Episode 12: Why you can be incredibly motivated…but never take action

Thanks for tuning into The Career Clarity Show. Today’s episode is about why you can be incredibly motivated to make a career change, but never take action. (And, of course, I won’t leave you hanging: we also talk about what to do about it so you can get over that momentum hump.)

Plus, we’re teaching you a new SAT word: velleity. But to tell you about that, first I have to tell you about campervans. 

Let me explain: 

My fiancé and I have been obsessively watching YouTube videos on how to convert a school bus to a campervan. (Well, I want to convert a school bus. He wants to convert a sprinter van. And if you’ve ever watched these videos, you’ll know there’s a fierce rivalry between the two schools of thought…. But, I digress.)

We’ve started a Google Doc (like a classic millennial couple) to keep track of the features we want in our future van. I want to figure out how to fit a king-sized bed into our camper…and he wants a tiny vent fan installed in our van’s storage area to keep any wet outdoor gear from getting moldy.

We’ve even been surfing Facebook Marketplace and looking longingly at the updated RVs for sale.

It’s been a fun hobby, for sure. But, in all this wanting, we haven’t yet taken any real action. We haven’t updated our financial goals to budget savings to eventually buy our own vehicle. We haven’t started sketching out the possible floor plan options. We haven’t marked a date on the calendar for our first campervan trip.

So what’s the difference between when we kinda want something as an idea, and when we really want something enough to take action to go for it?

That’s the question my clients wrestle with every day. As a career change coach, I hear people share incredible dreams with me, like:

• “I want to work for the International Olympic Committee.”
• “I want to switch to a job in medical device sales.”
• “I want to quit my job and take a 6-month sabbatical in Portugal.”
• “I want to start a profitable career coaching business of my own.”

And, for all these epic, badass dreams, there are tons of resources out there to help you make it happen. Books, articles, podcasts, classes, coaches, recruiters, bootcamps, incubators, masterminds, and more.

So unless you’re living in the woods (or on the road in a converted school bus) without reliable wifi or a cell signal, it isn’t a question of the *how.* (And, if you are, I commend you for your resourcefulness to somehow find a way to read this article!)

Which brings us to the next question: what’s the difference between people who say they want something and the people who actually go after it?

I used to think it was guts. Raw, unqualified courage, paired with some serious action taking.

And, sure, courage is still a part of the equation. But even courage and action aren’t the only variables.

It turns out the answer to this particular problem is velleity.

What’s velleity, you might ask?

Besides being a baller SAT and New York Times crossword vocab word, velleity is the desire to have something…without the corresponding depth of desire to take action to get it.

It’s the motivation paradox.

Because the thing that you must absolutely have to achieve your dream, besides courage, is motivation.

You must have a “why” that is bigger than any obstacle in your way: time, resources, knowledge, or fear.

If you don’t, you’ll take action.

That’s because of a — stick with me — little physics concept called activation energy. (And if you skipped physics in high school like me, grab your trapper keeper and take some notes.)

It goes like this: When an object that’s stationary wants to move, it has to first build up the energy to do so. It can’t just decide to move and then — BAM! It’s immediately in motion!

No, no, to move, that object’s gotta create a reserve of energy it can unleash all at once to propel its motion. If it releases that energy before it hits the critical threshold amount, it won’t move anywhere, but could end up with a completely empty tank, depleted from gathering up all that energy.

Let’s say you’ve built up an energy reserve to make a big life change (like, say, switch careers or move across the country) but expended it all before your motivation was strong enough. Then, it probably feels like it was all for naught. And, if you’re going nowhere fast, you figure you might as well stop storing up any energy that could potentially turn your hopes and dreams into disappointment and failed expectations.

That’s what makes contentedness so seductive.

Let’s go back to our campervan obsession to see this theory at work. We would love to magically be gifted with a campervan (and ideally loaded with all the features we want), but our motivation to make an investment and convert one ourselves is pretty low. We already own every possible piece of camping gear (even though the very first wedding registry we created was at REI), and we don’t current want to create a nomadic lifestyle, so we don’t have a strong enough desire to actually move forward with this campervan dream. We’re pretty contented with how things are right now.

If we really wanted to turn that campervan dream into reality, we’d need a “why” that allows us to build motivation and activation energy

If your “why” is big enough, you don’t just do research — you make the time. And if it’s not — you make an excuse.

And all of that’s fine. As long as you don’t convince yourself that the excuse is the truth.

Be honest: You know that excuses are tricky little lies because, if you want something bad enough, you can always find the money, time, or expertise, to get it.

(Remember that time you saved up to take the incredible trip to Europe or the time you hustled your ass off to make the soccer team or when you adopted a puppy and had to get scrappy to pay for obedience training and vet bills? That resourceful version of you is the truth… not the version who’s binge watching Friends on Netflix, lamenting how you don’t have any free time.)

And, hey, it’s okay not to pursue a desire. Just make sure you’re making that choice on purpose.

The person who wanted to work for the Olympic Committee? She’s actually in a pretty good groove with her current job, managing her nutty commute, and getting in sync with her fiancé’s schedule, so she’s good with never taking action on it. She’s totally content with it being just a fun daydream.

But sometimes, you have the motivation — you’ve got a decently big desire! You just need to make it bigger than your excuses and fear so you hit the activation energy threshold.

That aspiring future career coach I mentioned earlier knows he wants to build his business, but he’s running up against deep desire conflicting with big fear: this incredible man’s wife passed away two months after their youngest was born, leaving him an unexpected single father to 2 boys.

He’s their one and only, and he’s only going to build this business if it doesn’t conflict with him being the boys’ #1 supporter. Which is a really hard thing to do.

So for him, the game changes the moment he realizes the way to be the father he wants to be is by being courageous and pursuing his dreams. It’s the realization that, if he goes for it and succeeds, he’ll have more freedom to be with his boys whenever they need him.

(Then, it’s just a matter of ensuring that he’s got a solid plan for action that doesn’t jeopardize his time with his kids too much or violates any of his core values.)

Because if you really want that job, that business, or that campervan, Marie Forleo reminds us: “Everything is figureoutable.”

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