Just Do It — The Trivialization of Motivation

In 1988 Nike launched its “Just do it” campaign. One of the first TV commercials at the time featured an elderly man jogging topless across Golden Gate Bridge. Nothing special. He does it every morning, the man tells us, 17 miles. He’s introduced as Walt Stack (80) and we’re left with so many questions, the most burning of which is, of course, how the heck does he keep his teeth from chattering come wintertime? Easy, Walt lets us know, he just leaves them in his locker. The credits roll: Just do it! It’s a good ad, a great slogan (despite its macabre origin story) and a very successful campaign as evidenced by the fact that almost 40 years later it is still ongoing. However, you can probably tell by the facetiousness of this introduction that I feel ambivalent about it. On the one hand, I applaud Nike for addressing everyday people and promoting the value of challenging yourself in pursuit of an active and healthy life. On the other hand, I can’t help but feel like they’re making their life a bit too easy here. They have us fired up by the positive message of “Just do it,” but by the time we’re left wondering how we can do it, we’re left standing there alone in our new pair of checkmark-embroidered sneakers.

‘Tis the season

Anyone who’s been to a gym in January knows how much more crowded it is in “Just do it” season compared to later in the year. It appears that getting that initial momentum is a whole lot easier than maintaining it in the long-term. Let me be clear, I’m not saying this is Nike’s fault. They’re just cleverly taking advantage of that fact. No, the problem is bigger than that. We can figure out how to just do it, but no one ever teaches us how we can just keep doing it consistently. We have all been taught the value of physical exercise for both body and mind. We may not have exact knowledge on how to create an optimized workout plan, yet we know roughly what to do to stay fit. Bringing about sustainable change in our behaviors and habits, however, is a whole other ballgame. Sometimes we manage. When asked how, we could give some technical advice on the particular behavior we wanted to establish in our lives. At the end of the day, though, most of it would boil down to something like “Well, I just did it.”

Up to the Plate

Pretty much every time I’ve told someone I study sports and exercise psychology the replies follow the same pattern. It’s “Oh, interesting” to “What exactly do you do then?” Admittedly, it took me a while to come up with a reply that would satisfy people. I wasn’t even 100% sure myself what a sport psychologist’s job actually was. Until one day I saw a “Just do it” commercial on TV and realized that’s it. That’s our cue. Naturally, sport psychology is a broad field, and motivation is only one of many concepts it spans. But in a world plastered with inspirational posters and bombarded by TikToks about dopamine detox, it’s about time we finally step up to the plate and do our jobs. This is the idea that Netminding was born out of. I’m aware how intangible and inaccessible sports psychology must look to most people. Perched up in our academic ivory tower where we hoard our arcane knowledge, I felt like it needed a Rapunzel letting down her luscious mane to show that we’re not nearly as elitist as we may seem and what we know is quite plausible if someone just takes the time to explain it. That’s ultimately what I’m trying to do here. I know not everyone who happens to read my ramblings here will have the desire or even the need to consult a sport psychological coach regularly. But I’m convinced that anyone can benefit from trying it out and I want to make that step as easy as a simple “Just do it”. And if not that, at the very least I hope that you can learn at least a couple of valuable lessons on how our brains work.

A long way to go and a short time to get there

Psychology as a discipline is still relatively young compared to its academic siblings. In the last couple of decades, we have made great strides in many areas. However, motivation has proved an especially difficult construct to nail down scientifically. You can ask 100 different researchers and receive 100 different definitions. It’s honestly too messy and complex to be dealt with in a single blog post. But every journey begins with the first step, and little by little we’ll untangle the mess. I promise.