I’ve been waiting to feel different before I started

I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of my life waiting.

Waiting until Monday. Waiting until next month. Waiting until work settled down. Waiting until I had more energy, more confidence, more motivation, more certainty.

I kept imagining there was a future version of me who would wake up one morning feeling completely different. She’d throw back the doona, lace up her runners, meal prep for the week, finally book that appointment she’d been avoiding and tackle every project she’d been putting off. She’d be organised. Focused. Disciplined.

She’d be up and about, getting shit done.

I’ve been waiting for her for longer than I care to admit.

And I don’t think she’s coming.

Or perhaps more accurately, I don’t think she arrives early. I think she’s the fashionably late type.

I don’t think she arrives until I start.

Why do I keep waiting until I feel motivated?

I wonder how many of us are quietly living like this.

Sometimes we’re waiting to stop feeling overwhelmed. To stop doubting ourselves. To stop feeling so tired all the time. To stop worrying about what everyone else will think.

We’re waiting for life to become a little less messy before we make our move.

It feels sensible. Almost responsible.

After all, why start something important when you’re exhausted? Why commit to change when work is hectic, the kids need you, your parents are getting older, hormones are doing whatever hormones decide to do, and the washing basket has somehow become a permanent piece of furniture?

Midlife has a way of making life feel relentlessly full. There is always something demanding your attention. Always another reason why this week isn’t the week for the very important thing.

So we wait.

And while we’re waiting, we quietly assume that the version of ourselves who finally gets started will somehow feel different from the one sitting here today.

If you’ve been wondering how to get motivated when you don’t feel like it, I’ve started to think motivation might be the wrong place to begin. In my experience, motivation often follows action … not the other way around. The smallest step is often enough to create the momentum you were waiting for.

What if motivation isn’t the starting point?

I always thought motivation was the engine. Surely that’s how change worked? First you felt inspired, then you took action?

But when I look back over the things I’ve actually managed to change, that’s rarely what happened.

Writing this blog didn’t begin because I woke up overflowing with confidence. It began because I wrote one post. Strength training didn’t start because I suddenly became someone who loved exercising. It started because I picked up a pair of dumbbells, probably while complaining about it.

Some mornings I still stand in the kitchen negotiating with myself before going for a walk.

None of those things began with certainty. They began with a decision that was often much smaller, much less glamorous and much less emotionally satisfying than I’d expected. And then somewhere along the way, motivation caught up.

Lately I’ve been trying to get up earlier to fit in a workout before work.

Every morning, my alarm goes off and there’s a brief moment where Morning Em and Cosy Bed Em enter negotiations.

Cosy Bed Em is an exceptional lawyer.

She presents compelling evidence about how warm the doona is, how much sleep I probably still need and why today is a perfectly reasonable day to start tomorrow instead.

Some mornings, she wins. Some mornings, I shuffle out of bed looking less like a woman embracing healthy habits and more like someone who’s been reluctantly summoned by a medieval town crier.

But after a week or two, something starts to shift. The argument gets quieter. The decision takes less energy.

It’s not because I’ve suddenly become more motivated. It’s because getting up has started to become familiar. My brain has a little more evidence now. It knows I’ve done this before. It knows I’ll probably survive.

That’s a very different kind of confidence. It’s not built on enthusiasm. It’s built on repetition.

Tiny actions create evidence

Every time you do the thing – even imperfectly – you collect another tiny piece of proof.

See? You showed up.
See? You can keep promises to yourself.
See? Maybe this is someone you are becoming.

It’s easy to dismiss these moments because they seem insignificant on their own. One walk doesn’t transform your health. One page doesn’t write a book. One conversation doesn’t heal a relationship.

But lives are rarely changed by dramatic moments. More often they’re shaped by small decisions that become habits, habits that become patterns, and patterns that quietly become identity.

Perhaps that’s why tiny actions matter so much. They’re not powerful because of what they achieve in a single day.

They’re powerful because of the story they begin to tell.

I think that’s where I’ve been getting stuck. Not in the doing. In the story.

The story that says I’ll start when I feel more motivated. The story that says confidence comes before courage. The story that says people who are good at looking after themselves somehow wake up wanting to do difficult things.

It’s a comforting story because it lets me believe the missing ingredient is a feeling I don’t currently have. The downside is that it leaves me waiting for something I can’t control.

Feelings have never been particularly good at keeping appointments.

Some days I wake up optimistic, other days … just getting dressed deserves a medal.

If I hand over responsibility for my life to whichever feeling happens to turn up that morning, then I’ve given away far more power than I realised.

When your feelings get the deciding vote

These days I’m trying to stop asking myself, “Do I feel like it?”

Not because feelings don’t matter. They do. Ignoring them isn’t the goal.

But when that question becomes the deciding vote, my feelings end up running my life.

If I only write when I feel inspired, exercise when I feel energetic, or have difficult conversations when I feel brave, then I’m constantly waiting for emotions that are, by their very nature, temporary. Some days they’ll show up. Some days they won’t.

Either way, I’ve handed them the keys.

I think there’s a gentler, more empowering question:

“What’s one small thing I can do anyway?”

Not to prove anything or force myself through exhaustion. But to remind myself that my feelings are part of the conversation, but they don’t get to make every decision.

Sometimes that small thing is opening my laptop. Sometimes it’s putting on my walking shoes without promising myself I’ll walk five kilometres. Sometimes it’s replying to one email that’s been sitting there for days.

The action itself isn’t remarkable. The reminder is.

I still get to choose.

Even today. Even now. Even if I don’t particularly feel like it.

Rebuilding trust in yourself

I also wonder if this is why we can be so hard on ourselves in midlife.

We look at the gap between where we are and where we’d like to be, and we assume the problem is motivation. So we blame ourselves. We tell ourselves we’re lazy. Undisciplined. We’ve lost our drive. We’ve become the sort of person who starts things and never finishes them.

But maybe we’ve simply misunderstood how change begins. Maybe we’ve expected motivation to do a job that belongs to action. Maybe we’ve been standing at the starting line waiting for a feeling that’s actually waiting for us.

Maybe motivation isn’t missing. Maybe it’s waiting for us to take the first step.

This is my edit

That’s the edit I’m making.

Not to my routine. Not to my goals.

To the story I’ve been telling myself about what comes first.

Instead of waiting for a different version of myself to appear, I’m learning to work with the one who’s already here. The tired one. The distracted one. The occasionally grumpy one. The one who doesn’t always feel motivated but can still make one small choice.

Perhaps we don’t need to feel different before we begin. Perhaps beginning is one of the things that helps us feel different.

It’s a small shift in perspective. But sometimes those are the edits that change everything.

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