This morning I was experiencing low motivation to get out of bed. As I lay there, completely comfortable and snuggled in, I wondered if I’d be able to tell the difference between being overrun by an ego who wanted to uselessly mind wander vs. simply being tired in which case some more sleep would be a good thing.

I opted for overruling the ego and was on the yoga mat within 10 minutes. Ahhh. Happy to be up getting the energy flowing! After yoga, 15 minutes of meditation–well, kind of. I tell ya, the ole noggin’ was not cooperating this morning. Sitting was similar to laying in bed–I felt bombarded by all kinds of out of place thoughts (meaning, appropriate during other activities) and had a heck of a time relaxing my mind. Leaves me feeling kind of spun out–and it’s not even 8:30am yet.

Over a cup of chai, I read an article in Inc magazine called “Bill Zanker Never Wants to Come Down” about the ambitious leader, Zanker, of the Learning Annex. I knew the Learning Annex to be a source of day long seminars. It’s changed since he bought it back from his former partner in 2002. Now, in addition to seminars, they put on those huge, convention center sized, big hype, “get rich”, weekends featuring Tony Robbins and Donald Trump.

I’ve never seen Tony Robbins do his thing. Sounds like it’s quite a performance. Thousands of people jumping up and down screaming at the top of their lungs indicates some darned persuasive motivation, indeed. What they were experiencing, Robbins’ calls the “peak state”. And this is the way to change your life, living in a peak state. Find a trigger to get yourself back into it, and ride that emotion to a new life. It’ll probably be a physical activity or movement as “emotion is created by motion” he says.

That does bring up an interesting concept. Can you imagine someone pumping themselves up in the cereal aisle at the grocery store in an attempt to get back to their peak state? Maybe they were being drawn to a sugar cereal and they knew that they’d want the healthy variety if they were tapping into their potential in their peak state. What if 10 people in the grocery store were doing this? Someone in the veggie section, another in the frozen foods, another in front of the Ben & Jerry’s case… It’d be quite a racket.

On a more moderate note, reading about this immediately recalled my wandering mental state in bed this morning. It’s not a state of mind I care for, nor do I think it contributes to my desire for a productive, fun, and interesting day. Frankly, I feel victimized by my monkey brain.

Here’s what I got from that article to apply to this situation: Don’t bother trying to talk myself out of that state (that just feeds the monkey brain!). The only motivation I need is to actually start moving–get on the yoga mat, go for a bike ride up a big hill, turn up the music and start boogie-ing, jump up and down–something with the intention of ramping up the energy level. For me it’s like shaking off a negative mind funk. I’d had a sense that just getting myself to the yoga mat was a huge step in the right direction. Now I know that’s the ticket, Tony says so!