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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Get started
Motivation usually follows action, not the other way round. Start badly if you must, but start.
Moses said, Lord, ease my task for me (Quran 20:26). Ask for ease, then begin; the opening comes to those already moving.
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Waiting for motivation before starting rarely works; taking the first concrete step tends to generate the drive, so acting first is the reliable order.
Gollwitzer, P. M. and Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology doi
Across many studies, forming implementation intentions has a medium-to-large positive effect on goal attainment.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Beginning even poorly generates the momentum and engagement that were missing before.
Where this sits: Executive-function support; implementation intentions.
When you catch yourself saying you are not motivated, try swapping the word out. Ask instead which bit has stalled: getting started, knowing what comes first, staying with it, or holding your attention on it at all.
Before treating something as your failure to get going, check whether you ever agreed it was yours. A job that bothers one person and genuinely does not bother the other has not been agreed by anybody.
Working towards something you want will carry you further than working away from something you dread. Before you start, name in your own words what the finished thing gets you.