April 1, 2025 • 12 mins
What happens when your motivation runs dry but your goals remain unchanged? That's the central question explored in this relatable episode of the Super Awesome You podcast, where host Sam delves into the challenging reality of pursuing long-term goals amid fluctuating motivation levels.
The truth is uncomfortable but liberating: you simply do the work anyway. Sam shares personal experiences from podcast creation to marathon training, revealing how the mental muscle that pushes through resistance grows stronger with each repetition. While tricks like accountability partners and reward systems have their place, they're ultimately powerless without your fundamental commitment to showing up.
We explore the fascinating psychology behind practices like the 5AM Club, revealing that the true benefit isn't about magical morning hours but rather about training yourself to begin each day by overcoming significant internal resistance. This creates a powerful mental framework that extends to every challenging task. When you can swing your feet out of a warm, comfortable bed against every bodily protest, you're strengthening the neural pathways that enable consistency in all areas of life.
The most encouraging revelation? Even on days when progress toward specific goals feels nonexistent, you're still building something invaluable—mental resilience and the habit of showing up. In a world where countless people let days pass without meaningful action toward their aspirations, your consistency already places you ahead of the curve. Ready to develop your "do it anyway" superpower? This episode provides both the inspiration and practical mindset shifts to make it happen.
Subscribe, share with a friend who needs this message, and leave a review to help others discover these transformative insights!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam (00:00):
Hello and welcome to Super Awesome you.
My name is Sam.
I'm the host of the show on theSuper Awesome Mix podcast
network.
You can find more of thisshow's content on Instagram and
on threads at Super Awesome you.
Now, if you've been listeningto the show for some time, you
realize probably that I havename changed back again to Super
(00:20):
Awesome you.
For a short little while, I wasSuper Awesome Runner.
I just want to address thatvery quickly, and I actually
think there's a lesson here tobe had, which is don't be afraid
to admit that.
Maybe you want to go back tothe thing you were doing before.
I started this podcast a coupleof years ago as Super Awesome
you, and I was really into thatname and I really enjoyed it.
(00:42):
Obviously, being part of theSuper Awesome Mix podcast
network helped with the namingchoice and the show's purpose
was really just all abouthelping us feel really good
about ourselves and helping usbelieve in ourselves and
realizing that we are kind ofsuper awesome or we certainly
can be, whenever we show up forourselves and put in the work.
(01:02):
As time went on, I realizedthat I started talking more and
more about running and I thought, well, what if I just dedicated
the show to just purely beingabout running and spent some
time as the super awesome runnershow Did that for you know,
however long, it's been a couplemonths, three months and then
realized that I actually likedit before as super awesome you
(01:23):
because, yes, running is areally important part of my life
and I talk a lot about it andin fact, I just had a runner on
as a guest on the show.
But I think this is a broadershow than just about running.
So I went back to Super Awesomeyou.
I appreciate you staying withme through that little adventure
and I promise I will not namechange, at least for the time
(01:45):
being.
You know, I don't want to sayever, but it doesn't seem like I
have any plans to name changeagain.
So I say all of that to onceagain welcome you back, or
welcome you to for the firsttime to the Super Awesome you
podcast this week.
What I want to talk about isfinding the joy in putting in
the work.
Whenever you set a long-termgoal and we talk about goals a
(02:07):
lot on the show it makes a lotof sense.
That's part of starting to feellike you are a super awesome
person is setting a goal andachieving it or working towards
it.
But part of the issue wheneveryou set these long-term goals is
that motivation is going to waxand wane.
You're going to start offyou're really motivated.
It's going to kind of disappearand then it might come back
here and there and it's going todisappear again.
(02:29):
And what do you do on the dayswhen you just find that you
don't have any motivation?
Unfortunately, the answer isyou just do the work anyway.
I hate to say that because it'skind of an annoying answer
whenever someone asks you know,I don't feel like running today.
Should I run?
Or what do I do, or how do Ifind the motivation to run?
And I think the answer is youjust need to run without the
(02:53):
motivation.
The issue here is we want tofeel that push, we want to get
rolling, and you know there aretips and tricks and ways to kind
of get that done and we'vetalked about that on the show.
You can have a friend push youout the door.
You can put a reward at the endof the run.
You can have it stacked.
(03:14):
So if you're doing a treadmillrun, you could maybe watch a TV
episode of your favorite showwhile you're running on the
treadmill.
There's all kinds of differentways, but none of those things
work without you actuallyputting in the effort and
putting in the work, without youshowing up.
A hundred percent better thanzero is still zero.
You know you can't multiply apercentage against zero and
(03:36):
expect it to grow at all.
You still have to put in theactual nominal amount of work
and I think what ends uphappening is you train yourself
to learn how to do these thingseven when you don't feel like
doing them.
One thing that people talk a lotabout is like the 5am club.
I've referenced it way back inseason one.
Read that book a couple times.
(03:57):
Realize that it's really lessabout waking up at 5 am.
Like, yes, you know, there'ssomething nice about waking up
early because you get more hoursof the day, ostensibly.
Although if you're a night owl,you're robbing yourself of
those night hours that younormally would and you're
exchanging them with morninghours.
(04:18):
But let's just pretend thatnormally you sleep in, but now
you're suddenly waking up at 5.
And it's not necessarily aboutthe magic of these hours.
There's really nothing toospecial about the hours from
five to seven in the morning,other than maybe the fact that
you know, things are a littlebit quiet, most people are
asleep.
You're not going to get as manynotifications, there is
(04:39):
calmness to it.
But I say all of that to say Ithink what 5 am club and waking
up early is all about istraining yourself to do
something, to start your daywith something that you
literally do not want to do.
That alarm goes off and ittakes so much effort mental and
sometimes physical effort to getyourself to turn off the alarm,
(05:01):
swing your feet out from yourbed, put them on the floor and
sit yourself up and stand yourfeet out from your bed, put them
on the floor and sit yourselfup and stand and walk away from
that bed.
You are presumably warm, youare cozy, you are comfortable.
Your body loves sleep.
It does not like beinginterrupted when it is asleep,
especially if you are woken uprandomly, like, say, during your
(05:22):
REM cycle, and you feel reallygroggy and your body really does
not like to be interrupted whenit's an REM.
But you do it anyway, right,and that's how you start your
day.
You start your day with a taskthat you literally do not want
to do and you do it anyway.
What you're doing there istraining your body at a meta
(05:43):
level to understand that, evenwhen you are not motivated to do
something, you still do thething because you've created a
contract with yourself, becauseyou have a long-term goal that
you're working towards.
Whatever the why is, thatmatters to you.
The point is that you do itanyway.
That is a very powerful tool inyour tool set.
(06:06):
That is probably one of themost powerful things you can do
is literally training yourselfto show up, even when you don't
want to show up.
That is true for me, as I recordthis podcast week after week.
I I love doing this podcast,but I would be lying to you if I
told you that I love to do itevery single week.
There are some weeks where it'sa bit of a chore.
I need to think of a topic, Ineed to get my desk set up.
(06:28):
I need to run through what I'mgoing to talk about.
I need to edit the episode.
Once I'm done, I need topublish it.
I need to write about it.
There's a lot of work that goesinto recording and publishing a
weekly podcast episode on top ofeverything else that I'm doing
in my life, right?
So there are many weeks when Idon't want to do this, but I
(06:49):
have created a contract withmyself.
I have a long-term goal ofworking towards becoming a
motivational speaker, aself-help person,
self-development author, and Irealized that the only way to do
that is to start publishingcontent and do it consistently
and grow my audience.
And so I'm very grateful forall of you listening and in fact
, you could help me with thegrowing my audience part by
(07:11):
sharing the show and leaving afive star review, if you haven't
already.
But that's beside the pointright now.
The point is, this show, eventhough I love to do it, can
absolutely be a chore.
But because I have told myselfthat I'm doing this podcast, I'm
going to do it weekly.
I'm going to show up everysingle week that I have an
episode planned, record theepisode and publish it.
(07:33):
That's that.
There is really no other way ofgetting around working towards a
goal.
When you set an early morningalarm and you don't want to wake
up at that alarm, but you do itanyway, you are training that
part of your brain thatbasically says I don't want to
do this thing, but here I amdoing it anyway and you get
(07:55):
stronger at that and stronger atthat and it just becomes a
little bit more automatic.
You realize you don't want toput the dishes away, but you put
them away anyway.
You realize you don't want totake the trash out, but you take
the trash out anyway.
And the more that you trainthis part of your brain to
overcome that inertia anytimeyou don't want to do something
but you do it anyway you canexpand that to larger and larger
(08:17):
tasks.
It goes from taking the trashout to recording a weekly
episode, to training for amarathon in the dead of summer.
Right.
Whenever I first signed up forthe fall marathon, I, you know,
in my mind had the lovely coolNovember wintry style day or
fall, you know, late fall day inmind and I completely forgot
(08:37):
and discounted the fact that 16weeks prior to November 2nd or
3rd is, you know, july 3rd.
It's in the dead of summer andit's hot and it's humid and the
sun is out really early in thenortheast so you can't even get
out like super early to beat alot of that.
But you signed up for that goaland you realize, like this is
(08:59):
how I get it done.
I get it done by running out inthe heat and then the city heat
, even though I don't want to,and even though that's not even
what this race is about, youstill show up and you put in the
hours and you put in the miles.
That's the deal that you setwith yourself, and there is no
shortcut to getting that done.
You just have to do it.
So when you are faced with along-term goal, when you want to
(09:24):
accomplish something big, andyou are faced with those days
that you don't want to do thatthing anymore, you have to
remind yourself that you aretraining a muscle, a part of
your brain you can think of itas a muscle in your body to do
the thing anyway.
It will get easier as time goesby.
You might even learn to likecertain tasks, in which case
that's just.
(09:44):
That's great, because that getseven easier, and you might
never learn to like that task,and it doesn't matter, though,
because you are strengtheningthe part of your brain that says
I don't like doing this, but Ido it anyway.
David Goggins talks a lot abouthow much he hates running, and
that's literally why he says hedoes it.
He hates it so much, but heneeds to force himself to do
things that he doesn't want todo, because that's his whole
(10:07):
thing.
His whole life is not wantingto do things but doing them
anyway.
That part of his brain isprobably rock solid and, like
90% of the brain, matter,because he literally signs
himself up for the mostridiculous things, right?
I mean ultras upon ultras, like250 mile races.
It's insane.
He trains himself to overcomethat part of the brain that, you
(10:30):
know, kind of whines formotivation.
It looks for a reason to dothings.
It really wants to feel likeI'm doing this for a reason, but
you override it.
That's.
The really powerful things aboutour brain is that we've got
multiple voices in there.
You know, we have the part ofour brain that says I don't want
to step out of my bed, I'm cozy, I'm warm, comfortable.
And then we have that smallerpart of our brain that says do
(10:52):
it anyway.
You're going to feel so cooland so badass whenever you step
out of this bed and you areovercoming yourself when you do
that.
And now you get to carry thatenergy with you throughout the
rest of your day, like I'vealready done one of the hardest
things I can do today, which isget myself out of bed on time
with the alarm and no snooze.
I can take the trash out, I cango for a run, I can go to the
(11:13):
gym, I can work on my businessfor another 10 minutes, I can
clean up the house and tidythings up and not leave things
thrown about, and so on.
That is the power of doingthings, even when you don't have
the motivation.
And it will never get easy perse, but you just get better at
doing the not easy thing.
That is what it's all about.
(11:34):
Even when you feel like there'snot progress being made, like
we talked about, you are stillmaking some kind of a progress,
even if you're not gettingcloser to your goal.
You are getting better atshowing up and working towards
something that matters to youand that is huge, because for
every single person out therethat is showing up and working
for themselves and pursuing somedifficult goal, there are
(11:57):
probably 10, 100, 1,000 otherpeople that are just letting the
days swim by and they sit inexcuses and they don't get any
closer to it.
So just by showing up foryourself, just by putting in the
work, just by being consistent,just by struggling to be
consistent, you are alreadybetter than all the people that
choose to ignore this part oftheir brain and sit and stay the
(12:18):
same and, you know, neverreally try to improve themselves
.
So that's huge.
You should always, alwayscelebrate that.
I hope you have a wonderfulrest of the week and I will see
you next Tuesday.
Hello and welcome to Super Awesome you.
My name is Sam.
I'm the host of the show on theSuper Awesome Mix podcast
network.
You can find more of thisshow's content on Instagram and
on threads at Super Awesome you.
Now, if you've been listeningto the show for some time, you
realize probably that I havename changed back again to Super
(00:20):
Awesome you.
For a short little while, I wasSuper Awesome Runner.
I just want to address thatvery quickly, and I actually
think there's a lesson here tobe had, which is don't be afraid
to admit that.
Maybe you want to go back tothe thing you were doing before.
I started this podcast a coupleof years ago as Super Awesome
you, and I was really into thatname and I really enjoyed it.
(00:42):
Obviously, being part of theSuper Awesome Mix podcast
network helped with the namingchoice and the show's purpose
was really just all abouthelping us feel really good
about ourselves and helping usbelieve in ourselves and
realizing that we are kind ofsuper awesome or we certainly
can be, whenever we show up forourselves and put in the work.
(01:02):
As time went on, I realizedthat I started talking more and
more about running and I thought, well, what if I just dedicated
the show to just purely beingabout running and spent some
time as the super awesome runnershow Did that for you know,
however long, it's been a couplemonths, three months and then
realized that I actually likedit before as super awesome you
(01:23):
because, yes, running is areally important part of my life
and I talk a lot about it andin fact, I just had a runner on
as a guest on the show.
But I think this is a broadershow than just about running.
So I went back to Super Awesomeyou.
I appreciate you staying withme through that little adventure
and I promise I will not namechange, at least for the time
(01:45):
being.
You know, I don't want to sayever, but it doesn't seem like I
have any plans to name changeagain.
So I say all of that to onceagain welcome you back, or
welcome you to for the firsttime to the Super Awesome you
podcast this week.
What I want to talk about isfinding the joy in putting in
the work.
Whenever you set a long-termgoal and we talk about goals a
(02:07):
lot on the show it makes a lotof sense.
That's part of starting to feellike you are a super awesome
person is setting a goal andachieving it or working towards
it.
But part of the issue wheneveryou set these long-term goals is
that motivation is going to waxand wane.
You're going to start offyou're really motivated.
It's going to kind of disappearand then it might come back
here and there and it's going todisappear again.
(02:29):
And what do you do on the dayswhen you just find that you
don't have any motivation?
Unfortunately, the answer isyou just do the work anyway.
I hate to say that because it'skind of an annoying answer
whenever someone asks you know,I don't feel like running today.
Should I run?
Or what do I do, or how do Ifind the motivation to run?
And I think the answer is youjust need to run without the
(02:53):
motivation.
The issue here is we want tofeel that push, we want to get
rolling, and you know there aretips and tricks and ways to kind
of get that done and we'vetalked about that on the show.
You can have a friend push youout the door.
You can put a reward at the endof the run.
You can have it stacked.
(03:14):
So if you're doing a treadmillrun, you could maybe watch a TV
episode of your favorite showwhile you're running on the
treadmill.
There's all kinds of differentways, but none of those things
work without you actuallyputting in the effort and
putting in the work, without youshowing up.
A hundred percent better thanzero is still zero.
You know you can't multiply apercentage against zero and
(03:36):
expect it to grow at all.
You still have to put in theactual nominal amount of work
and I think what ends uphappening is you train yourself
to learn how to do these thingseven when you don't feel like
doing them.
One thing that people talk a lotabout is like the 5am club.
I've referenced it way back inseason one.
Read that book a couple times.
(03:57):
Realize that it's really lessabout waking up at 5 am.
Like, yes, you know, there'ssomething nice about waking up
early because you get more hoursof the day, ostensibly.
Although if you're a night owl,you're robbing yourself of
those night hours that younormally would and you're
exchanging them with morninghours.
(04:18):
But let's just pretend thatnormally you sleep in, but now
you're suddenly waking up at 5.
And it's not necessarily aboutthe magic of these hours.
There's really nothing toospecial about the hours from
five to seven in the morning,other than maybe the fact that
you know, things are a littlebit quiet, most people are
asleep.
You're not going to get as manynotifications, there is
(04:39):
calmness to it.
But I say all of that to say Ithink what 5 am club and waking
up early is all about istraining yourself to do
something, to start your daywith something that you
literally do not want to do.
That alarm goes off and ittakes so much effort mental and
sometimes physical effort to getyourself to turn off the alarm,
(05:01):
swing your feet out from yourbed, put them on the floor and
sit yourself up and stand yourfeet out from your bed, put them
on the floor and sit yourselfup and stand and walk away from
that bed.
You are presumably warm, youare cozy, you are comfortable.
Your body loves sleep.
It does not like beinginterrupted when it is asleep,
especially if you are woken uprandomly, like, say, during your
(05:22):
REM cycle, and you feel reallygroggy and your body really does
not like to be interrupted whenit's an REM.
But you do it anyway, right,and that's how you start your
day.
You start your day with a taskthat you literally do not want
to do and you do it anyway.
What you're doing there istraining your body at a meta
(05:43):
level to understand that, evenwhen you are not motivated to do
something, you still do thething because you've created a
contract with yourself, becauseyou have a long-term goal that
you're working towards.
Whatever the why is, thatmatters to you.
The point is that you do itanyway.
That is a very powerful tool inyour tool set.
(06:06):
That is probably one of themost powerful things you can do
is literally training yourselfto show up, even when you don't
want to show up.
That is true for me, as I recordthis podcast week after week.
I I love doing this podcast,but I would be lying to you if I
told you that I love to do itevery single week.
There are some weeks where it'sa bit of a chore.
I need to think of a topic, Ineed to get my desk set up.
(06:28):
I need to run through what I'mgoing to talk about.
I need to edit the episode.
Once I'm done, I need topublish it.
I need to write about it.
There's a lot of work that goesinto recording and publishing a
weekly podcast episode on top ofeverything else that I'm doing
in my life, right?
So there are many weeks when Idon't want to do this, but I
(06:49):
have created a contract withmyself.
I have a long-term goal ofworking towards becoming a
motivational speaker, aself-help person,
self-development author, and Irealized that the only way to do
that is to start publishingcontent and do it consistently
and grow my audience.
And so I'm very grateful forall of you listening and in fact
, you could help me with thegrowing my audience part by
(07:11):
sharing the show and leaving afive star review, if you haven't
already.
But that's beside the pointright now.
The point is, this show, eventhough I love to do it, can
absolutely be a chore.
But because I have told myselfthat I'm doing this podcast, I'm
going to do it weekly.
I'm going to show up everysingle week that I have an
episode planned, record theepisode and publish it.
(07:33):
That's that.
There is really no other way ofgetting around working towards a
goal.
When you set an early morningalarm and you don't want to wake
up at that alarm, but you do itanyway, you are training that
part of your brain thatbasically says I don't want to
do this thing, but here I amdoing it anyway and you get
(07:55):
stronger at that and stronger atthat and it just becomes a
little bit more automatic.
You realize you don't want toput the dishes away, but you put
them away anyway.
You realize you don't want totake the trash out, but you take
the trash out anyway.
And the more that you trainthis part of your brain to
overcome that inertia anytimeyou don't want to do something
but you do it anyway you canexpand that to larger and larger
(08:17):
tasks.
It goes from taking the trashout to recording a weekly
episode, to training for amarathon in the dead of summer.
Right.
Whenever I first signed up forthe fall marathon, I, you know,
in my mind had the lovely coolNovember wintry style day or
fall, you know, late fall day inmind and I completely forgot
(08:37):
and discounted the fact that 16weeks prior to November 2nd or
3rd is, you know, july 3rd.
It's in the dead of summer andit's hot and it's humid and the
sun is out really early in thenortheast so you can't even get
out like super early to beat alot of that.
But you signed up for that goaland you realize, like this is
(08:59):
how I get it done.
I get it done by running out inthe heat and then the city heat
, even though I don't want to,and even though that's not even
what this race is about, youstill show up and you put in the
hours and you put in the miles.
That's the deal that you setwith yourself, and there is no
shortcut to getting that done.
You just have to do it.
So when you are faced with along-term goal, when you want to
(09:24):
accomplish something big, andyou are faced with those days
that you don't want to do thatthing anymore, you have to
remind yourself that you aretraining a muscle, a part of
your brain you can think of itas a muscle in your body to do
the thing anyway.
It will get easier as time goesby.
You might even learn to likecertain tasks, in which case
that's just.
(09:44):
That's great, because that getseven easier, and you might
never learn to like that task,and it doesn't matter, though,
because you are strengtheningthe part of your brain that says
I don't like doing this, but Ido it anyway.
David Goggins talks a lot abouthow much he hates running, and
that's literally why he says hedoes it.
He hates it so much, but heneeds to force himself to do
things that he doesn't want todo, because that's his whole
(10:07):
thing.
His whole life is not wantingto do things but doing them
anyway.
That part of his brain isprobably rock solid and, like
90% of the brain, matter,because he literally signs
himself up for the mostridiculous things, right?
I mean ultras upon ultras, like250 mile races.
It's insane.
He trains himself to overcomethat part of the brain that, you
(10:30):
know, kind of whines formotivation.
It looks for a reason to dothings.
It really wants to feel likeI'm doing this for a reason, but
you override it.
That's.
The really powerful things aboutour brain is that we've got
multiple voices in there.
You know, we have the part ofour brain that says I don't want
to step out of my bed, I'm cozy, I'm warm, comfortable.
And then we have that smallerpart of our brain that says do
(10:52):
it anyway.
You're going to feel so cooland so badass whenever you step
out of this bed and you areovercoming yourself when you do
that.
And now you get to carry thatenergy with you throughout the
rest of your day, like I'vealready done one of the hardest
things I can do today, which isget myself out of bed on time
with the alarm and no snooze.
I can take the trash out, I cango for a run, I can go to the
(11:13):
gym, I can work on my businessfor another 10 minutes, I can
clean up the house and tidythings up and not leave things
thrown about, and so on.
That is the power of doingthings, even when you don't have
the motivation.
And it will never get easy perse, but you just get better at
doing the not easy thing.
That is what it's all about.
(11:34):
Even when you feel like there'snot progress being made, like
we talked about, you are stillmaking some kind of a progress,
even if you're not gettingcloser to your goal.
You are getting better atshowing up and working towards
something that matters to youand that is huge, because for
every single person out therethat is showing up and working
for themselves and pursuing somedifficult goal, there are
(11:57):
probably 10, 100, 1,000 otherpeople that are just letting the
days swim by and they sit inexcuses and they don't get any
closer to it.
So just by showing up foryourself, just by putting in the
work, just by being consistent,just by struggling to be
consistent, you are alreadybetter than all the people that
choose to ignore this part oftheir brain and sit and stay the
(12:18):
same and, you know, neverreally try to improve themselves
.
So that's huge.
You should always, alwayscelebrate that.
I hope you have a wonderfulrest of the week and I will see
you next Tuesday.
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