Motivation Follows Action

I follow The Art of Manliness which has some great articles on a wide variety of subjects. I was skimming this article, and one section stuck out to me.

Point 4 in the article is "Motivation Follows Action," and says the following:

I had zero motivation when I began writing this. I had nothing to say. I wrote a book about action but for some reason I couldn’t think of the words to tell you.

It’s 1,600 words later now and I can’t stop thinking of new things to say.

It’s always like this.

I don’t feel like working out until I’ve been at the gym for 15 minutes. I’m too tired to have sex until we’ve started. I don’t want to go to the party until I’m there.

Motivation (and passion) will follow you if you have the balls to go without them.

I think this stuck out to me primarily because it articulates something I've seen in my own life, but have never really tried to articulate or formulate into an overall principle.

I often have no desire to work on something or accomplish a specific task. I procrastinate for any number of reasons, but if I actually start doing the task it goes quickly and smoothly, and isn't as bad as I feared it would be.

Maybe having this principle articulated for me will help me procrastinate less and get myself in gear, knowing that motivation will follow.