Finding Your Daily Motivation

How do you Create Daily Motivation?

In this episode, we’re exploring daily motivation — but not in the way it’s usually talked about.

This topic came directly from a recent networking meeting, where several business owners shared that staying motivated day-to-day can feel like a real struggle. So today, we’re breaking down what motivation actually is… and how to access it consistently.

Motivation isn’t something you wait to arrive.
It’s a state of being, a feeling, and an emotional experience in your body.
And contrary to popular belief — you don’t think yourself into motivation.
You act your way into it.

I explore the common enemies of motivation  and simple strategies to move through them.

This is a grounded, practical approach to staying motivated in your business — especially when it feels hard.

What We Cover:

• Why motivation is a feeling, not a mindset
• Why waiting for motivation keeps you stuck
• The real enemies of motivation (and why none of them are personal failings)
• How action creates momentum
• Practical techniques to transition from stuck to motivated
• How to harness your why and stay connected to the work you care about

Referenced in This Episode:

• Episode 61: Shift Your State to Change Your Life with Sarah Fletcher
• Insight Timer app for daily intentions and state-setting
• The Next Chapter: Planning YOUR 2026 Success Story - 1 day planning event

Key Takeaways:

• Motivation begins in the body, not the mind.
• Movement creates motivation — action comes first, the feeling follows.
• You are not unmotivated — you're likely overwhelmed, unclear, or disconnected from your why (and you can shift that).
• Small steps are powerful steps.
• Your past motivation is accessible and can be reactivated at any time.

If This Episode Supported You…

Please consider leaving a review or sharing it with another business owner who would love a more grounded and empowered approach to daily motivation. Your support helps this work reach more people who need it.

And feel free to message me your biggest takeaway — I love hearing what lands.

About Your Host Libby Knight:

Hi, it's lovely to meet you.
I'm Libby, business strategy mentor and mindset coach.
I help ambitious and creative entrepreneurs to grow their service based businesses with confidence, in an environment where they can be seen and heard and feel safe.  My goal is to empower you to create a business on your terms so that you have the tools, skills and knowledge you need to build and grow your business in a way that makes you truly happy.
I teach both effective mindset techniques and business strategy that together empower you to overcome the hurdles and limiting beliefs that are holding you back.

This is feel-good business development!

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Ways to work with me:

1:1 mentoring  to dive deep into your beautiful business.  Together we will clear your blocks and create your growth plan so that you can take the next big leap in your business   https://www.libby-knight.com

The POP Business Boutique is a small mentoring membership with bi-monthly live mentoring and coaching plus an extensive library of workshops that cover all areas of sales, marketing, growth and business mindset.  Want a virtual tour to see if it's for you?  No problem, just 

Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Today, we’re talking about daily motivation — but not in the way you’ve probably heard it before.

I chose this subject for the podcast because at a recent networking meeting i asked everyone who attended what they struggled with most, and this was a subject that came up several times.  So, it was a no-brainer to make a podcast on how to be motivated daily.

1st let’s get clear, motivation isn’t something you can easily force. It’s not something you wait to arrive by magic.

Motivation is a state of being.
 A feeling.
 An emotional experience in your body — not just a mindset.

Because here’s the truth:
 you don’t think yourself into motivation. You act yourself into motivation.
 The action comes first. The feeling follows.

Most people are thinking about it backwards

So why does motivation feel so hard?

There are some common enemies of motivation — and none of them are about laziness or a lack of discipline.
 Let’s name them and remove the shame:

• First here’s overthinking – spending more time thinking about doing the thing than actually doing the thing.
• Overwhelm – when everything feels equally important and urgent, it becomes easier to do nothing.
• Perfectionism – the belief that if you can’t do it perfectly, it’s not worth starting.  But of course, perfectionism is a misnomer because it’s subjective.  It’s completely personal.  And with perfectionism the goalposts keep moving. You can’t win.
• Hormonal fluctuations – especially for women, your biology influences energy, focus, and emotional endurance. So knowing yourself is invaluable.
• Lack of clarity – when you're unsure what the next step is, your brain can default to avoidance.  You delay further and things pile up.
• Comparisonitis – looking sideways at others and feeling like you’re not as good or capable as someone else.
• Disconnection from your purpose – forgetting why you’re doing what you’re doing.  You’ve lost touch with your why, your vision, and so you’ve veeered off course.

None of these mean you're not motivated.
 They mean you’re human.  But luckily you can do something about it pretty easily and quickly.

Let’s just get clarity - motivation is a feeling — not a thought

I want you to think for a moment about a time when you did feel really motivated.
 You didn’t sit there thinking your way into it.
 You felt something — it felt exciting and totally natural.  The vision was clear, you felt certain,  even if you weren’t aware of these feelings at the time, they are the signs that you were motivated by the thing you were doing.  You weren’t forcing it or trying to be someone else.  You were in the zone doing something that was aligned with your creativity, your values and your identity.

That’s not to say you’ll be in this flow state every day when you know how to get motivated every day, but this is the feeling you want to duplicate ideally.

Motivation is emotional.
 It’s something you embody.
 And it’s usually sparked by movement, by taking action.

When we take action — even tiny action — our brain receives a message that we’re doing something intentional.
 And that signals dopamine release. Dopamine is a hormone that makes us feel good, and who doesn’t want to feel good.  The result of feel good dopamine is forward momentum.
 That momentum becomes motivating.

This is why waiting to feel motivated before you start is arse about face.
 It’s the starting, the action itself, that triggers the feelings of motivation.
 The right action first, followed by the motivation.  And so, taking a small action step is actually a very powerful but easy strategy that we can all do.  We just need to remember that it’s that easy and not overcomplicate it.

Another strategy to getting motivated before you start work in the morning is to set your state.  Because your state creates your reality

If you listened to episode 61 — shift your state to change your life — with my guest sarah fletcher, you’ll remember we talked about how your state influences your entire day.  It influences how you perceive things, your energy, your thoughts and your behaviour.

Thin of your state as the strong foundation for motivation.
 So you want to set your state on purpose — don’t leave it to chance.

So how can you set your state:

Slow down your breath, put your hand on your heart and ask yourself ‘ how do i want to be today?’ or ‘how can i approach this task so that it is easy and i do it to the best of my ability?’  then choose a word or short phrase that sums that up and maybe write it down or repeat it out loud a few times.  It’s such a quick and easy thing to do, but make it personal.  You’re doing this for you, not for anyone else.  Make it count, make it valuable. Make it make a difference.

A tool i find really handy for setting my state or an intention each morning is the insight timer app.  You can write the best and most motivating state for you in the moment or choose one that you used previously because your past intentions will be stored for you.  

The action of doing that determines your approach to your day.  You don’t need to keep reminding yourself of what you wrote, the act of doing it is where the power lies, and you’ve told your mind what you want. It knows.

Another method you can use to inspire motivation is to use a memory as an anchor.

Your brain has recorded every moment you’ve ever felt motivated, excited, powerful, and unstoppable.
 You can use that to your advantage.

This is what you want to do:

Think of a time when you felt lit up.
 Maybe you were working on something exciting…
 or starting something new…
 or finishing something you were really proud of…

Notice where that feeling lived in your body.
 Was it in your chest? Your tummy? Your face – did you find yourself smiling? Does the memory make you smile now? Do you notice a change in your posture maybe? What’s that telling you?

Does an image come into your mind of that moment?

Is there a colour or a sound or a smell that comes up that you associate with that memory?

Make whatever comes up for you, whether it’s a feeling, a sensation, a colour or an image, bigger, brighter, more impactful, sharper and more intense.

You can see how that feeling is still available to you.  And you can recreate that. Re-purpose it if you like.
 You have stored memories that you can reactivate. 

Now apply that to how you approach something today that you want to feel motivated about.  It’s amazing how the feelings of anxiety and fear can transform into feelings of excitement and curiosity when you do this exercise.  Now that’s going to motivate you, isn’t it?

Now let’s talk action. Taking a small action is a great way to spark momentum.

The smallest step will work. You don’t need to worry about the whole project.
 It doesn’t need to be perfect. You don’t even need to worry about the finished result.

Just take a first step. Because a two-minute task can change your entire energetic direction.
 Something so simple, that feels insignificant, can be effective – 

A single email.
 Opening your notebook and writing the title. Laying out your work tools.
 Standing at your desk and breathing. Turning on your computer

Even when you do something so small, your brain goes:
 “oh, this is what we’re doing today.”
 And it clicks into gear.

Systems are just simple go-to techniques that you can call on to get you moving when it feels heavy.  So, let’s look at a few super simple systems you can incorporate into your daily life, as and when you need them, that stop you from feeling stuck or struggling to get stuck into something.  That mean that you never have to start from a blank slate. These are systems that support motivation.

• 1st we have the setting of clear daily intentions. We’ve already talked about this and 2 ways to do that – asking yourself helpful questions about what state you want to be in and using the  insight timer app to set intentions.
• Next, we have creating a simple weekly planning rhythm.  You may want to spend 15 minutes on a sunday writing a priority list for the week.  You may want to write a to-do list at the end of the day for the following day so that you know exactly what you’re doing when you sit down at your desk each day, because you’ve already decided.  
• Or you may want to have your document downloaded and visible or the right tab open on your laptop, so it’s visible the minute you log in.  That’s also a good way to avoid distractions like social media and new emails.
• Next one – have a “done is better than perfect” rule.  Just get started. Remember perfection is subjective and it’s more important to deliver your service than faff around behind the scenes.  I find this incredibly motivating myself.  People need the solution i have for a big problem that’s causing them pain.  That’s what matters to them, and to me,  not how pretty a workbook or looks or whether my logo is perfectly placed on a graphic.
• Another tool to keeping motivated is a visible reminder of why you care, why you love doing what you do.  It could be a momento from an event you held, a gift from a grateful client, a printout of testimonial or a photo that sums up how you feel about what you do or who you work with..
• And lastly, check-ins throughout the day on how your body feels and taking timed breaks when you recognise the signs that you need a quick reset

Motivation isn’t willpower — it’s your environment + a structure that works for you.

So, what have we talked about today?

Motivation is:

• A state and an empowered feeling you experience
• A physical experience of your emotional energy
• Something that expands when you take action, not from only sitting thinking

The enemies of motivation are emotional and environmental circumstances that we can influence. We have the power to become motivated

You do not need to wait to feel motivated. You act your way into it. You move first.
 The motivation follows.

Let’s wrap up with three things you can do today to feel motivated

1. Shift your state.
    Close your eyes or walk in the garden. Breathe deeply. Hand on heart. ‘how do i want to approach what i have lined up today?’
2. Secondly, anchor a past memory of when you were motivated.
    Recall a time you felt motivated. Feel it in your body. See what comes up and make it bolder and louder. Let that emotion lead you forward now.
3. Take one small, non-negotiable action.
    Not the whole thing. Just the next step. And just do it!
    Two minutes of action is all it takes to change the direction of your whole day.

Feel free to message me with your biggest takeaway from this episode, or even better, write me a review wherever you’re listening, that’s the best way to get help to more business owners just like you want tips and support as they build their beautiful business.

Thank you for listening and remember, motivation isn’t something you wait for — it’s something you create.