External motivation is a wonderful thing... when it's there.

My point about motivation being garbage is that most of us make the mistake of relying on intrinsic motivation to suddenly swell up and inspire us to run 5 miles, have the hard conversation, or take any action that we don't feel like taking.

If motivational content truly pushes you to take action - that's great.

That means you're using it as a tool to push yourself to do the shit you don't want to do.

But be wary of using it for entertainment only, or a little burst of feeling good.

And the reason why I say that is because you can trick yourself into thinking that you're getting stuff done, by just watching other people do the things you wish you were doing.

At some point - you need to go from passively feeling "motivated" to taking action, because action is the only thing that will change your life for real.

Thinking about doing something or feeling "motivated" isn't the same thing as actually doing the damn thing.

Motivation is garbage because it's almost never there when you need it, and most of us can't watch a YouTube video and muster up the inspiration to get outside in the freezing rain and get the training run done.

You need to know how to push yourself in those moments.

I unpack this in detail in this episode -

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mel-robbins-podcast/id1646101002?i=1000582102667