Action Creates Motivation (Not the Other Way Around)
Lynne Steiner • March 3, 2025
Stop Waiting for Motivation—It’s Not Coming
You know that magical burst of motivation you’re waiting for? The one that’s going to launch you off the couch, into your workout gear, and straight to the gym with Rocky-style intensity?
Yeah, it’s not coming.
Motivation is like a flaky friend who always promises to show up but ghosts you at the last second. If you’re sitting around waiting to “feel ready,” you’ll be waiting forever. The truth is, motivation doesn’t come before action. Action creates motivation. And once you understand this, you’ll never get stuck again.
The Motivation Myth That’s Holding You Back
Most people believe they need motivation first—like it’s the magic key that unlocks all fitness success. They think:
👉 “Once I feel motivated, I’ll start working out.”
👉 “When I have more energy, I’ll eat healthier.”
👉 “If I get inspired, I’ll finally commit to a routine.”
But here’s the real secret: Motivation follows action, not the other way around.
That’s right. The simple act of starting—even when you don’t feel like it—triggers motivation. It’s like rolling a snowball downhill: the hardest part is that first push, but once it starts moving, momentum takes over.
Why Waiting for Motivation Leads to Nowhere
If you rely on motivation, you’re setting yourself up for inconsistency. And inconsistency is the silent killer of progress. Here’s why:
1. Motivation is as Unreliable as WiFi on an Airplane
- Some days, you’ll feel fired up. Other days, you’ll want to glue yourself to the couch and eat cereal straight from the box.
- If you only act when you “feel like it,” you’ll skip workouts, make excuses, and stall your progress.
2. Procrastination Feeds on Inaction
- The longer you wait, the harder it is to start. Your brain builds up the task into some impossible mountain when really, it’s just a few steps up a hill.
- “I’ll start Monday” turns into “I’ll start next week,” and suddenly, it’s been six months, and you’re wondering why your gym clothes still have tags on them.
Action Sparks Motivation (Not the Other Way Around)
Here’s where things get interesting. The moment you do something, no matter how small, your brain shifts gears:
🔹 You do one squat → “Well, I might as well do five more.”
🔹 You put on your workout shoes → “Eh, I guess I could go for a walk.”
🔹 You drink water instead of Diet Coke → “Maybe I’ll make a healthier choice for lunch too.”
See what’s happening? Taking action—even the tiniest step—creates momentum. Your brain starts getting on board. Your body wakes up. And before you know it, you’re in motion.
How to Trick Yourself Into Action
Now that you know motivation is overrated, here’s how to hack your brain into doing the thing even when you don’t feel like it:
1. Commit to Just 5 Minutes
- Tell yourself, “I’ll just do 5 minutes.” That’s it. No pressure.
- Once you start, you’ll probably keep going—because getting started is the hardest part.
2. Lower the Barrier to Entry
- Make things stupidly easy to begin.
- Sleep in your workout clothes. Keep a water bottle next to your bed. Set your gym shoes by the door.
3. Create a Non-Negotiable Habit
- Brush your teeth → Put on workout clothes.
- Make coffee → Do 10 air squats.
- Get home from work → Walk around the block.
- Attach your workout to something you already do daily, so it becomes second nature.
4. Remove Decision Fatigue
- If you have to “decide” whether to work out every day, you’ll give yourself too many outs.
- Instead, schedule it like an appointment—no thinking, just doing.
The Bottom Line: Motivation is Overrated
If you’re waiting to feel motivated before you take action, you’ll be stuck forever. Instead:
✔ Take action first—no matter how small.
✔ Let momentum do the rest.
✔ Stop treating workouts like an option. Make them a non-negotiable.
Your future self will thank you. Now, go do one
thing—right now. Even if it’s just standing up and stretching. Because the second you start, you’re already ahead. 🚀
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Picture the last week before a big trip. Extra reps at the gym, salads instead of sandwiches, maybe a mirror check or two, all in the name of looking good in a swimsuit for exactly four photos that will live on someone's camera roll forever and be seen by no one. (To be clear, that goal is valid. We all want to look great in a swimsuit, or out of one ... 😉 But at CFR we believe life is better when your body can do more than just look good. 😘 ) Then the trip actually starts. And the swimsuit body, the one you sweated for, sits quietly in a drawer while your legs do the real work: hauling a suitcase up three flights of stone stairs in a city that clearly hates elevators, walking nine miles because the map lied about "just a short walk to the market," or wrestling a six-year-old off the pool deck for the fourth time before lunch. Nobody has ever regretted being strong enough to keep up with their own life. The Goal You Trained For Isn't The One You Needed Here's the quiet betrayal of aesthetic goals: they're built for a mirror, and a mirror is the one thing you stop looking at once the trip begins. There's no scoreboard for abs on a hiking trail. There's only a scoreboard for whether you can make it up the trail at all. Aesthetic training also has a nasty habit of losing steam right when you need it most. Motivation dips the second the payoff disappears, and on a trip, the payoff of "looking good" evaporates fast. What replaces it? Nothing, unless you gave yourself something better to chase. Capability goals don't have that problem. They pay you back daily, in real time, in ways your body can actually feel. What "Vacation Capability" Actually Looks Like Before your next trip, skip the vague plan to "work out more" and get specific about what your body will actually be asked to do. A few honest examples: Carrying a suitcase up stairs without stopping halfway to catch your breath and pretend you're admiring the architecture Walking all day on cobblestones or sand without your feet, knees, or lower back staging a mutiny by 3pm Getting down on the ground to play with a kid, a dog, or a beach towel, and popping back up without narrating the effort out loud Standing in line, sitting in a cramped seat , then standing again for hours of travel without your hips locking up like a rusty gate None of these require a six-pack. All of them require actual, trainable strength and stamina. Reverse-Engineer Your Training From The Trip, Not The Swimsuit Once you know what your trip will demand, you can build backward from it. Two or three focused priorities beat a scattershot plan every time: If stairs and hills are coming, load up your squats and lunges in the weeks before you leave If long walking days are coming, build your training around time on your feet , not just time under a barbell If you'll be on the ground with kids or grandkids, practice getting up and down off the floor under load, not just stretching This is not complicated. It is specific, and specific beats vague every single time. The Real Point Isn't The Vacation Here's the part that actually matters: this was never really about the trip. The trip is just the moment where the gap between "looks fit" and "is fit" gets exposed in broad daylight, in front of your family, on a stone staircase in a city with no elevators. Train for the life you actually want to live, and the vacation takes care of itself.
Somewhere between the third and fourth round of a bodyweight couplet, when your kid asks if you're "almost done," is the moment you realize summer training has a new rule. You are not working out alone anymore. There is a small human nearby narrating your effort like a sports announcer and trying to mimic your movements. Good. That is not a problem to solve. That is leverage. The Audience Effect Kids do not remember the lecture about eating vegetables. They remember the sight of a parent breathing hard, finishing something difficult, and not quitting halfway through. You can talk about discipline for years and it will land softer than ten minutes of them watching you actually finish a tough workout. This is not a metaphor about parenting. It is closer to how muscle memory works. Kids build behavioral patterns the same way your body builds strength: through repeated exposure, not instruction. Every time they watch you train, that is a rep. The workout they see is doing more teaching than the one they don't. What They're Actually Gaining The modeling argument is the headline, but it's not the whole story. There's a shorter list of quieter benefits that don't get talked about enough. Kids of active parents move more, without being told to . Not because you assigned them a chore chart of jumping jacks. Because activity became furniture in the house instead of an event on the calendar. They learn what recovery from failure looks like in real time. Missing a rep, resetting, and trying again is a small, boring moment. It teaches more about resilience than any speech about "grit" ever will. They get a body image model that isn't about appearance. A kid who watches a parent train for strength and capability, not for how they look afterward, absorbs a completely different relationship with their own body. That's not a small thing in a world selling them the opposite message before they're even ten. They stop treating exercise as a punishment or a chore. If the only exposure a kid has to "working out" is a parent complaining about it, that's the lesson. If the exposure is a parent showing up, even irritated, even tired, and finishing anyway, that's a different lesson entirely. Backyard Substitutions Members Are Actually Using Not every workout survives contact with a toddler. Heavy barbell lifts need focus, and focus is the first casualty of a kid asking for a snack mid-set. But plenty of training translates well. If all else fails, change the workout location to the backyard for the day. This is what's been working around here this summer: Air squats and push-ups swapped in for barbell work when the kids are circling like it's a small parade A 12-minute AMRAP with movements that need zero setup so you can start the second there is a lull. "Partner rounds," where the kid gets a lap or task between your sets, which somehow makes both of you finish faster None of this is groundbreaking. That is the point. The workout does not need to be clever. It needs to happen. The One Thing to Avoid Here's where people trip themselves up. September arrives, the schedule snaps back into shape, and the guilt shows up right behind it. Suddenly it's five days a week, a diet overhaul, and a training plan aggressive enough to make up for a summer that wasn't lost in the first place. Don't do that to yourself. A summer of consistent, imperfect training is not a debt you owe your fall self. It's the deposit. Bring Them In If the backyard version has gotten stale, bring the kids to the gym. Let them watch it happen somewhere other than your living room for once. Ask a coach for help figuring out the best way to make it happen. The workout was never really about the workout. It's about what gets modeled while nobody's grading the performance.
You know the move. Event's at 5pm, so you skip breakfast. Skip lunch too, just to be safe. You're "saving up" like calories are airline miles. By the time you walk in, you're not just hungry. You're ravished. That gap between "saving calories" and "inhaling three plates before anyone's even cut the cake" isn't a willpower problem. It's basic biology doing exactly what it's built to do. Why Starving Yourself First Always Loses Here's the part nobody explains: hunger doesn't politely wait for your decision-making to catch up. It barges in, kicks your discipline out of the room, and orders for you. A few things happen when you show up running on fumes: Portion control disappears. Your brain isn't measuring servings anymore, it's running a hostile takeover. Everything looks like a yes. The potato salad you'd normally skip? Suddenly it's calling your name. You overshoot what you actually needed , often by a wide margin, because your body is trying to make up for hours of nothing. And here's the real cost. This isn't a one-time slip. If you do this at every birthday party, every BBQ, every family thing, you're training yourself into a boom-bust cycle. Restrict, then ransack the buffet. Restrict, then ransack again. Your body starts treating every social event like a famine followed by a feast, and that pattern is exhausting, both physically and mentally. The Fix Is Almost Insultingly Simple Eat a normal meal before you go. That's it. That's the secret. A plate with some protein and a little fiber an hour or two beforehand keeps your blood sugar steady and your brain in the driver's seat instead of your stomach. You walk in already satisfied, which means you get to actually *choose* what goes on your plate instead of grabbing whatever's closest out of sheer panic. Think of it like showing up to a negotiation. Would you rather walk in calm and clear-headed, or starving and desperate to take the first deal offered? Food works the same way. One Thing to Remember Showing up hungry isn't discipline. It's setting a trap for yourself and being shocked when it springs. Eat something solid before the next BBQ, vacation dinner, or family gathering. Protein, a little fiber, done. You'll walk in steady, in control, and free to actually enjoy the food instead of attacking it. The party was never the problem. Arriving starving was.
