know, being of service and helping people, but then I’m struggling with motivation. So then I’m looking at these people that I’m, we’re trying to help. And I’m like, well, of course you’re also struggling. Cause everybody’s like, everybody has their moments, especially now, like shit’s heavy right now. And I think the hardest part for me is that I love doing that when that’s the box I’m doing,

but right now that’s the only box we’re really doing. And so it’s like an overwhelmingness of it that it’s just like, Ugh, there’s so much of it that I don’t have those. Like I can’t go to Dodge ball and just detach and just have fun and play. Like you were talking about math. Like it’s so important to detach and play and not think about work and not think about all that other stuff.

And then go out for dinner with friends or go out for drinks and do other things. And like fill my day with a well-roundedness that it doesn’t feel like work or doing this one specific thing is like the overbearing heaviness, because that the work we do is amazing and it’s great. And so many people benefit from it. But if that’s the only thing I’m focusing on,

it starts to become so heavy because I’m not filling that well-roundedness circle out. And it’s been really hard over the pandemic to try and find ways to do that because we’ve literally not been allowed. Like we’re not allowed to go and do all those fun things. Even like daily walks, like they’ve been great, but like they can only take you so far.

So the way I’ve been kind of trying to detach myself and pull myself out and give myself something else to look at or something else to think about has been like the phone and TV. And like neither one of those are super healthy. Like I found myself scrolling in insane amount, way more than I ever have in my life. Like I’m just like Instagram,

Facebook, and it’s almost started to create an anxiety in me because I’m not getting those dopamine hits of something new happening and I’m waiting for something new to happen constantly because nothing new is happening. And just like just first, just something happened, like just can aliens, like come to the planet or it can just something happen that takes us out of our lives.

And it goes, holy fuck. Like just something different. And so I’ve been using social media as that kind of tool that crutch to like lean on to like, just give me something else to focus on because focusing on just work is so not healthy. And so I’ve been using a lot of phone for distraction. I’ve been using a lot of TV,

my roommate and I literally, the other day, we’re like, what do you want to watch? It’s like, we’ve watched everything. Like we have all the streaming networks and we’ve watched absolutely everything you could possibly watch. We’re now out to those shows where we’re like, well, I guess we can go watch that. There’s Joe like, sure. Why not?

Gosh. And then focusing on everybody else, but myself, instead of staying in my own lane, I’ve been finding myself slipping back into those old patterns of comparison of looking at other people because I’m scrolling so much, I’m looking at other people I’m going, oh, well they’re over here doing this. And they’re over there doing that. And they’re over there having this and this person’s over there enjoying this and this,

that, and the other and all these other things. And I’m just like, none of this is helping. None of this is like distracting me in a good way. And I can’t say that I found something that has really, really helped other than going on my daily walks and like trying my best to be around friends and reaching out. I think those have been the two biggest saving graces is having like friends,

either reach out to me and talk to me and be like, Hey, let’s just have a phone conversation. Even though we’re all fatigued a F about it, it’s still gives me a better quote, unquote distraction than just being on my phone or just going on TV and going on my walk and listening to a podcast or something like that. It’s just,

it takes me out of the world that we’re in right now and what’s going on and takes me out of like the constant running of the brain of thinking and just kind of allows me to be. And I’m just so looking forward to when I can do all those other things that help round out our lives in order to like, just go out and be,

and do and play and have fun because those are such important parts of our lives that you really need to embrace that part. I think Bernay brown. What was, I can’t remember what book it was in, but she was doing her research as she does. And she found that like play was one of the biggest factors of living wholeheartedly. And it’s like,

oh fuck. Like if you don’t incorporate it into your life, you’re going to get stressed out. You’re going to get Brian down. Like you have to have that implemented in. So those are my biggest distractors and how I avoid them. Like right now it’s getting hard. Not going to lie everybody out there. If you’re struggling and you’re listening to this,

you are not alone. I am definitely going through it too, but just kind of, you know, making sure I’m doing the things I know that are good for me. Like my roommate says, he’s like, I know I have to go for my walk. I don’t care if it’s minus 20 outside, I have to go for my daily walk.

Otherwise I will go crazy. And it’s just like, you, sometimes you just have to do it because you know, you’re going to feel so much better later than if you don’t do it. So I don’t have a perfect answer to this one, but just try and do things that aren’t scrolling on social media and just watching TV, reach out to friends,

have friends, reach out to you, try and incorporate some sort of play your life. And that’s, that’s it for me for now. But I’m curious as to you guys, so what about you, Michael? Yeah. Awesome. I think a lot of people are going to resonate with this scrolling over, scrolling over and Netflixing over and whatever’s on your phone,

right? These things are devised for that purpose. Right? I have to remember that I was laughing Callen when you’re talking about your roommate. Cause he sounds a lot like me, I today was minus 18 when I woke up this morning and I was like, bitch, Nope, we’re going to do this. I promise myself for the remainder of the lockdown.

So we’re in lockdown here, everything’s closed. So I was like, Hey, at least I need to get outside. Like I need to get outside and breathe in air and it’s January. So I’m just going to do it. But I will say that, that it does help. Right. And even as you develop that habit. So for me,

it’s been just over a week that I’ve been doing it and it’s always, well, not always in the morning on the weekdays it’s in the morning, that helps. And so I think committing to that can help. So anyway, I just wanted to say getting outside for me always and just moving my body, just breathing air, moving my body instead of being in the same environment all the time.

But yeah. So to answer the question for me, my biggest distract, my motivation distraction is procrastination. And unlike what you were saying about having not enough play, I think my issues kind of the opposite where I spent too much time in the play and I have to like focus, like focus my attention back into the things that like my goals or the things that I want to do.

So sometimes I get too far into like, you know, saying yes to friends who invite me out and saying yes to all these things and wanting to go for bike rides in the summer and wanting to go outside. I want to go to the beach. I want to go to the park and like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

I, I overdued on the play sometimes. So for me, the procrastination looks a lot like that, like engaging too much in these other things. But I will say the number one is definitely, you know, being on my phone for me, my favorite app to spend time on is Instagram used to be grinder. And now it’s Instagram. Also to some extent,

if I get into a really good show like on Netflix or Amazon or whatever, then I’ll want to watch the whole thing. I can’t just, and they do a really good job of the writers of this, right. That the view with a cliffhanger. So you just got to watch the next one, but I wouldn’t say that motivation is the issue then because clearly I’m being motivated to be distracted.

I’m motivated to have fun. I’m motivated to have my instant gratification, whatever that may look like on the day. So as I’ve dug into this with myself, with my own coach, the, the root of my procrastination, and I think a lot of people’s procrastination is fear. Your visibility, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of leaving the comfort zone and even fear of success.

Those have been ones that have come up for that. That keeps me procrastinating. And again, it’s not conscious, right? It’s not very obvious. It’s like, okay, I’m procrastinating because I’m afraid of rejection. It doesn’t work that way. You have to really dig into, into your reasons why, but then people think, okay, well, once the fear is gone,

then I’ll be motivated. Then I’ll take action. But it does not work that way. It’s for me the best, the best way through it is take the action. Then that in and of itself helps me get motivated because I’m taking action. Even if I doesn’t land the way I want it to, it’s still something. And it gets me out of that.

It interrupts that pattern of procrastination for me. So those, I think procrastination is the biggest one and I can find no shortage of ways, no shortage of ways to procrastinate. I will clean the house. I will cook a 10 course dinner. I will do anything for anyone else, but not to the things I need to do for myself. I will find a way to put it off the things that I need to do,

but I do want to make an honorable mention to the compare, comparing myself and compare it to spare. It is very easy, especially as a, as an entrepreneur, to look at other people who are doing the same things. And then, you know, you look at them or I look at them and I say, oh my gosh, there’s so much better,

$500 reasons why they’re better. And I suck. And again, that comes from a shame response and nothing is just unmotivating as that kind of language. And that kind of self-talk my inner critic has a really good way of convincing me now, Michael, just shut it down, you know, put on another episode of drag race and just call it a day.

So yeah, I do want to make an honorable mention. I think that that comparing really does affect a lot of people out there. And so I know I’m not immune. I just want it to say that. How about you, Maddie? Mine are the same as yours, but I’m going to, I’m going to take a different spin on it.

Cause I agree with everything you said, and it’s very true from each of you, but I want to take a different spin just for the, so the, the audience can have a different take on it. I think I’m going to highlight again. So procrastination is new to me. I’ve never really used it. I’ve always been motivated by pressure, right?

Pressure for me is the opposite of procrastination. And I think what I’m learning about procrastination is it’s actually a very valuable tool. It’s it’s, I think it’s, it’s our subconscious playing out alignment and readiness. And I think, you know, the more I integrate my feminine, this more yin kind of slowed down energy. I’m noticing that the universe has a plan and I have a plan and the university’s plan is always going to win.

And this is what I’m learning. And this is the surrender process and learning to let go of control. And procrastination, I think is used by the universe, through our subconscious to kind of show us, okay. Now is not the time to take action. Now now’s the time to chill, right. Just kind of rest for a bit. And we’ll let you know when it’s time to take action.

Whereas before procrastination was very rooted in shame, like, why am I not doing this? You know, like shame on me. I need to be doing more. I need to be keeping up with everybody, blah, blah, blah. But now I’m like, okay, well I’m going to hang out. I’m going to wait for a bit. And then the universe gives me that kind of like,

Hey, time to go. And then I, and then all of a sudden, guess what I have inspired action. It kind of moves through my body. And I think this has been such a huge learning for me because I’m actually learning how to use procrastination. And I think for people who are procrastinators and they’re genuinely like more lazier people, you’re probably not the guy you’re going to want to come to.

Okay. But if you’re rooted in shame and you’ve struggled with, you know, these sorts of things, I’m the guy that you’d probably want to come and listen to about, you know, about how to view motivation, because I think those are two completely different experiences, right? Like I’ve never struggled with procrastination. I’ve struggled with shame. So I need to learn how to procrastinate.

I need to learn how to allow the universe to come in and align me to that divine timing. Right. That is going to really help me pursue my goals and stuff from a place of, of more flow, not force. Right. I think I like what you said too about fear because I do think fear is a big motivator for a lot of people.

I wouldn’t say it’s, it’s very much for me right now, but I want to speak to it because I do think I do see this a lot in my coaching. I think like you said, Michael fear is this kind of subconscious thing that we use to, to forecast right. Future, oh, if I get up there and I do this,

you know, I’m going to fuck up or I’m gonna say this, or I’m gonna do that. And actually, maybe I will say the place that it would be relative for me would be public speaking. I do do this in public speaking where I’m like, fuck, what if I get up there? And I forget everything I’m talking about and blah,

blah, blah. But I think that that for a lot of people keeps them stuck in, in not being motivated because they’re focusing primarily on the, what ifs from a negative standpoint. Right. And I think that was a big part of my journey, moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. As I started to play with my water gifts from a positive standpoint or a place of possibility.

Right. As opposed to like, what if I go up there and fuck up. Right. And instead of like, well, what if I go up there and I like kill it. And everybody loves what I had to say. So I think for me, like being mindful of fear is key. And it’s like, okay, for me, I don’t want to repress the fear because then it just stores in my body and it manifests as anxiety or whatever.

I want to actually feel it. I want to be with that and allow myself to be okay with that. And I think I’ll close up by saying that, you know, staying out of the future for me is huge because the more I go into the future, I tend to have the type of mind that will automatically go to negative. Right. It’s like,

okay, self protect mode. And I think that’s the trauma, like the trauma brain it’s like go to like, what’s the worst case scenario. And that keeps me stuck in feeling not motivated. So I feel like, you know, so I would say that the best thing for me is if I’m going into the future, try and, you know,

play with possibility. But I think for me even better is it just stay out of future, just stay in the present moment and be embodied and allow the moment to arrive at the exact time that the motivation needs to hit and then, and then go with it. And actually I do have one last thing. So around productivity and taking action, I think I normally do what you said,

Michael, like where it’s like all clean my house. I’ll do this, I’ll do that before I have to do the tasks that I have to do. But I think that is me using procrastination in a healthy way. I really do because I’m getting everything ready. Maybe I’m discharging a bit of energy, anxious energy by doing these things, like cleaning my house and then I can settle my energy and come and do what I need to do.

So I don’t really shame myself for it. I just look at it as it’s just alignment playing it’s playing out its course. So yeah, those are my thoughts. I love having these conversations with you guys. Cause I feel like sometimes we have such different answers and it’s so great for the listeners to be like, to see so many different sides of things.

Cause like I’m the opposite of like, I’ve always been the procrastinator and like the lazy one. And like, if like I’m the opposite, like to figure out how to do something is like where I struggle. Whereas you’re just like, don’t, let’s just get up and do the thing and do all this stuff. And like, like I’ve never been a morning person,

like kept me out of bed in the morning. It’s like pulling teeth. So I love, I love the different, different sides of everything. It’s great. All right. So here’s the last thing we got today is what keeps you on track with your goals and your deadlines? Because as much as we’d like to be in flow, and as much as we’ve been talking about all the things talked about today,

we are living in this reality of the 3d world where you have to show up, if you want to have money to have like to get, you know, have a job, to have the money to do, you know, just have basic housing and stuff like that. Like it’s just reality. It’s life, right? So there are things that you need to do in order to,

to keep track and keep on your goals. And there are ways that can help you with that in ways that will make it better. And I found for myself once I get motivated and once it gets focused on something, I will not let it go. And that’s where my heaviness of like the pandemic has sat on me because like, if I have the time to do things,

then I’ll do all the things on my list and I’ll just keep going and I won’t stop myself. So for me, the things that have helped me keep on track is I’ve mentioned it before, but I have this program called the sauna and it’s just like a sauna.com. And it’s just like a daily planner. And I map out my days, my weeks months,

and I just take everything that needs to get done. That’s on like the to-do list. And I map it out, whether it’s that week, whether it’s that month or whatever and or things that I don’t want to forget, like six months from now, I need to remember to do this and I’ll just program it all into a sauna. And then that way it gives me the permission to then allow myself to go into that play mode because I used to just work nonstop and just be like,

I need to get it done. I need to get it done. And it was very anxiety ridden and very like guilt and shame of like, oh, I’m not doing it fast enough. Or like LA or I’m not going to get it done fast enough. And what Isana helped me do was help be taken all over my brain and put it somewhere else and gave the responsibility to something else that doesn’t experience any emotions.

And so with that, I don’t program anything on the weekends. I don’t let myself, unless it’s like seeing friends, like I literally will put things on there, like see this friend or hang out with this person. Because like, if it’s not on my list, it was not on my calendar. It’s not going to happen. But if I put it on the calendar,

I commit to myself and I, of course like ebb and flow, I let myself like certain things can slip and slide a little bit, but it’s like, I always know what the most important thing on that list of that day is. And then what the least important thing is. And I always have to get the most important thing done because there’s a reason it needs to get done.

And then if it’s like something frivolous then okay, maybe it can move to the next day or maybe it can move to next week. And that allows me to kind of live in a little bit more flow because once you know, five o’clock hits, it’s like, okay, I’m done for the day. I finished my list. I don’t need to feel guilty about letting myself go play because now I can chill out because I’ve done all the things on my list today.

I know there’s nothing I need to get done for tomorrow or whatever, because I did them and I can see that I’ve done them. I have the proof, my brain has the proof I can detach. And it goes the same for the weekends. So that has been once I started implementing that, that was a huge game changer for me in regards to motivation,

because I can follow lists and I can follow to dues so easy. It’s like that mentality of like, almost, I’m almost doing it for somebody else. It’s not like for me, I’m not thinking about myself or looking at myself, it’s like, oh, I’m doing this or somebody else. I’m just following the list. And that’s why I also like courses and stuff,

because like I just go to the course and I just follow step by step by step. And it’s so easy. It’s right there. I’m like, cool, I’ll go onto the next step. I do the thing I do the next step. And I like achieving those things. It’s like little check marks and sauna lets you like click the button and it’s like check done.

I’m like, yes. So that has been huge for keeping me on track with things. And then the second part to this is accountability buddies. Like I talked about at the beginning, having accountability buddies or people that you’re responsible to and for and around really helps me kind of prioritize certain things because there’s sometimes there’s certain things that I might want to play in,

but I know that it’s like, okay, well that’s an enjoyable play aspect, but there’s an accountability over here that I’m responsible to. And I’ve made that agreement with myself. I’ve made that agreement with the other people. So that’s going to get a higher priority on my priority list. So that’s going to get done this week and my play thing. Okay.

Maybe that’s going to have to wait until like Thursday or Friday or Saturday or till next week. And it gets programmed on the calendar, but it’s just not a priority on the calendar. So those have been probably my two biggest ways and best ways that I keep on track. But I’m really curious as to how you guys manage to keep on track with your goals and deadlines.

So what about you, Michael? Yeah. I’m not surprised that we share a lot of the same ones, Kalin. Those are both really good ones that I use as well. One of, one of my points was, was it up to support support from others? Accountability, like either through accountability, like I’ve talked about with this podcast and you guys,

but even asking for help. Right? So sometimes depending on what you put, you need motivation for trying to go out to the loan has been something that I’ve done in the past with not as much success. And so asking for help, whether it’s actual help in the task or emotional support just as, as you’re going through something can be really helpful.

So I just wanted to add that for that one then. Yeah. You know, having a plan definitely helps me. I am not too over, sorry. I used to be very over-ambitious with my plans. Like, Hey, hang on that, throw everything in the kitchen sink into this, which of course just created a lot of overwhelm and anxiety when I,

when it came down to sit down and do it. So I’ve implemented something where I, cause my brain wants to give me a thousand things to do of course. And I’m like, and I kinda just ask myself, okay, what is the priority? And again, asking my peer question, why, why is this a priority for my myself? This particular task is the number one thing I want to get done other this month,

this week today. And then reminding myself of the why. And then having, of course we will have sub priorities or other things that we want to do, but really focusing your time on the one thing, because what happens to me is when I comes down to work and sit down, if I just love it, leave it up to like me,

then I’ll just get overwhelmed. Like, oh, I should do this. No, no, oh, I should do this. And then halfway through I’ll switch and do this. Whereas if I sit down on like a Sunday and I do this usually on Sundays and kind of plan out my week, like, okay, here’s the things, the results I want to get done this week.

Then it’s a lot easier for me to sit down and say, okay, I’ve already established, this is what I need to do. So I don’t need to go through all that mind to drama of what should I do now? What should I do now? It’s like following a recipe for baking a cake. You already know it’s already there. So there’s no need to worry about it when I’m planning my week.

Speaking of it’s very, very important for me and I, I stand by this very passionately that I plan my knee time first. So before I put any work stuff, I always put, okay, I look at, do I have any, any things that I want to put in the calendar that are from me? So seeing a friend going for walks my morning walks,

for example, I make sure that that is the priority. And I put in the calendar how to all the, all the areas that I don’t want to work. So count, you talked about weekends, so kind of blocking that off. Like Nope, not putting anything in here. And then once I have my me time set, then I can,

then I can start putting in sort of the calendar. The other things I want to do that helps me because when my brain inevitably says, no, Michael, no, you deserve to, you deserve to go for a bike ride. You know what? Just take this day and go to the beach or whatever I can check in with myself. Sometimes it is legit.

And I do, I do really need that self care day. And it’s, it’s, it’s nuanced how I do that. And it’s a lot to go through right here on this podcast. But I know like when I’m honest with myself, I know if it’s because I tried to escape the work or if it’s because I actually need the self-care and I would be willing to bet that if you were really honest with yourself,

you would know the difference as well. So what it does having that free time already planned out or not even planned out set aside, then I can’t really rely on that. I can’t say, well, you know, I’ve been working so hard and I deserve this break because it’s like, no, I had a break yesterday and the day before, and I took that weekend off and this and that and the other thing.

So yeah, free time first making sure that all my needs are met before I jump into any kind of work is really helpful. And then I talked about journaling a lot. So, you know, part, as you guys can tell from this, a lot of the motivation talk is, is thought work with myself. So checking in with myself to make sure that all my,

my, my fuel is cleaner than it is dirty. I wouldn’t say it’s a hundred percent clean, but it’s mostly, or we’re working towards that and where it is coming from shame, or really checking in like, what’s going on here? You know, how is the showing up? I will also say that when I show up from a place of shame and have to do it,

the end result is never as good as it is. Shall we say if I’m coming from a place of love and self compassion, so there’s some self coaching, we’ll call it, sitting myself down, doing some journaling, figuring out why I’m in resistance to certain things. And then yeah, the support element to getting support from you guys, you know,

when it comes to this, when it comes to the games, brotherhood, when it comes to the membership, sometimes asking for help, you know, we’ve all done that for each other, for, for the last few years, which is a beautiful thing. I love about our working relationship. And then, you know, even, even my partner even start,

I’ll just sometimes go to him. If I need a third opinion, second opinion and say, here’s, what’s happening. You know, here’s all my mind drama. I need a hug or I just need your permission to say it’s okay to not do this. And I’m very fortunate that he’s very supportive and helpful. So yeah. Support in any way you can find it.

I think, you know, I know we’ve we all have that lone Wolf background or mentality or tendency. I think that’s been a very big, helpful yet sometimes difficult thing to implement, which is ask for help. Yeah. So that’s how I stay on top of things. And you know, sometimes I don’t always stay on top of things. Sometimes I end up way off into the weeds and I don’t get it done.

And that’s okay. Picking yourself up with self-compassion is, is another aspect of it. When, if you don’t get it done and I’ve missed so many deadlines, it’s not the end of the world. You try again, you learn, you learn, and then you try again. All right. How about you, Matt? Yeah. I second. Everything that you guys said,

a couple of things I’ll just brush over quickly because they’ve already been talked about a lot, but lists to do lists as my jam. I’ve got like 110 notes in my, in my iPhone. Everything is built in, in, in less than I just love it. I love it. And then I pull things over into my calendar and I have everything structured every day is very structured.

Just like Callan. I don’t use a sauna, but I definitely have every thing mapped out and need it to be like that. I would say. Okay. So a couple of the things that I wrote down recognition, I’m learning to receive recognition, whereas before it was just like nothing, like how can you receive something if you’re just shame-based and you’re always hard on yourself and pressure,

pressure, pressure, right? And now I’m not putting as much pressure on myself. So when somebody is like, oh, you’re doing such a good job or whatever, I’m like, I actually slowed down and I let myself receive that because I’m like, you know what? I am doing a good job. So the more compassion I have for myself,

the more I’m able to receive and recognition for me is a motivator. It does make me feel good about my accomplishments. So that is one of them making it fun and creative. Like I said, I’m in this really fierce energy right now of like anything that doesn’t serve me. I’m just like talking it out of my life because life is meant to be fun.

Like, I mean, it’s like I’ve taken life so seriously to this point in my life. And now I’m like, okay, the second half of my life, I’m going to make it fun. I’m going to like relish in flexibility. Whereas before the word flexibility was like a curse word, right. And now it’s like, I want to learn how to be more flowing and more fun and playful.

And, and with obviously understanding that like business is a little different, like, you know, like managing a business and stuff. Like there has to be structure. There has to be these sorts of things. So it’s kind of like finding that nice balance in between is important. And then I just worked on work-life balance. I think like, I think all three of us do this,

but we shut our S our stuff off on the weekends. The only time I’m on social media on the weekends is on my personal accounts. And I don’t go onto my business accounts because I just need a break. And I just think it’s really important to take time away, whatever that looks like for, for people, but like, you know, at least a day or two a week where you can just fully unwind and not focus on,

on stuff. And then I usually come back stronger on Monday. Well, not always, but this was a tough Monday for me, but yeah. So I just think that, that, you know, the word balance, I think is pretty much comes up in a lot of what I’m talking about here. And I’m really learning how to have more balance in my life around this sort of stuff.

So, Yeah. I love it. I love it today. It’s been great. And I want to say with the turning of the, off of the things, I’ve been so strict and learning on my iPhone of like, I don’t let prompts come up. Like I don’t, I’ve turned them all off. I used to leave them on for like,

what’s up in messenger and, you know, emails and this and that. And like, I’m like the kind of compulsive person where if there’s like a two little red dots that says like two or three, I have to go and I look at it. So I’ve turned it all off. And there’s like functions in your phone where you can just go and turn off all those notifications.

And then just even just not seeing it, it’s just like, it stops reminding me, it stops pushing those notifications to me, to play with me, play with me, play with me so that I can focus so they can do the things. And you can also set time limits on things where it’s just like, okay, I’m only allowed to play on Instagram for like 20 minutes a day or a half hour a day,

or whatever it is that you want to do, you can go and set that limits that once you hit it, the phone tells you, Hey, you’ve hit your limit. Of course you can hit the button that says like keep going. But that prompt is still there, right? Like I have my phone to turn off everything, except for like my reading book apps and stuff like 10 30 at night,

like everything’s social media, all that stuff turns off at 10 30. And I have to like physically go in and access them and say, yes, ignore for like the next 15 minutes or whatever. And that helps me remind me to be like, stop doing this. This is like, just stop, just chill out, go to bed, do the thing.

So, so I’m glad we all take our time on the weekends and take our time for ourselves. Cause it’s so, so well, is there anything anybody wants to add on before we finish off today? I just wanted to say that it’s funny that you guys were saying that because I were in a group chat for everyone who doesn’t know this on this listening or in a group chat on Facebook.

And I always feel like I’m the last one at the party, because by the time I get to it, there’s all these messages. And I feel like, oh my gosh, like I’m not showing up. So I’m really happy that you guys were saying this and actually you both. And anyone knows that if you really want to get ahold of Michael,

do not message him on Instagram or Facebook. Because again, similar to Kalyn, I have the notifications or I use the focus feature on my iPhone. But if you really want to get ahold of me, it’s texting, texting will get my attention a lot faster. So yeah, I just wanted to say that. Thank you for acknowledging that we can,

we can turn things off on the weekend because my brain will tell me, oh my gosh, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not present. I’m not doing enough. So yeah, Yeah, yeah. I need to get better at that though. Like personally, I know I need to get better at that, but yeah, I think I’m going to move in starting,

like moving forward for this new year of like no emails, no nothing on the weekends. Turn all notifications off. If you want to get in contact with me and you really need to, and you’re a person who needs to you have my phone number, that’s it. If the world is exploding and you have my phone number, let me know. Otherwise I’ll find out later also.

Well, I want to thank everybody for listening to today. Today’s episode has been a motivational tips for everybody. Cause you know, I’m moving in new year, new you kind of energy. And we want to thank you for being a listener. If you’ve liked what you’ve heard today, please, whatever podcasting platform you’re listening on. I know that Spotify introduced star ratings.

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Peace love rainbows by everybody.