Unlocking Motivation: The Four-Step Defuse Method for Sustainable Productivity

I have this four-step method that I use to stay motivated and get stuff done especially on the days where I feel

tired or lazy or even burnt out over the past 11 years I have been working 60 to 100 hours a week studying full-time

graduating medicine starting my own business working as a learning coach while working as a doctor and most

people think I am highly motivated but honestly I think I'm a pretty lazy person and I've been demotivated and

burnt out more times than I can count but by using this four-step method I've been able to stay productive and work

towards my goal in a way that is actually sustainable and mentally healthy I call this four-step method

defuse because by following each of these four steps you're able to activate something called thought action defusion

which is a cognitive technique commonly used in Clinical Psychology being able to activate thought action defusion is

almost like a superpower and virtually anyone can learn to do it I'll go over each of the four steps of defuse in more

detail but before that we need to understand that there are actually two different ways that we can use

motivation one of them is healthy and productive but the other much more common way can actually ruin our

productivity and lead to burnout and once we understand the right versus wrong way of using motivation you'll see

why the defuse method works so well so let's say that we have a goal for the day and that goal might be to go for a

run it might be to do some study or whatever other task that you have on your mind naturally in order for us to

accomplish this goal we first need to want to accomplish it and that's where we have intention and after that we take

a series of actions to help us reach that goal now if our goal was to uh go for a run it might be putting on our

shoes if it was to study it might be going to our desk opening up our laptop getting our textbook out starting to

read and write some notes these are the actions that help us achieve the goal but in reality what actually happens

when we try to reach the goal what happens is that we get distracted we procrastinate or maybe we

start feeling lazy or tired so between the intention and our first few actions all of these barriers start forming that

stop us from achieving our goal which means no running no studying task incomplete that is where motivation

comes in motivation gives us that extra energy the extra incentive to overcome these barriers to peel our eyes away

from those distractions to uh persevere and push through even though we feel lazy or that we feel tired at the end of

the day motivation is this feeling that allows us to push through and overcome these barriers this is the first and

most common way that people use motivation and that is a major problem because this way of using motivation is

something that I call motivation dependent and before I go through the defuse method you have to

understand why this is such a problem because I genuinely believe that if you are motivation dependent you will

struggle to get stuff done for most of your life because here's the fundamental flaw with motivation that you need to

know there's a lot of research around motiv a what it is where it comes from what influences it if you want me to go

deeper in this let me know in the comments but what we know is that motivation originates from many

different sources we can be extrinsically motivated by things like money a reward social status or even

fear of punishment but we can also be intrinsically motivated which is where the motivation comes from within our own

mind this includes things like a sense of satisfaction from fulfilling something or a sense of purpose and

fulfillment from doing something that feels aligned to your values and sense of identity and it includes also just

simply enjoying the task itself and here is where being motivation dependent becomes problematic and therefore why

the defuse method is so much better see extrinsic motivators tend to be out of our control and they go up and down for

example what happens if we get paid paid less or more or we're around different people to compare ourselves to or we're

around different people who value different things and so they judge you differently when we are motivated by

those extrinsic things then our motivation fluctuates wildly it feels unstable and insecure because they

depend on things that we can't control on the other hand intrinsic motivators tend to be more stable for example our

values or the things that we enjoy don't tend to FL uate so rapidly but even intrinsic motivators can fluctuate for

example how much sleep we get and how energized we feel our mood on that day or our physical health all of these

things affect our level of motivation on any given day so why is that actually a problem well what all of that means is

that our motivation is always going to go up and down it's always going to fluctuate and if you're AB ility to get

stuff done depends on your motivation then your ability to be productive is also going to fluctuate and if what you

do depends on how you feel then the only way to be consistent is to feel consistently great that is not a

realistic or a reliable way to reach our goals in fact there's even some research around something called willpower

depletion which says that if we consistently rely on our motivation and willpower to get stuff done and resist

Temptations then eventually we'll sort of run out of willpower and some researchers think that this is actually

what burnout is they call it the burnout cycle where you constantly try to do something and then you have to have more

and more effort and willpower to get it done and then you're constantly overcoming barriers until there's no

more motivation or energy left to give so what is the alternative way of using motivation the alternative much

healthier and more consistent way of using motivation is something that I call motivation enhanced and becoming

motivation enhanced rather than motivation dependent is what the entire defuse method is based on being

motivation enhanced means that you can be motivated but you don't need to be personally I don't feel motivated most

days I don't feel demotivated but I just don't live every day like full of hype I keep that motivation in reserve on the

days that I really need to use it instead of just using it to get through my daily tasks then how am I overcoming

those barriers of laziness or being distracted or feeling tired on a daily basis we do it by following the four

steps of the defuse method the first step of Defuse The D is for distinguish distinguish means to recognize the

difference between feelings thoughts and

actions for example think about when you feel hungry hunger is a physical sensation it's a feeling and when we

feel hunger we have the thought I must eat and then we perform the action of eating and normally all three of these

are actually fused together but they don't have to be we could feel hunger as okay I just feel this sensation in my

stomach that tells me that I am hungry we just notice that we don't have to act on it we just notice it just like how we

might notice that there's a breeze touching our arm and by doing that we can see Hunger as a physical Sensation

that isn't always connected to the thought I must eat and that actually makes the feeling of hunger not bother

us as much because we no longer have to do something about it this is actually strategy I used to use all the time as a

doctor where I'd often not have enough time to have lunch or dinner but I still needed to work effectively now of course

it this is temporary you will eventually have to eat you can't just thought action diffuse your way to immortality

now in Clinical Psychology when what we do our actions are directly tie to our feelings and our thoughts that's called

thought action fusion and so being able to separate that is thought action defusion this actually comes up a lot in

anxiety y therapy the feelings of anxiety are a physical sensation our hands are getting clammy they're shaking

a bit we feel that our heart racing we're actually feeling these physical symptoms of an adrenaline response our

body entering the fight or flight mode and it's actually the exact same response as if you were really excited

about something the physical Sensations aren't inherently negative but if you have anxiety you notice these symptoms

and then you tell yourself I am anxious and we enter an anxious spiral where realizing that we are feeling these

things and therefore we're anxious makes us feel even more anxious so step one of defuse is to distinguish between a

feeling and a thought to recognize that we can feel something but we can control the way we respond and react to that

feeling and I actually used this method before my Ted X talk a couple of years ago where I was feeling really nervous

before I and I I felt those physical Sensations and instead of letting myself think I feel this and therefore I'm

anxious I reframed it to be hey I'm getting this adrenaline response I'm excited I'm about to crush this thing

and by reframing that physical feeling and changing the thought I had from it and actually helped me to be a lot more

confident and that tedex talk ended up becoming one of the uh top 1% most viewed tedex talks of 2022 by the way

way I've summarized the main points from that tedex talk into my free Weekly Newsletter as well where I try to impart

the advice that will improve your learning efficiency every week through your inbox it's completely free and if

you're interested in joining I'll leave a link in the description for you so next time you feel tired or lazy

recognize that it's just a feeling you feel tired cool feeling lazy that's fine but we distinguish between that feeling

and then what comes after that which is the thought which we can control and controlling those thoughts is step two

of Defuse The if which stands for fake you've heard of fake it till you make it well it's kind of the same for this as

well think about this when you watch a movie and you see an actor or an actress you know that they're not actually that

character you know that they are acting and if an actor arrives on set feeling tired or lazy guess what they can still

act like their character who is not tired or lazy so instead of I feel lazy and tired therefore I must rest and then

not do anything we can use fake to say I feel lazy and tired that's fine I'm just going to pretend like someone who's not

lazy and tired which means this feeling doesn't lead to the thought of I must rest we don't have to change how we feel

we can keep feeling lazy or tired but by pretending and Faking It pretending and doing the actions of someone who doesn't

feel that way we are able to keep doing the actions that we need to do my old powerlifting coach put at the best when

one day I asked him hey I'm feeling really tired today I don't think I be have to train very well how do you stop

feeling tired and he replied back just train tired what a man and the ridiculously powerful part of this

relationship between feelings and thoughts and actions is that it goes both ways when we do the actions of

someone who isn't lazy or tired even if it's just pretending and faking it then our mind observes the fact that we're

taking these actions and starts thinking hey maybe I'm not so lazy maybe I'm kind of productive and that actually makes

must feel less lazy and tired in the first place and in doing that we have actually made ourselves more motivated

so feelings and thoughts don't just lead to actions actions can also trigger us to have certain thoughts which change

the way that we feel so by doing step one and step two of defuse and unlocking thought action defusion we're able to

act without feeling the need to act we're no longer a slave to motivation and that is a huge win but once we get

to this point we'll realize that we can only maintain this defused state for a short period of time and so now we want

to maintain this defusion for a longer time period if we don't maintain it we just end up being dependent on our

feelings again which brings us all the way back to motivation dependent and that's why we have step three of Defuse

The U which stands for uptime we want to gradually increase the amount of time we're able to activate that thought

action defusion State and do those actions even if we don't feel like it at first we might only be able to get

through 10 minutes of studying great that's fine tomorrow we try 12 minutes and then 14 and then 20 and then 30

gradually increase the uptime that we can maintain thought action defusion for and as we continue to expose our brain

to this pattern of thinking and acting thanks to this cognitive phenomenon called

neuroplasticity our brain will mold and adapt and eventually just get better and better at activating thought action

defusion now some people when I teach this to them they say that it seems like we're kind of training ourselves to

become mindless robots it doesn't really feel natural or right but it's important to remember that a lot of our modernday

challenges and goals and pressures are not natural to begin with back when we were living in caves and foraging for

food we didn't come back to our campfire every night to sit an exam on the herbs that we forag and Cave person Society

probably didn't care which cave University you went to most of our modernday goals and pressures are modern

day creations and to meet these artificial demands while staying healthy we need to use these deliberate

Frameworks and techniques to help overcome them using strategies like defuse is what gives us the freedom to

live our lives in alignment to how we want to live and spend our time having said that just because we are constantly

exposed to and surrounded by these artificial distractions doesn't mean we just have to sit there and struggle

through them after all if there were just literally fewer barriers in place then it will be easier to achieve our

goal which is why step four the Z in defuse is so important which stands for Zone to maintain consistency and reduce

our need for motivation we have to create a zone of focus free from distraction and procrastination triggers

a great technique I teach in my program for this is the distraction cheat sheet do some work or study and anytime you

get distracted write down on a piece of paper what it was you got distracted by try to be specific it could be the icon

of an app that you saw on your desktop top or on your phone maybe it was a notification that you got or you saw a

game controller sitting on the table then when you're feeling a little less lazy remove those distractions and

triggers from your environment hack your game controller away remove apps from your home screen or deactivate accounts

use app blockers like focused work and create a focused workspace with all of your study or work materials laid out

there just ready for you to sit down and start over time your Zone of focus becomes an area that distractions cannot

touch and by this point you've completed all four steps of diffuse you are motivation enhanced you are free from

the shackles of motivation dependence you are never going to look for another motivational video ever again now it's

not a magic pill it does take time to practice this and get bitter at it but it is a proven strategy that pretty much

anyone can do now if you found this video helpful you'll also find my weekly learning drops newsletter helpful I talk

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description thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time