Action Creates Motivation
Action Creates Motivation
by J.D. Roth 04 August 2020
“If you want to be rich, there's only one thing you need to know: Wealth is built by spending less than you earn. The greater the gap between your earning and spending, the faster your wealth increases. But this knowledge isn't enough to make most people wealthy. Again, knowledge without action is essentially meaningless.”
Human beings are interesting creatures. I'm fascinated by them. That's probably the reason I was a psychology major in college. It's certainly the reason that I believe (strongly) that everybody is talented, original, and has something important to say. (That bit of philosophy is something I picked up from Brenda Ueland's marvelous book, If You Want to Write.)
People are awesome — even if we're each flawed in our own way.
One thing I've noticed over the past few years is the dichotomy between knowing something and doing something. It's one thing to understand a concept or fact intellectually; it's a completely different thing to experience a fact or concept, or to put it into practice.
I came to this realization during our 15-month RV trip across the United States. At the start of the trip, I had an intellectual understanding of the country's size and scope. I knew the facts and figures. But I didn't have an experiential understanding of what these facts and figures meant. It wasn't until Kim and I had driven 35,000 miles — about 1.5 times the circumference of the Earth! — exploring the U.S. that I really, truly grasped how huge (and varied) this place is.
So too, we — all of us — struggle to put into practice many ideas that we know would improve our lives.
Take my ongoing struggle with anxiety and depression. Too much of the time, I believe I can “think” my way out of it. I can't. That's not how it works. I realize this intellectually, but that doesn't stop me from trying again and again and again. Intellectually, I know that I need to eat right, exercise, and engage in social activity. But knowing this doesn't actually make it happen. Knowledge is not the same as action.
The same is true with physical fitness. Like all of you, I know what's required to be physically fit. I have to eat right and exercise. That's how it works. But again, knowing what creates a healthy body isn't enough to achieve a healthy body. Fitness requires action, not just knowledge.
Financial fitness is the same. If you want to be rich, there's only one thing you need to know: Wealth is built by spending less than you earn. The greater the gap between your earning and spending, the faster your wealth increases. But this knowledge isn't enough to make most people wealthy. Again, knowledge without action is essentially meaningless.
Dreams remain dreams without doing.
The key to making lasting, positive change in our lives is learning how to put knowledge into action. But how? How does one find the motivation to exercise or to get out of debt? The answer is kind of counter-intuitive.
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