James Clear: Three Habits to Help You Stay Motivated

Are you having trouble staying motivated? How about your team, looking to get them motivated with new habits? If you are, then look at #1 bestselling author and top 10 motivational keynote speaker James Clear for realistic suggestions to turn your motivation into a daily habit. Atomic Habits has sold nearly 2.5 million copies, has been #1 on the New York Times bestseller lists and also topped Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and other respected lists. When looking for a top 10 motivational keynote speaker, James Clear is a clear choice (yes we intended that second “clear”!).  

In James Clear’s bestselling book Atomic Habits, he suggests three different techniques you can use to make your internal motivation a daily habit. You can create a motivation ritual, follow the Goldilocks rule, and develop a strong “why” for your goal.  Clear has made the top of the list for top 10 motivational speakers because his content and speaking style are top-rated, with consistent audience reviews of 10 (out of 10).

 

Motivation Rituals

Want to have stronger motivation when you need it? Then you might want to try associating your habits with something you enjoy doing already. Association with a positive action develops a strong cue for the feeling of motivation. This association will become your motivation ritual. 

A motivation ritual can be any activity or series of activities you do before engaging in work, exercise, or performance. Motivational speaker James Clear had a ritual of stretching and throwing before his college baseball games. This ritual warmed him up while placing him in a mental state of being competitive and focused. 

Other motivation rituals could be playing a song with a great groove before exercising to get pumped up. Or using a breathing or voice exercise before having to speak publicly to focus you and get you excited to do your presentation.

 

The Goldilocks Rule

The Goldilocks Rule is all about finding your zone of optimal performance. You can use this rule when you run into difficulty when starting a new or challenging activity—or keeping an old one going. For example, you might get excited to start jogging during the first week—but when the alarm goes off early morning of week two, you stay in bed. Or when you start learning guitar it’s fun for the first month as you master the basic chords—but then you get tired of the basic chords in month two and your guitar starts gathering dust.

Clear says the Goldilocks Rule is about finding the sweet spot of motivation—where things aren’t too easy or too hard to accomplish. When things are too easy, we quickly lose motivation to keep doing them because they don’t excite or challenge us. However, when activities are too difficult (such as new tasks or complex tasks), we quickly lose our excitement to complete them because they frustrate us. The key is to make something manageably difficult. That’s peak motivation. These types of takeaways are what places Clear in the top 10 motivational keynote speakers list too.

So for guitar, it would be doing the basic chords but then adding in a challenging chord once a week to always keep it exciting. For running, it might be making it easier to get out of bed by going to bed dressed in your running clothes or finding a running partner.

 

Find Your Why

A final habit to use to stay motivated is to find your “why” for doing something. When you have a strong enough reason to do something (stay fit, play guitar, do paperwork), you will always find a “how” to overcome obstacles. 

For example, if you just want to lose weight, you’ll run into difficulty if there’s no strong “why” to take off those pounds. You’ll often find a better reason to eat pizza, go out drinking, or sleep than to exercise or eat vegetables. On the other hand, if you need to lose weight to fit into a dress for your class reunion or because you have high cholesterol and afraid you’ll have a heart attack, those strong reasons will keep you focused in the face of warm chocolate chip cookies. The stronger the why (and usually the more emotional the why), the stronger your motivation will be to continue the activity.

So if you want to make your motivation a habit, there are three things you could do. Find a strong reason why you’re doing something, find an optimal level of difficulty, and associate your goal with a positive routine.

If you want to learn more habits of motivation, reach out to BigSpeak Motivational Speakers Bureau to book top 10 motivational speaker James Clear or another top 10 virtual motivational speaker.

BigSpeak motivational speakers bureau represents the top 10 motivational keynote speakers, top 10 inspirational speakers, and top 10 virtual motivational speakers. If you’re looking for a top 10 motivational speaker for your conference, event, or online event, BigSpeak can connect you with a top 10 motivational keynote speaker who can inspire your business to reach new heights.