#MondayMotivation is a series of post designed to help you find the inspiration you need to be your best self.

In a chat with entrepreneur and Impact Theory founder Tom Bilyeu, motivational speaker and author Mel Robbins dispels the idea of motivation as the defining factor between those who do and those who don’t. Quite the opposite: people naturally only feel motivated to do the things that are easy.

Mel Robbins argues this fatal flaw in humans is by design. Our minds are designed to stop you from doing things that are difficult and outside your comfort level; things perceived by your mind to be a threat. As a result, humans have a habit of hesitating.

When you hesitate, it sends a stress signal to your brain which begins the process of protecting you from the potential threat. Your brain magnifies the risk in order to pull you away from the perceived problem – the opposite of motivation! Robbins argues;

“You can truly trace very single problem or complaint in your life to silence and hesitation. Those are decisions, and what I do and what’s changed my life, is waking up and realizing that motivation is garbage. I’m never going to feel like doing the things that are tough or difficult or uncertain or scary or new. So I need to stop waiting until I feel like it. And number 2, I am one decision away from a totally different marriage, a totally different life, a totally different job, a totally different income, a totally different relationship with my kids.”

The trick to ‘being motivated’ is to stop being held back by hesitation with each micro-decision, and learning how to move from knowledge to action. Every human being has a 5-second window in which you can move from idea to action before your brain kicks into full gear and stops you. Ultimately, it’s your job to learn how to move from those ideas that could change everything, into acting on them.

As Robbins says, “Motivation is garbage. It’s never there when you need it.”