'What gets you out of bed in the morning? If you cant answer that, then that's the work!'
What Gets You Out of Bed?
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
What gets you out of bed in the morning? And if you can’t answer that, then that, right there, is the work. I don’t mean the alarm, the mortgage, or the fact that someone has to walk the dog. I mean the deeper pull. The thing that lifts you up, and moves you forward with something like willingness. If you sit with the question honestly and the answer comes back as “nothing much,” please don’t take that as a failing. Take it as a signpost. It’s pointing straight at the most important work there is.
When You’re Running on Autopilot
In my book I have a name for the life so many of us slip into without ever choosing it. I call it your ‘Temporary Destiny.’ It’s what happens when our automatic responses, our habits and routines and reactions, quietly take over the wheel. Wake, commute, work, collapse, repeat. The same well-worn grooves, day after day, like a needle stuck in the same tired track on a record. When nothing pulls you out of bed beyond obligation, that’s usually the sign you’ve drifted onto autopilot and into your ‘Temporary Destiny.’
Why It’s Only ‘Temporary’
Here’s the part I want you to hold onto, and it’s the reason I chose that word so carefully. I call it ‘Temporary Destiny,’ not permanent destiny, because your mind is malleable. Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain never stops reshaping itself around how you use it. Nothing about your current default is fixed in stone. You can wear in fresh paths toward ‘The Garden’ and let the old ruts back to ‘The Tip’ quietly grow over. You are not stuck. You’re simply running an old track, and a new one can always be laid.
Purpose Is a Garden, Not a Lightning Bolt
Part of why the question feels so heavy is a myth most of us carry: that purpose is one grand, singular thing meant to strike you like lightning, and that everyone else has already been struck. That’s not how it works, and waiting for the bolt keeps you in bed. In my book I picture it differently. Purpose is a garden. Your interests are seeds, each one a possible passion that, if you nurture it, can grow into something meaningful. You don’t have to arrive at the one perfect answer today. You plant, you water, you tend. A life full of passion and purpose isn’t something you find fully formed; it’s something you grow by tending ‘The Garden’ of who you are.
Pull the Weeds
Often the reason we can’t answer “what gets me up” isn’t that we have no purpose at all. It’s that the weeds have grown over it. In the book the weeds are the fears, the doubts, the negative beliefs that choke what’s trying to grow. “I’m too old.” “It’s too late for me.” “Who am I to want more.” “I’m too busy just surviving.” Left unchecked, they smother a purpose that was only ever waiting for a little light. A good part of the work is simply getting down on your knees and pulling a few of them out.
Start With One Seed
You don’t need to map out your whole garden this morning. You need one seed. What’s one thing that makes you feel alive, or curious, or useful? One small activity where you lose track of time? Plant that. Give it a little water this week, an hour, a phone call, a first clumsy attempt. Purpose grows from the tending, never from the waiting.
A Question to Sit With
So let me hand you back the question, gently this time:
‘What gets you out of bed in the morning, and if you can’t answer yet, are you willing to make that the work?’
If the answer isn’t there today, you haven’t missed it and you haven’t failed. You’ve simply found your next, and most worthwhile, piece of work. And there is nothing more worth getting out of bed for than that. You can always come and see me and we can come up with a plan.
Have a great week,
Michael
📖 Where the F*ck Do Our Minds Go? — Navigating the Paths Between Chaos and Clarity → Get the book www.michaelmalacos.com