MOTIVATION IS OVERRATED
The gap between knowing and doinG
Richard Vale | SVP Coaching
A common refrain
“I know exactly what I need to do, I just don’t feel very motivated [to do it] at the moment”.
I’d hazard a guess that we’ve all felt this from time to time in our professional careers. I’d also hazard a guess that we’ve all googled for hours to try and find an answer. Is the problem motivation, or is it something else?
Over the years I have worked with business owners, self-employed professionals, consultants, senior leaders and transformation specialists. Although their circumstances differ, one pattern appears with remarkable consistency. They get stuck from time to time.
When people feel stuck, the natural assumption is that they need more information, greater confidence, another qualification or a better plan. Yet some of the most capable individuals I have coached already possess all of those things. They understand their goals. They know the actions required. In many cases they have achieved similar outcomes before. And yet they still find themselves stuck.
One client in particular brought the issue into sharp focus. He had spent years developing a successful approach to generating new business. He knew precisely how to build relationships, identify opportunites and win work. There was nothing theoretical about the process. It had already helped him create a successful business. Yet from time to time he found himself unable to engage in the very activities he knew mattered most.
When we discussed it, he described the problem as a lack of motivation. He’s not alone in “blaming” motivation, or a lack of it. The more I reflect on conversations like these, the less convinced I am that motivation is really the issue. Most of my clients are very clear as to what they’d like to achieve in life. In that regard, motivation is high. So why the temporary inaction or procrastination?
Motivation: a useful – but incomplete – explanation
We live in a culture that gives motivation almost mythical status. We often assume that high achievers possess extraordinary levels of drive unavailable to everyone else. Spend five or ten minutes on social media and you will come across countless individuals evidently living a perfectly structured life where personal “motivation” and “success” go hand in hand.
I am no fitness fanatic (and certainly not a fitness coach!), but I do believe in the positive benefits of exercise for physical and mental well-being. I’m drawn from time to time into the world of Arnold Schwarzenegger. What I find interesting in his commentary is that he effectively dismisses motivation. He talks about many times over the years when the last thing he wanted to do of a morning was go to the gym. Yet he did it anyway.
The lesson I take was not that he felt inspired every day. He didn’t jump out of bed every morning with a “woohoo, time for the gym moment”. The lesson was that the commitment had already been made. The routine existed regardless of how he felt on a particular morning.
Research into habits points in a similar direction. Wendy Wood's work suggests that much of everyday behaviour is driven by routines and environmental cues rather than repeated conscious decisions.[^1]
She argues that motivation is useful for starting a change, whereas habits are what make behaviour consistent. This aligns with my thinking in that perhaps motivation helps us choose a destination, whereas habits determine whether we ever arrive.
As an aside, I love her take on creating a positive environment in which a desired behaviour is easier and an undesired one harder.
“Don’t rely on willpower not to eat biscuits. Don’t keep biscuits in the house.”
A problem Aristotle recognised 2,000 years ago
The question that keeps returning is simple: if someone already knows what to do, why are they not doing it?
My search for a better explanation eventually took me back more than two thousand years. Aristotle wrote about akrasia, often translated as acting against one's own better judgement.[^2] Put simply, it describes the gap between knowing what should be done and doing something else instead.
What struck me was not so much the philosophy. It was the familiarity. Most of us know we should make the difficult phone call, begin the postponed project or start the important conversation. We understand the logic and want the outcome. Yet somehow we still do something else.
The gap between intention and action
Modern behavioural science continues to explore precisely the same challenge. Only very recently I came across Peter Gollwitzer's research on implementation intentions, which found that people are significantly more likely to follow through when they decide in advance when, where and how they will act.[^3]
Sounds obvious. Just plan your week, month & year with all the things that need to be done. Common sense? Yes, but by way of example, the statement “I am going to exercise more often” leaves too many routes open to failure. There is nothing particularly tangible about the goal. Deliberate, advance planning reduces the risk: “I’ve scheduled to go to the gym at 6pm on Tuesday, straight after work”.
Many people wait until they feel motivated. High performers often appear to do the opposite. They remove the decision altogether. The action becomes scheduled rather than negotiable. When that action becomes regular, consistent and routine, a habit is formed. Habits stick. Motivation (whatever it is) fluctuates.
For example, “Every working day begins with a business development task”.
Easy.
Why capable people often stay stuck
One of the biggest surprises from coaching is that the people who struggle most are often not the least capable. In many cases they are thoughtful, analytical and highly successful professionals.
Highly capable people are also very good at constructing explanations. The timing is not quite right. More preparation is needed. Next month will be easier. None of these explanations are necessarily wrong, but they can gradually become mechanisms for postponement. Sometimes intelligence simply produces better reasons not to begin. Sometimes the “pain” of not doing something just doesn’t hurt enough, yet.
It is of course worth noting that there may be other, deeper, factors affecting motivation, some examples being stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, fear, depression, physical or mental ill-health. This is a topic for another day, especially managing the boundary between “business coaching” and other (personal) psychological support.
When the issue is not motivation at all
During my years coaching professionals approaching partnership and senior leadership positions, I noticed that the issue was rarely capability. More often it was identity.
The question was not always 'Can I do this?' More often it was 'Am I really the kind of person who does this?' A talented technical specialist might understand that business development is important, yet still resist activities that feel inconsistent with their existing identity.
This is one reason I find James Clear's work in Atomic Habits so compelling. Clear argues that lasting behavioural change is more sustainable when it is rooted in identity rather than outcomes alone.[^4] Viewed through that lens, many apparent motivation problems are actually questions of identity.
Small actions, big consequences
The most powerful lesson I took from Atomic Habits was not really about habits themselves. It was about accumulation.
One networking conversation rarely changes a career. One article rarely establishes a reputation. One sales call rarely transforms a business. Viewed in isolation, each action appears insignificant. Repeated over months and years, however, those small actions quietly compound.
What happens on an ordinary Tuesday morning?
You might be thinking that I am not interested at all in motivation. No so. Goals matter. Ambition matters. Purpose matters. In fact, it matters so much that our work often starts with “What’s the big picture here, what’s important in your life and how does work fit into that?”. Unsurprisingly, answering this question often helps people get clarity on their motivation. My point is that motivation alone doesn’t make things happen.
What interests me is what happens later: on an ordinary Tuesday morning when nobody is watching. The decision to make the call, write the article, start the project or have the conversation rarely feels significant at the time. Yet life seems to be built from precisely these moments.
This is not intended to be a self-help manual, but several approaches seem consistently helpful: focus on systems rather than motivation; decide in advance when important actions will happen; make behaviours small enough to begin; track actions rather than intentions; and notice the stories you tell yourself about who you are.
Significantly, the activities need to feel authentic. They need to form a natural part of who you are, what you believe in and where you are aiming to get to. Sustainable behaviour is much more likely when actions connect with personal values and identity.
Don’t be too hard on yourself
Are you feeling stuck? “Lacking motivation”?
My suggestion is not to be too hard on yourself. Aristotle had your back: “the person experiencing akrasia does not have their better judgement fully operative at the moment of action”. You’re not weak, lazy, incompetent, stupid. You’re just “stuck”.
You’re certainly not alone, it happens all the time. You’re capable, you get things done, you succeed. Right now, things aren’t quite working well for you. The stars are not aligned.
We can help you think out factors that might be going on in your world which may be causing you to act against your better judgement (or not at all). Then we can help you develop the work habits that will take you in the direction you wish to go.
Easy? No. Worthwhile? Absolutely.
Richard Vale
Partner, SVP Coaching
August 2026.
References
[^1] Wood, W. (2019). Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick.
[^2] Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII.
[^3] Gollwitzer, P.M. (1999). Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans.
[^4] Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits.