Assalaamualaikum - Motivation came when I stopped trusting the thoughts telling me to wait

For a long time I blamed lack of motivation. I kept waiting to feel ready, confident, or energized before doing anything important. When that feeling never arrived, I just told myself I was unmotivated. What I didn’t see was my mind quietly giving me very reasonable-sounding thoughts that stopped me before I even began: “Now isn’t the right time.” “I’ll do this properly later.” “I don’t have the energy today.” They didn’t feel like excuses - they sounded like common sense. The change came when I began questioning those thoughts instead of following them on autopilot. I didn’t try to force fake positivity - I simply stopped treating those thoughts as absolute truth. Once I did that, taking the first steps felt lighter, and motivation started to come after I moved, not before. Reading 7 Lies Your Brain Tells You: And How to Outsmart Every One of Them helped me see why this works. The book talks about how the brain favors comfort and certainty, even when that keeps us stuck, and how being aware can break that cycle. I’d recommend it if motivation always feels like something you chase but never catch. Now, motivation feels less like a sudden rush and more like clarity - knowing which thoughts to act on and which to let go. Sometimes the most effective thing isn’t pushing harder - it’s removing the quiet things that hold you back. May Allah make it easy for anyone struggling with this.