3 Ways To Get Motivated When You Don't Feel Like It | PTSD TV Recovery Workshop

Hey everyone, welcome to PTSD TV. Today is Wednesday, it's our PTSD recovery workshop, and today we're talking about 3 ways to get motivated when you don't feel like it. So for those of you who don't know me, my name's Kayleen. I had CPTSD for over 15 years and now no longer do, and what I do now is I'm a recovery coach. And so I run a program called Broken to Unbreakable, which sponsors these episodes, and you can learn more about that if you're struggling with PTSD or CPTSD and you're looking for kind of like a roadmap to recovery. You can go to overcomingptsd.info/go and you can learn more about that. And this lovely man to my right here is—

Brad Schipke. I am lucky enough to be Kayleen Wright's significant other, and I was there for every step of her recovery journey through PTSD and also recovered myself. And I'm very excited, very motivated to be talking about the 3 ways to get motivated when you don't feel like it. And that happens a lot, especially on the recovery journey. Um, and these are things that we actually did and things that helped and we kind of learned how to do them by being super, super duper unmotivated. And then these were the things that helped us get us out of the funk and moving and taking action because action is the most important thing. And if you can get yourself building that momentum, that's when change really starts to happen. So very, very simple things, 3 things that we'll cover today. And I think you guys will get a lot out of it.

And they truly are the things like Brad said, like we don't teach anything that You know, we don't actually use in practice, you know, that didn't actually help us on our recovery. We're teaching things, you know, everything we teach every— at the end of every episode, we give you an action to take because recovery is all about action. So for those of you joining us live, at the end of the podcast today, what we're going to be doing is answering some questions again. Yesterday we had the Facebook group not quite working, so we didn't see your questions. So we're going to be answering those today. Hopefully we get that working today. But if you have questions throughout the episode, feel free to ask them in the comments box and we will get to them at the end. end of the day. And for those of you listening on the podcast, if you want to join us for one of our Q&As, you can join us on any of our pages. So we have the Overcoming PTSD Facebook page, the Overcoming PTSD Instagram page, and then the Overcoming PTSD Facebook group. So that's a private Facebook group. So let's jump in, shall we? So the first, the number one thing, the first thing that we want to do, you know, when we're— we want to be motivated but we don't feel like doing anything.

Is do something.

Is take action. So complete small tasks. So this seems kind of counterintuitive, especially when you're hurting, right? You're like, that's the last thing that I want to do, Kaye. Like, I don't want to do anything. That's the problem. Completing small tasks gives you small wins, and small wins breed motivation. So action breeds motivation. You'll hear us talk about that a lot. And to be honest with you, it's just the plain truth. And you'll see this if you feel unmotivated, right? If you feel unmotivated and you listen to a podcast and then you go for a walk and then, you know, you brush your teeth and then you take a shower and then you get dressed, all those little things are building the momentum and they're gonna make you feel motivated. So those little tasks add up to be really big things. So that's the number one thing you can do is take action and complete small tasks. And it doesn't matter how small or how big they are, right? We're not talking about, You know, writing your memoir or finishing your book. We're talking about, you know, getting out of bed, making your bed, brushing your teeth, putting your shoes on, you know, taking a shower in that order. Of course, put your shoes on and then take a shower. Um, you know, so completing small tasks is, is the, the very, very, very best thing you can do, um, when you're not feeling motivated.

Yeah. Ironically, the thing that you want to do the least is the thing that you need to do the most. In a lot of cases, funny enough, that's the thing that You need to do in most cases, but you don't feel like taking action, but you got to do it. And the best way to do it is those small little wins. And what we do is literally make that little list and just take them off. And then every time you do that, you're gonna gain momentum. And a great way to do this, or a great way to think about this, is to, like I was talking about yesterday, creating a system around being or getting yourself motivated every single day. And like, these 3 things are things that we do every single day to this day to stay motivated, because motivation comes, motivation goes. And it's something that you need to do every single day to ensure that you have a great day the next day. And it's not something you do once, it's something you have to do over and over and over and over again, which means that you should think of ways of how to create a system in your own life to ensure that you do it every single day. You don't forget every day, or you don't do it once and you never do it again, because that doesn't help you. You got to take consistent action over long periods of time to see massive changes. And the way that I learned how to do this because I'm a very forgetful person. Like, I'll do something once. I'm like, oh, this is the best thing. I'm gonna do this. And then I maybe even do it for a few days, and then I don't do it ever again. I was like this with exercising. You know, like it took me years to figure out that I have to create the system to go to the gym so I can stay consistent. And now I've been going to the gym for years. And but it was it was because I kept forgetting, and I created a system to ensure that. I knew exactly where I was going, what time I was waking up, exactly what workouts I was going to do on which day, how much I was going to do. And I didn't make it so daunting that I didn't want to go every morning. It was like hard enough that I got better, but not so hard that I didn't want to do it. So you have to think about how to systematize all these things and get them into your life and build habits around them.

And that was some solid gold advice. You know, if you go back, honestly, if you go back and you listen to, to what you just said, what did you just say? Consistent motivation— sorry, consistent action over long periods of time creates massive changes.

Right. It's not gonna be like I do this one thing and I— suddenly you're better, right? Suddenly everything is just perfect, your life is perfect, and it's perfect for the rest of your life, right? Right. Because you gotta take action every single day.

You think about how complex you are as a human being and how many things are going on in your mind, in your body, right? every second of every day, you know. So we're these complex creatures and we take time to change, you know. Like, yeah, change can happen in an instant, but really it's all those little instants leading up to that moment where it seems like everything changes, right? So it's, it's like, it really is— that is like genuinely solid gold advice. Like, consistent action over long periods of time is what, what allows you to change, you know. The, the reason that we are who we are today is because we've taken consistent action over long periods of time. That's something that we teach, right?

Mm-hmm.

Is, you know, you, you have to, if you want to reap the benefits of the recovery process, and we talk about one of the pillars being routines, and that's for a very specific reason, because you need that consistent action over long periods of time because we're so complex, because there's so much going on, because, because you're, you're this like amazing, like beautiful human being, right? We're not, we're not animals. We're, I mean, I, whatever, but like, you know, we're not, we're not dogs. We can't just like train us and then like we're good to go forever and, you know, we'll always like jump at the sound of the food bag. You know, we're really complex human beings. So that consistency over long periods of time is really, really important.

Hmm.

And if you want to reap the benefits of the compound effect, which is something I'm sure we've talked about on episodes before and something that we teach, you have to take that action, right? So even when you don't feel like it, and we're going to talk about some other kind of tools to do that, but I think creating routines, creating would you say systems around these things, you know, to keep them in your life, there's gonna be days when you, you wake up, even if you have like 6 months that are just like you're just rocking and rolling, you're hitting it, you're so motivated, you're so excited. Yeah. And then like one day you're gonna wake up and be like, I just want to watch movies all day. So, so it's, it is important to add these to your lifestyle.

Yeah. Yeah. And like we said before, the best way to do this one is When you don't feel like taking action is make a list of very small tasks and then just you know just stay. It doesn't matter how long it takes to complete each task. You know another thing that like humans do most of the time is overwhelm themselves. They make things. They make small things complex. They turn like what what is it? Mole mountains into molehills. Molehills into mountains. Something like that. They turn little things into these big giant things, but. Just tell yourself when you're going through this list, it doesn't matter like how long it takes for me to get through each one of these tasks. The most important thing is that I'm moving, you know, that I'm taking one step forward. And when you're in that dark place, that's all you have to focus on is like, I need to take this one step. It doesn't matter how long it takes me to do this, but I'm just gonna keep going and never stop until this list is done. And that's something that we did. That's something that I would do that would get me out of my funk almost every single time. Was like, I would just write down, do like a brain dump, right? And write down all these little things step by step by step by step. And with each checkmark, each thing that you complete, you're gaining momentum. And by the end of it— I was gonna say something bad— by the end of it, believe me that you will feel completely different. So definitely that is one huge way to get motivated when you don't feel like it. But the thing is, like, you're never gonna feel like starting it. You just got to force yourself to start it. And then you'll gain that momentum and start feeling good.

You have to create the energy. We talk about this, you know what, I've done the Depression Masterclass. If you've ever seen me do the Depression Masterclass, I run it sometimes. Recently I did it for the Mighty, and this is, this is something that we talked about, right? Is, is it's like pushing a boulder, right? At first you have to create the energy in that boulder. You have to push really hard on that boulder, right? And once you push really hard, once you create the energy, once you push it and force it, then the boulder starts to move, right? And then you get the momentum, and then it gets easier to push the boulder until eventually you're like running after the boulder. You can't get it. So you have to create that initial energy, and it is really important to create energy. Actually, maybe we'll do the depression masterclass again soon for all you guys because it's a really great class, and it—

Yeah.

It kind of covers this in a bigger bigger way. But that kind of leads us into our second point, right? Brad's kind of talking about writing lists to complete small tasks. Writing lists is a great way to do it because you get to either check it off. If you're a handwritten person like me, you get to write the whole list and then you get to cross them all off and then you get to crumple it up and you get to throw it out, which is even better. So you're kind of celebrating those wins the whole time. So second point here today is, you know, plan tomorrow today. So we talk about this a lot and it's because it's really, really, really important. If you want to be successful, you have to plan tomorrow today. So every single night when we're done with our day here, we sit down and we write down what we're going to do tomorrow. What does tomorrow look like? What are we going to accomplish tomorrow? And now what you can do in your plan tomorrow today is take that list, right? And you can write that list in your plan tomorrow today. So you can write the list of, you know, get up, make my bed, brush my teeth, put my shoes on, take a shower, right? So you can write all of those things, all of those little things in your plan tomorrow today. So you can like kind of smush those together. And then what you want to do most importantly with your plan tomorrow today is you want to visualize it, right? You want to visualize yourself doing those things as if you're doing them as if they've already happened. Now visualization is a really, really powerful tool. I think we actually mentioned it yesterday too. But visualization, you know, your brain can't tell the difference between something you actually experience and something you vividly imagine. You're going to hear us say that a lot because It's a really, really powerful tool, right? I think yesterday I talked about like manipulating your brain and manipulating how you get it to work for you. And visualization is an amazing way to do that, right? And so bring your 5 senses in and your feelings in to when you're planning tomorrow today. You know, what is it? What is it? What does that shower feel like? What does it feel like afterwards? You know, picture yourself, visualize yourself doing those things.

Yeah. And if you don't remember how to visualize, go back to yesterday's episode. And listen to it or watch it. But like I was saying before, you want to create systems around creating this motivation. Basically, you want to create systems around everything to ensure that you're doing all the things that you need to be doing to get to where you want to go in life. But PTT, Plan Tomorrow Today, is one of those systems, one of those simple systems that we literally do every single day. And it's one of those things that we did when we were hurting, and we made those little lists like we talked about, the first one. We made those small lists that we wanted to complete the next day, like get out of bed, make my bed right when I get out of bed so I don't get back into bed, shut my alarm off. I do it before my alarm, you know, get dressed, meditate, go to the bathroom, literally every single step. But you do that the night before, so you plan it and then you visualize it. And that adds another element of just like ingraining that into your brain. And when you do that, when you actually visualize, you'll see a huge difference. Like you can write it down, but when you actually think through it and you visualize how you're gonna go through that to-do list the next day, it just makes it that much more powerful and that much more likely that you're actually gonna go through and do it. Because how many times do you wake up and you're just like, ah, the sheets are nice and warm and like I'm just gonna stay in here. Or you have a bad night, which is likely too. And you're like, I don't wanna get out of bed and like just everything sucks. So you have to visualize the positive outcomes for the next day. I always say a great tomorrow starts today, so you're not gonna have a great tomorrow unless you plan it out today and visualize it today and plan for it today. So yesterday I said keep a notebook next to your bed and write your goals. Another great thing to add to that list, to that notebook just like this, a plain old notebook, is your plan for the next day. Just a simple to-do list. Hey, here's what I'm doing the next day. I'm going to visualize it and then visualize your goals as well. But definitely check out that episode yesterday if you missed it for The actual steps on how to visualize and stuff, because that will really help you learn a lot more.

Great.

Yeah.

So, so plan tomorrow today, complete small tasks. And number 3 here is get moving, right?

Get moving. Okay.

That's the same thing as complete small tasks. Well, it's a little bit different. So you want to get your body moving. This is super, super, super, super, super, super, super, super, super, super important.

Yeah, because you can get your body moving without doing any tasks, right?

That's right.

You just wiggle in your seat, you feel good, right? Get your body moving. As a kid, you watch a little kid and they're moving all the time and they're always happy, right? And then as an adult, like, moving like this becomes bad. It becomes a bad thing, you know? Like, yeah, just sit there and stay still.

Stop fidgeting in class.

I feel better already.

I feel better already too. So you want to get moving, right?

Or a dog, they wag their tail.

Whether that's exercise, or you'll hear, you'll hear me talk a lot about, you know, dance parties. And again, when I do that depression masterclass, that's something that we talk about because it's really, really, really important. Creating your own energy. You have to create your own energy. And dancing and exercising, whether that's literally just wiggling in your seat, right? You don't have to go out and go dancing. You don't even need music to go dancing or exercising. You know, that doesn't have to be this big, I'm lifting weights and I'm running 3 miles. Like, it doesn't have to be this big to do. But getting your body moving and changing your state, you know, movement is what's going to create your energy. It's going to create your momentum for you. So you have to, you know, actively create these things. And it's, it's really, really important. It's really, really, really powerful. So dance, wiggle in your seat, right? Like Brad's saying, like, uh, right now Brad has a young, young nephew and like, he just like sits on the floor and he just like, he just like wiggles all the time. He, you know, he's not even walking yet. So he's just like, He's just like wiggling and he's just like moving, right?

He's the happiest dude.

Kids just like flail all the time, right? Um, so do some flailing, you know, do some dancing, do some wiggling even in your seat right now, right? Just like as you're listening to this, like even if you're at the gym, you'll, you like, if you ever see me out and about, I don't know if any of you live close, but if you ever, ever see me out and about, whether it's at the gym or I don't know, sitting and having coffee somewhere or having, you know, dinner, you'll, you'll like, you see me move or you'll see me like dance or you'll, you'll hear me like humming and stuff and like just like bopping my head.

Yeah.

And actually last weekend we were, we were at a library somewhere and we go to book sales and we love book sales. And we were at a library and we were getting a bunch of books. And for some reason I was like humming Frank Sinatra and I was like humming and I was just kind of like bopping around and like dancing. And the guy that was checking us out, he was like, who's singing? And I like looked at him and I was, then I started to listen. And I was like, no, no one's singing. Like, what are you talking about? Who's singing? And he was like, who's singing? And Brad was like, oh, that was probably Kay. Kay's always singing. And I was like, oh yeah, that was me. I like, totally unaware that I was singing. But just because I'm always moving, right? I'm always having a good time. I'm always, I'm always doing that step because it's really important. I'm always creating my own energy. That's something we do all the time. We sing and we dance in the car and we move around and we, you know, kind of mess around with each other. So it's a really, really powerful tool.

Yeah, Kayleen is always dancing, she's always singing, she's always humming, she's always moving around. She's a happy person. But those are the 3 things, the 3 things that can get you motivated every day when you don't feel like it. And the first one again was completing small tasks. The second one was plan tomorrow today and putting those small tasks on the plan for the next day. And the third one is to get moving.

Yep.

And you're not gonna feel like doing any of these, I promise you, but You have to force yourself to do these because this is how you feel good. You feel good by doing things.

Promise.

And you don't want to do it, but you got to do it. But yeah, so our action for today then is to—

Take some action. So do one of these things.

It's a simple one.

It's either plan tomorrow today or go and complete some small tasks. Or right now as you're listening, if you're sitting, if you're laying, if you're walking, get moving a little bit. Do your thing. You know, just take one of these actions. Take action and you're going to Create that momentum, which is going to create the motivation. I promise you. I promise you. Remember, it is, it is literally like pushing a boulder. And then once you get it going, it's easier to keep it going. I promise you that.

Yeah.

So that is our action for today. Take action on one of these things.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's all I got to say for today.

Okay. That is all we have.

We'll wrap it up.

Okay. So we'll wrap up the podcast here today. Thank you all for joining us. Just a reminder, we love you. We believe in you. You really, really can do this. I promise you this. Even on those hard days, I know it seems hard. You know, there's, there's a lot that goes into the recovery journey. But like we talked about yesterday, like we talk about a lot, going through this recovery journey will make you such a strong individual. It will set you up—

Excuse me.

For success for life. And, you know, yesterday we talked about the 3 pillars. You know, we mentioned the 3 pillars today. I mentioned that second pillar. You know, if you want to learn more about those 3 pillars, if you want to learn more about the recovery journey, if you want to learn more about coaching with me, you can go to overcomingptsd.info/go. So go to overcomingptsd.info/go, and I'm running a free training. I'm talking about the pillars in depth— why they're the pillars, how they're the pillars, how they were, you know, my pillars, how I was able to recover from CPTSD. You know, that's something people say is impossible, right? And it's, it's really not.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I've done it, Brad's done it. We've seen people all over the world do it with these 3 pillars. So go and check that out. You know, if you want to know more about that, you can go to overcomingptsd.info/go. If you're on Instagram, you can click the link in our bio. If you're on one of the pages, we'll remember to link it below at the end of the, the video today because we're gonna do a Q&A after this.

Yeah, but the 3 pillars are really the only 3 things that you need to focus on at any time, at any point in time. If you're ever confused, you need to focus on these three things, these three pillars, and those are the things that are going to bring you to full recovery, that are going to eliminate your anxiety, you know, your flashbacks, your nightmares, everything. It's like it's very it's very simple. She lays it out in a very simple step-by-step way, and you know, I think somebody just yesterday reached out and was like, "Wow, I just had one of my biggest breakthroughs." You know, I hit this plateau in my recovery, and I had one of the biggest breakthroughs when watching your webinar, and um. So definitely check it out. I mean, like, she's put tons and tons of time into making this thing great. So definitely check that out at overcomingptsd.info/go. And, um, I think that's all we have for you guys.

That's all we have, other, other than shamelessly saying that link a thousand bajillion times because it's that important. Because this is your life and this is your recovery, and we want you all to feel good, right? We have this mission to heal the world. And, you know, as much as, you know, we can hand you all of the information, we can put that training together for you, at the end of the day, you have to go to the link. You have to watch it. You have to listen. You have to pay attention. So go and do that. Please take action and do that. That'll give you motivation. That'll make you feel good. That'll give you hope. Go and do that thing. And it's because we love you and we believe in you and we're here for you. And you really, really can do this. So go and check it out.

Yeah.

So that's what we have for you all today. But we do, we love you. We believe in you so, so wholeheartedly. We are here for you. Feel free to reach out. Uh, like I said, if you're on the podcast and you want to join us for the Q&As after the episodes, you can, you can hop on one of our social media platforms, follow us there, and that's where we'll be doing the Q&As. But that is all I have for you all today.

That's all we have.

All right, we will see you all tomorrow.

See you guys tomorrow.

Bye-bye.

Bye.