Eric Chow on motivation without waiting for it: put yourself in a position to win, arrange your life so the right thing is the natural thing, and keep showing up when you do not feel like it.
Eric Chow named the idea after a lecture hall: back on campus after online classes, he sat in the first two rows and learned more. He gave it an episode of his podcast and made it one of the subjects he speaks on. This guide gathers where he explains it, with the episodes on designing a life and making change last.
So whenever possible, how can we put ourselves in the front row? How can we put ourselves in a position to win? Maybe that means that instead of having activity X be easy to access and easy to do, you need to do something to make it more complicated, more difficult to actually do activity X. Make it really easy to do activity Z. Make it natural; make it obvious.
Instead of waiting for motivation, instead of waiting for inspiration, put yourself in a position to win. Put yourself in a position to do the right thing because it’s a lot easier when you don’t actually have to deal with a tremendous amount of temptation.
The episode closes on two more ideas: people are drawn to you when you talk about what you care about, and inspiration finds the people who go looking for it. Read from this moment, Episode 64 at 5:32. The quote on its own page.
Each link opens the transcript at the moment the excerpt begins, in Eric’s words as the page shows them.
“Can you design your life in a way that is motivating and inspiring?”
“What if you can structure your life so that you automatically think positive?”
Feelings that come up around the Front Row Mentality, as The Emotional Wiki reads them: what each one is telling you, with Eric’s words on it.
As Eric tells them on his podcast and in his essays.
Back on campus after his classes had been online, Eric found he learned far more in person, and he made a point of sitting in the first two rows, with the professor directly in front of him. The habit gave the episode, and the idea, its name.
Episode 64 at 3:09In episode 57, A Life by Design, Eric explains why a setback rarely holds him for long: the next goal is already lined up and he is excited about it. He has structured his life so that thinking positively comes naturally.
Episode 57 at 17:32Martial arts taught Eric that he could keep going regardless of how he felt. Some days at the dojo were not great, he says in episode 56, but he does not think he ever regretted going.
Episode 56 at 11:29A simple, underused principle for motivation and inspiration: one of the subjects Eric speaks on.
The Front Row MentalityPlan your day moment by moment and see which moments give you energy.
The Emotion Tracker
