{"id":154,"date":"2026-03-06T19:07:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T03:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/?p=154"},"modified":"2026-03-06T19:07:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T03:07:53","slug":"motivation-comes-from-the-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/2026\/03\/06\/motivation-comes-from-the-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Motivation comes from the body"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love that meme<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying coffee less and less. It doesn’t hit like it used to. This is a huge surprise because I love coffee. I drink two cups of coffee a day, quite strong, and I have it ingrained in my mind that this is what gets me through the day. I\u2019ve been ignoring this feeling because, after all, how can you live without coffee? What can replace it? Coffee is a ritual, a pleasure, a moment to look forward to, a kickstart to get you going. What can replace that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I’m also deceiving myself a little, because my memory of coffee and what it always brought me, no longer matches how I feel now. I catch myself not finishing my coffee, forcing myself a little, not feeling blissful and energetic, but increasingly tense and stressed. But the thought of this change is difficult to accept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I woke up yesterday at 3 a.m. and thought about habits and motivation to change. I like New Year’s resolutions, I like rituals, and I always get excited that something new is about to begin; but I also don’t like following New Years resolutions like everyone else starting January 1st; so, partly by accident and partly subconsciously, I made a few changes back in November\/December. And lying there at 3am, unable to sleep, thinking about how hard it will be to wake up in the morning without coffee, I broke down my recent changes into parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks ago, I switched from two coffees a day to one. To my surprise, I feel much better, and the coffee ritual has become exciting again thanks to the change, because I drink it at a different time and more out of desire than obligation. This change came to me a few weeks ago during a yoga session. We were doing a series of sun salutations at a fast pace for about 10 minutes, and my beloved instructor summed up the series of movements with the words<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow we are here and our body is building our energy – the energy to live. We don’t send this energy anywhere else, we don’t waste it thinking about everything around us, we don’t wander with our thoughts. We are here, we keep it for ourselves, it continues to push everything in us, it is our life energy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I felt it. I felt with every cell of my body that the life energy is within me and that I am able to release it, ignite it, and, most importantly, keep it within me. And I can always achieve this if I control it and learn not to waste it on things that are not worth it. And so, I woke up the next day, laid out my mat next to the bed, and did one sun salutation, thinking intensely about bringing out that energy. And then another and another. And that morning, I didn’t make myself my morning coffee, and I didn’t suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day, the same thing, and the day after that, and so on. But the most important and interesting thing for me is that this small change cost me absolutely nothing. What’s more, my yoga bar is set incredibly low \u2013 one sun salutation, literally 15 seconds. That’s it. It’s a so-called micro habit, and so far it’s working great for me. I don’t have to force myself to do anything, I don’t suffer, and I don’t even ask myself if I feel like it or not. And practically every time I do more than 15 seconds, but knowing that this is the minimum, there are no excuses or even questions about it. And the best thing is that when I do these greetings with full concentration, I actually feel the energy, it is released every time. That’s my motivation. I do it until I feel it and I do as much as I need to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as I was lying there yesterday at 3 a.m. thinking about it, I realized that the thing about motivation and change (at least for me), it all starts with a feeling. First, my body let me know that it needed energy, then that coffee was no longer enough, and then, focusing and finding a solution during a yoga session, I felt that this was exactly what I was looking for and needed. Two years of therapy also gave me the most important tool, which is recognizing feelings and states in the body. Because it is our bodies that are the best and most important reason and motivator for making changes. Does that mean that I will always get up and do yoga every single day? No. Does that mean I will never drink a second cup of coffee?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course I’ll drink it. But I’m looking for something else, and right now it works for me \u2013 the energy that flows through me and that I am able to generate. This small discovery gave me a lot of satisfaction and energy, improved my morning, and gave me new pleasure from my one cup of coffee. And it reminded me that there is no greater happiness than listening to yourself and finding solutions that are perfect for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a prelude to entering the new year with new motivation.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love that meme Over the past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying coffee less and less. It doesn’t hit like it used to. This is a huge surprise because I love coffee. I drink two cups of coffee a day, quite strong, and I have it ingrained in my mind that this is what gets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91006651,"featured_media":85,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/three-am.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/dsc_0151-1.jpg?fit=1620%2C1080&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgqzUf-2u","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91006651"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157,"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-am.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}