Monday Mindfulness Minute: Motivation Is Too Flimsy To Hold Us Up

B = MAP

BJ Fogg introduces this equation in his book Tiny Habits to explain how our motivation, ability, and prompt interact to determine our behavior. The key with this formula is that the variables are in decreasing order of importance. It may be most convenient to think that our level of motivation determines our behavior, but it turns out that the prompt, action, is the most important.

This idea directly links to Mark Manson's thought in "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F***" where he describes our current thinking as:

Inspiration -> Motivation -> Action

When it's actually:

Action -> Inspiration -> Motivation

This should be great news! It means that we're no longer at the mercy of our motivation and inspiration, which seems to come and go in unpredictable and untimely spurts. It could also be scary news because it could mark the end of the main excuse we have for changing our behavior: "I just don't feel like it."

Our mind’s main task is to avoid change at all costs, and "I just don't feel like it" is one of the mind's many strategies to avoid change. It convinces us that we should wait until we are ready (motivated) to take action, but we know this never really works. What works is just taking action. Does this mean that we achieve our intended outcome in one attempt, or reach the destination on the first try? Absolutely not. But it does mean that we are a heck of a lot closer to our desired behavior than if we were to wait until we actually felt like changing.

Once we take that first step, the next most important step is to strategically place prompts (reminders) in our environment so this new behavior stays top of mind. Again, the mind will do everything in its power, because we've given it the impossible task of helping us never feel discomfort, to make sure we never try this new behavior again. This is where consistent reminders that lead to consistent behavior will help us cement this new behavior in place.

 We know that motivation is too flimsy, so we can't continue to rely on it!