Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hi, welcome to Collab Works podcast. I am so happy that you're joining me today.
[00:00:08] I'm here alone. Don't have my sidekick, Sherry, as she's hard at work over on the accounting side because we are coming up on the big tax deadline and she just gets swamped. So I'm going to do this one today by myself. Cross my fingers. I can do a good job without her. It's hard to just talk to a camera without having someone in the room with me. Even though this is what I really want to do, it just isn't natural. It doesn't feel natural. So it's a little difficult. So today's a big challenge for me and I appreciate you joining me. So we'll get right into it. Today we're going to be talking about. Well, let's start with the name of the episode. Today is called Energize Me.
[00:00:52] And what we're going to be talking about today is motivation and what that is and why it's so important. Important to individuals that are entrepreneurs, specifically solo business owners that don't have a teammate that comes along and kind of holds their hand on those days when it doesn't really feel like a day that you want to do anything. And it's hard to get up and get motivated.
[00:01:22] And that is a real problem in business, because without motivation, if you don't know how to fight through that, then you're not going to have consistency. And that's the key. So we talked about that in an earlier episode of this series, just talking about consistency. Consistency is key.
[00:01:47] If you just get up and show up and do the things, nothing can beat that. But motivation is fleeting. So it really is one of those things you cannot rely on just on the daily. I know personally I wake up and some days I am full of energy and I'm ready to go, and I feel like I can tackle the day. And other days I wake up and I just can hardly even pull myself from the bed, you know, And I feel like so many of you can really understand what I'm saying. It's just. It's based on emotions. It's based on how much sleep I got the night before, not even the night before, but maybe because sleep is cumulative. So it could be based on the amount of sleep I've had in the last 14 days and what my sleep debt is. And we'll talk a little bit more about that later in this episode because it's very, very important. But hydration, and there's just so many things, stress there's so many things that build into what your motivation looks like on the daily. So the first thing you got to know is what is motivation? So motivation, just at its basic definition, is the reason for acting or behaving in a certain way. So that's your motivation. There's two types of motivation. There's intrinsic motivation, and that propels us a little bit. And what that is, is it's based on. Well, it's just another emotion. It's how does it make feel? So whatever we're going to do, whatever we're motivated to do that day, how is that going to make you feel?
[00:03:34] Or the absence of that feeling? So sometimes you can be motivated to not do something because you don't want to feel a certain way. And then we have extrinsic motivation. And so that's going to be like money. Maybe you're motivated by money or some type of reward.
[00:03:53] So those, those things are really important when talking about motivation because so many of us believe that just because you're not motivated that day or even the next day, and that that is dictating your success, but that just is not true. What is dictating your success is your ability to commit and to be consistent. So just know that motivation, although good when it's there and you're happy to do it. And all of the things that needed to line up, your nutrition, your hydration, your stress level, your sleep, all of that lined up and you had this wonderful morning waking up and you're just going to have a great day. And at the end of the day, you can check all the boxes and say, I had a great day. What about the next morning when you wake up and you're just not motivated to do it? That's what I want to talk to you about today. Do it anyway.
[00:04:59] When you don't feel like doing whatever it is, whether it's getting up and going to the gym or doing your meditation in the morning, or getting up early enough that you don't have to hit the pavement running, get up, get up when you don't feel like it and do the things that you know are going to help you through your day. Because here's the thing, at the end of the day, whether you were motivated to do the things or not, at the end of the day, you're going to be able to look at the day you just lived and feel good about the things you did and the things that you lean into, the things that you do.
[00:05:48] The more you do them, the better it feels and the more you want to do it. The same is true for the things that have negative impacts. So if you just lay around and you don't have any energy and you lean into that, the more of that you do, the more of that you want to do.
[00:06:09] Whereas if you get up and you get your energy going and you. You get dressed and maybe you're not feeling great. So wear something that makes you feel good. If you don't feel like fixing your hair, fix it anyway. Those physical appearances matter. It matters in your confidence. And that confidence builds into your motivation. Because if you don't feel like you look or like how you want to look on the outside, chances are, if an opportunity comes knocking at your door that day, you might say no, because you're just not, on the outward appearance, the person that you wanted to be that day. So it's really, really important to get up and do the things that you don't want to do on the days you don't want to do them. So, you know, when it's easy, it's easy. When it's hard, it's hard. You just have to know, okay, I have to be consistent. This is what I want. This is my goal. I've broke it down. I can see my path. I know my steps. And today I'm not feeling very motivated, But I'm gonna do it anyway, because I know at the end of the day, that's what I need. That's what I'm going to look back on and feel good about.
[00:07:28] And that's going to propel me into tomorrow and next week.
[00:07:34] And you see how that's just going to build on each other, that. That consistency. And consistency also, it helps the motivation so much and it builds, it gains momentum. All of those things are just intertwined together. So fight through the hard times. Fight through the things you don't want to do. Do them anyway. You have a dream, you have a goal, you have a business. You know you can make it. Don't let the bad days get in your way. Just shove, Just. Just shove that out and say, no, not today. Not today. I think I have a T shirt that says something like that.
[00:08:14] I might need to wear that more often.
[00:08:17] So there was a study done, and it was like, what. What is the number one thing that affects our motivation?
[00:08:25] And I was a little surprised, maybe not entirely surprised, but a little surprised, to see people that our motivation is affected the most by our energy level. So if your energy is low, makes sense, right? If your energy's low, you just don't feel like doing anything that day. If your energy's high, you feel like doing a lot of things, maybe, maybe even more than, you know, you felt like doing yesterday. So it's all based on energy. If we concentrate on energy and what helps us feel energized, there are a lot of things that we can point out. Like, like we were talking about a moment ago, you know, your sleep is number one. Hydration, your nutrition, your stress level, all of those things are going to contribute to where your energy level is.
[00:09:26] But let's go back to that very first one. Sleep.
[00:09:29] Sleep is your major contributor. So Studies show that 79% of Americans do not get enough sleep.
[00:09:39] Wow, that's crazy. You know, I think in my mind I knew that somewhere that we all, you know, there's days that we don't get enough sleep. But this study was like looking at long spans. And it was very interesting because it talked about sleep is cumulative. So just because you went out last night and you stayed out late and your circadian rhythm clock went off and you woke up at the same time, I do that. I'm one of those people. So if I stay up late, I'm still going to typically wake up at the same time, and that is going to put me into what they call sleep debt.
[00:10:26] So sleep debt for the one day might just be two hours.
[00:10:32] But sleep debt, according to the studies, is the culmination of the cumulative number of hours that you are deprived. And so let me back up.
[00:10:46] We need seven to nine hours of sleep. Okay? The average person needs seven to nine hours. If you believe you only need four or five hours, then you're just believing that you're wrong. That's not true.
[00:10:58] You can get by on that for small amounts of time, but eventually it's going to affect you. It's going to affect your energy level, which is going to affect your motivation, which is going to affect your consistency, which is going to affect your success. Right? So you need seven to nine hours of sleep every night. We all do.
[00:11:20] The likelihood of you getting that every single night is probably very low. I know mine is. So your sleep debt, say one night is two hours, but maybe the next day you get three hours. So now you know you're over an hour, but then the next day you're deprived four hours. So now you have a debt of one hour. And you do this for 14 days. And at the end of the 14 days, so the sleep debt actually works on 14 day periods. So whatever your number is for 14 days is what your sleep debt is.
[00:11:56] And that is the number one contributor to your motivation. So if you had the larger the number in that sleep debt, the lower your energy level. Which means what? It means the lower motivation that you're going to have to do the things that you want to do.
[00:12:18] That being said, I would challenge all of you to try to get on a schedule. I mean, we've heard that over and over and over again, right?
[00:12:29] Scheduling your wake time and your sleep time is an integral part of, of your success. It's, it's so beneficial in how you feel and operate on the daily basis, especially if you have hard, hard tasks ahead of you.
[00:12:48] So what if for the Next, just say 14 days, I challenge you to get up at the same time? That means even on the weekends, wake up at the same time, go to bed at the same time, even on the weekends, go to bed at the same time. Could you do that for 14 days?
[00:13:09] And during that 14 days also try to figure out what your peak productive hours are.
[00:13:17] So what I'm talking about there is it goes along with like your circadian clock, the time that you wake. So when you wake up, your body stops the production of melatonin, right? And it releases all these other chemicals in the brain. And we'll not get into all of that, but the, you know, the adrenaline and stuff that helps you wake up, gives you energy, gets your body to moving, get your, or, you know, everything starts working.
[00:13:44] And then two hours before you fall asleep is when your body starts producing melatonin. So there's this window right there.
[00:13:54] So mine I have figured out and I, I don't claim that this is exact, but it's going to be pretty close. My body's going to start producing melatonin around 9 o'clock. So between 9 and 11, that melatonin is going to be naturally released into my body. That is my window to fall asleep. I know this because I test it often. I'll get involved in a show or usually a show. I guilty, I hate to say that, but you know, late night TV is kind of my thing. It helps me unwind. And I'm really guilty of being in these series and saying, oh, just one more episode, let me just get through one more episode. And so what happens to me is if I miss that window, if I don't go to bed during that window, when I do go to bed, I can't fall asleep. And when I do fall asleep, I can't stay asleep.
[00:14:55] And that is part of that structure. And just following your body's natural circadian Rhythm.
[00:15:04] So to recap the challenge, find a structure that works for you. Something reasonable that you can wake up at every day for 14 days a time. Pick the time, write it down, make it real, go through your day, try to figure out where your peak performance times are. So when you, when you wake up, it's kind of this slow waking up. And then you know the chemicals are going to start building. Eventually in the morning, you're going to hit what's called peak performance. You want to try to figure that out, Then you're going to have that afternoon dip. We all know the afternoon dip. Usually it's after we eat, especially if we eat a big meal. Then the body just kind of starts slowing down. It's wanting to shut down and concentrate on that digestion.
[00:15:56] And then you're going to have this afternoon, that afternoon low. But then what happens is as you go into the evening hours, we usually refer to this as our second wind. And that's when you kind of come back up.
[00:16:13] Mine is between 5 and 7. I can see that energy level come back up.
[00:16:21] I get my second wind, I feel great. And then it's going to slow back down. And then I'm going to hit that point where the melatonin window hits and I'm going to go to bed. So the point of all this is, is you want to figure out how to increase your motivation. And that all begins with figuring out your energy.
[00:16:43] So energy in a day, energy throughout your day, okay, those, the peaks and the valleys just throughout the day, the sleep that contributes to the energy, when to fall asleep, when to wake up. So there is this theory, and I believe it to be true, and it talks about when the alarm clocks go off. Don't turn the alarm clock off and go back to sleep. Because then you go back into this. I think it's something like two hours that it takes you to wake up and come back to being awake. So get up, stay up, set some alarms through the day, start to journal. And you can do it just a one to five scale, like maybe at 8:00, 9:00, 10:00. If you can do it by the hour, that's great. I know that sounds like a huge commitment, but what if the payoff is really, really great? Because the idea is to figure out where those peak performances are so you can schedule your hardest task during that time. So if at 9am you just have some reminders like how do you feel? And you grade that one through five. Like right now I'm feeling like a two and at 11 o'clock it goes off again. How are you feeling? Oh, four. I mean it doesn't take a second. It is a commitment to do it. But I believe the payoff can be great.
[00:18:05] So that's it. Figure it out. Figure out a schedule that you can stick to, commit to 14 days, see how you feel at the end of it. And during that time just take a piece of paper and try to 1 through 5 grade what your energy level is throughout your day so that at the end of 14 days you can see, oh my gosh. Okay. I was trying to do my hardest task between 8am and 10am when really I see that I don't hit peak until about 9:30 to to 11:30 and the same in the afternoon.
[00:18:45] And I think that will change your world. And just knowing that motivation is fleeting and it is an emotion and just because you don't feel motivated is not an excuse to not do something that's going to help you a long way. And the science behind it, friends, the science behind it is energy.
[00:19:09] Focus on your energy. Do the things that make you feel good. Those things increase your motivation and it increases your chance of success.
[00:19:20] So that's what I have for you today. Thanks for listening. I appreciate you joining me so much. You just have no idea. And I'll be back with Sherry tomorrow and we will record our last episode of this series which is Let me go talk about how you can do all the things and let all those ties that bind just let you go and let you become the person you want to become.
