Many of us view motivation as the spark we need to achieve our goals. But Jeff Haden, author of The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win, explains that it is actually the reverse.

To feel motivated, we actually need to take action, that is, to complete at least one small task toward our goal. That is because accomplishing an initial task causes our brains to release dopamine, the reward and pleasure chemical. The good feeling we get when we do this can spur us on to accomplish more.

And who better to talk about using motivation to achieve lots of goals than Jeff Haden, the most popular columnist for Inc.com and one of most widely followed influencers for LinkedIn. Jeff is also the author or co-author of 50 nonfiction books, and his work has also appeared in Time, Fast Company, Business Insider, and Entrepreneur.

In this interview we discuss:

Why motivation is not something you get but something you create
How accomplishing tasks associated with your goal can create a virtuous flywheel of motivation, achievement, and happiness
Why successful people set a goal and then forget it
How focusing on big goals can overwhelm and even defeat us and what we should do instead
When we focus on accomplishing the daily tasks associated with our larger goal, we maintain motivation and feel happier
Why serial achievers are happier and experience less regret and why we should all aim to be them
Why, for most of us, choosing that one thing we might want to do for 40 years is unrealistic
Why we need pros rather than coaches to achieve new, challenging goals
How pros can pave the way and prevent us from reinventing the wheel
The fact that pros hold the key to our success as they have done the thing we most want to do
To gain willpower, we need less willpower, provided we structure our environment in ways that reduce our options
How maximizing our edge time can help us achieve more
The fact that doing what others around us are doing will only get us what they have gotten -- we need to work harder and smarter to achieve something different
How successful people work on big goals serially, rather than concurrently
How paying attention to the details and making small changes can improve our performance
Why the proud feelings you have in accomplishing hard things creates momentum to achieve more
How taking productive, rather than relaxing, break can help you achieve
What success means to Jeff -- and it has nothing to do with cars or houses or stuff

Episode Links

Venus Williams

Jerry Seinfeld

Tony Robbins

Friday Night Lights

Not Impossible by Mick Ebeling

CM 100: Jeff Haden on How to Get Motivated

Curious Minds at Work