One thing you can know for sure about getting motivated: when you’re starting out with any activity, you almost never feel like it. Sadly, getting through the dip is the only way. Enter the state of animation.
YOU KNOW that positive feeling you get when you’re in the flow state? Or that sense of accomplishment when you’ve finished a task? We all want that feeling, right? Well, guess what? There’s no other way to achieve it than to simply get stuck in. Perform the activity. Do the task. Duh! So why, then, do we find it so difficult to start? The dip. That’s why.
You know what I mean. When it’s time to get changed to go to the gym, or to do that filing you’ve been threatening to do, you’re likely to find yourself more interested than ever in your Facebook page. Or you actually get to the gym, or start the filing task, and within seconds you find yourself thinking that this was the worst idea ever. What was I thinking?! Your mind fills with a hundred reasons to give up. You think of a hundred better things you could be doing.
Welcome to the dip. Yes, it’s not just you, it’s a universal phenomenon. You need to get through the dip if you want to enjoy any activity by getting into the flow state. The dip is always there. In order to get through the dip, you need to enter the animated state.
In the first article in this series, I introduced the matrix of five motivational states that I’ve identified through my work as a high-performance life and executive coach. These states are:
- Agitation (using force, pushing too hard)
- Flow (enjoyment, absorption, the loss of time)
- Animation (positive action towards a goal; getting through the dip)
- Rest (active relaxation, recovery)
- Ennui (boredom, flatness, resistance)
(You can read about these in more detail by following this link.)
The only way to get into the flow state is to get through the dip
What you’ll have learned so far is that you generally want to be in the flow state as often as possible. You’ll also know that you need rest. However, just because rest is good for you, it doesn’t mean that more is better. The problem with spending too long in the state of rest is that you soon drop down into the state of ennui. That’s the lazy “meh” state that you’ll most likely find yourself in on a Sunday afternoon, or in your second week of holiday. You couldn’t even be bothered to get up off the couch to get a glass of water.
Whether your starting point is the state of rest, or the state of ennui, the only way to get into the flow state is to get into the state of animation, which is that state where you’re acting to do something, even though you don’t really feel like it. Like when you start out on your run and you’re a bit stiff, or when you sit down at your computer on a Sunday afternoon to check your work emails and you’re a bit grumpy. And that’s the thing. You seldom feel like it. There’s always the dip.
There are two ways that the state of animation can be activated. The first is by external factors. A deadline is looming, and you’ve finally run out of time to procrastinate any longer. Or your boss, or spouse, is on their way and you’d better do that thing you agreed to. Or, if it’s going to gym, your personal trainer is waiting for you; you’d better go. In fact, that’s why many people hire a personal trainer: so that they feel the obligation to go; and so that they’ll be pushed to actually exercise when they get there.
Getting animated by conscious choice
The second way that the state of animation can be activated is by conscious choice, based on nothing but your own commitment to act. That commitment could be related to a bigger goal—which may or may not be externally determined—and it could be based on nothing but a recognition of this principle and the benefits of applying it.
There are two ways that the state of animation can be activated. The first is by external factors; the second is by conscious choice.
For example, you want to run in the corporate marathon that your boss signed you up for and you’re determined not to let her or yourself down. In this instance, your decision to act in order to get into the state of animation is driven by a bigger goal that is externally determined.
Alternatively, you may decide for yourself to run in the corporate marathon and so your decision is driven by a goal that is self-determined.
The third alternative is that you’ve done the exercise recommended in Part 2 of this series and you’ve built a case based on evidence for how good it is for your moods to consistently get into the flow state, which you know you can only do via the animated state. And so your commitment to act is based on that recognition. You do it for its own sake because you know it’s good for you.
The autotelic approach—doing something for its own sake
This is what the researcher into the flow state, Mihály Csikszentmihalyi, called an “autotelic” approach. The term “autotelic” derives from two Greek words: auto meaning self, and telos meaning goal. It refers to a self-contained activity, one that is done not with the expectation of some future benefit, but simply because the doing itself is the reward. Playing the stock market in order to make money is not an autotelic experience; but playing it in order to prove one’s skill at foretelling future trends is—even though the outcome in terms of dollars and cents is exactly the same.
By extension, an autotelic personality is someone who can set a goal and act on it and thereby find some intrinsic meaning and reward out of the activity. They can do this even with things that they are initially forced to do against their will. In particular, the traits that mark an autotelic personality are most clearly revealed by people who are able to turn harrowing conditions, like being in a prisoner of war camp, into a manageable and even enjoyable struggle—whereas most others would succumb to the ordeal.
So, although the goal may be to get fit, or to learn to play a particular song on stage, that goal becomes forgotten for the sake of the experience of doing the activity and doing it well. When this is the case, the activity becomes known as an autotelic activity—one that is done for its own sake. The goal becomes secondary or peripheral to using the activity to learn, improve, stretch your skills, perfect your craft—and, perhaps as a by-product, to improve your mood.
A self-reinforcing spiral
“The autotelic experience, or flow,” says Csikszentmihalyi, “lifts the course of life to a different level. Alienation gives way to involvement, enjoyment replaces boredom, helplessness turns into a feeling of control, and psychic energy works to reinforce the sense of self, instead of … being held hostage to a hypothetical future gain.”
So yes, indeed, getting from ennui—and even from rest—into the animated state is always a bit of a slog. There’s always the dip—that phase when you want to opt out. You hear your own excuses and you choose to believe them rather than override them. Or, as you learned in Part 2 of this series, you give in to your feelings about the situation, rather than how you’ll feel when you’ve done the thing.
An autotelic personality is someone who can set a goal and act on it and thereby find some intrinsic meaning and reward out of the activity.
And there’s the clue of how to deal with this. Think about it. If you don’t do an activity that you know you should, or which you’d previously committed to, what’s the impact? An hour later, when you would have been finished, you’re feeling less energised, perhaps guilty. So while you needed the rest, now your energy has dropped—or is being used up by the feelings of guilt—and so you tell yourself that you really needed the extra rest. Indeed, now you need even more. It becomes a self-reinforcing downward spiral.
It’s true that sometimes you do need extra rest, and you should listen to your body and take it. However, more often, it’s the cycle described above that’s playing out. You have to be very aware, and very honest with yourself.
Connect, decide, surrender
So, what’s the answer? Take these three steps. First, connect to your goal, and recognise that there’s no other way to achieve it. (And if you don’t have a bigger goal that the activity points towards, then perhaps you ought to create one!) Second, make the decision to act. Third, surrender to that decision. This is an important term. Surrender is different from force. You can force yourself, and if you’re younger or more aggressive in your approach to life then force might work for you. An alternative is to surrender to the decision. That means, to give up resistance, to kind of slide underneath the arguments against doing the activity right now and just let your body start doing it. Remind yourself of how you’re likely to feel when you’ve gotten through the dip versus how you’re likely to feel if you don’t.
This approach seemed to work for the famous ultra-marathon runner Bruce Fordyce. He has been quoted as saying that when he was training, he’d run to the second lamppost before he made the decision whether or not to run on any given day. Naturally, since he was already out there and doing it, he’d stay with the activity. In fact, within a few minutes, he’d find himself in the flow state and grateful for having started. Certainly, he also achieved his greater goal of winning the Comrades Marathon, which he did a record number of times.
There is no other way through the dip
So, you can use this principle to get yourself going, to get into that animated state. If you struggle, then know this: there is no other way! It’s kind of like, if you want to get to Tahiti, you have to go to the airport and fly, there’s no other way. If you hate air travel, or are afraid of flying, well then you can either stay home or manage yourself. It’s the same with getting into the flow state. There is no other way. You can stay as you are, or learn to manage yourself, by learning to accept it as part of life that you have to get through the dip.
In the next article, you’ll discover the real reason why we love Friday and hate Monday—and how you can make your Mondays great (again)!
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For more information and/or coaching on how to move consciously between the Five Motivational States, try any one of the following options:
FIND OUT MORE
For more information and/or coaching on how to move consciously between the Five Motivational States, try any one of the following options:
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