Finding the Necessary Motivation
19 Comments Published September 23rd, 2009 in boredom, choices, exercise, goals, happiness, ideas, life, motivation, organizing, productivity, self improvement, successIn the aftermath of my recent move, I’ve been thinking a lot about motivation. I’ve written before on how to deal with a lack of motivation. It’s also something that is a constant issue for many people, myself included.
What is it that motivates us to do a task or start a project that we’re not all that enthusiastic about? We may be wholeheartedly in favor of the goal that is to be achieved, like organizing my new place, but it’s still a terrific struggle to get moving toward this goal. Those first little steps can be so difficult for some that they are literally never taken.
I’ve found this to be a factor in many areas of my life. While I can find the energy to get up and go to work every day, take care of my family, and take out the garbage, etc, getting beyond the basics almost takes an act of God. Why is it so hard to find time to put away boxes from the move, go to the gym, practice guitar, or write a few pages of a novel?
Thinking back on the last couple of months, the most progress we made in clearing out the boxes and organizing our home was when we had guests coming over to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. We worked our butts off for hours because we wanted to make a good impression on my wife’s parents. This is despite the fact that they are easy-going people who are not at all judgmental.
Regardless, we were able to make some great improvements in the time before our guests arrived. This underscores the importance of having some sort of outside influence as a motivator towards those projects that we’re having trouble starting. With this in mind, I have a few thoughts that may be helpful in kick-starting stalled progress towards our worthy, but rusty goals:
1. Find a motivator outside yourself. Whether it’s inviting guests over to impose a hard deadline on cleaning your apartment, or taking a creative writing class with weekly homework, sometimes it’s necessary to have someone hold you responsible for meeting your goals. Invite friends over to your place, then, or take a class in writing or guitar playing or pilates where there will be someone expecting you to deliver something tangible on a regular basis.
2. Multitask the simple stuff. If you have a box of papers sitting in the corner of your living room that needs to be sorted or shredded, grab a beer, pull up the box, and turn on that Breaking Bad or Californication that you’ve been waiting to watch on the DVR. OK, ladies, you’re allowed to watch Dancing with the Stars. While you’re watching, sort a few papers, you can shred during the commercials instead of fast-forwarding.
3. Focus on the built-in rewards. Having a clean, well-organized place makes you feel good. I don’t think anyone really likes living in a cluttered space. Similarly, it also feels good to work out, to burn away all the stresses that have been building up like clutter in your soul. This isn’t always the best motivator, obviously, because even though we know these things, we don’t always get started. This leads us to another step:
4. Make it fun. If you’re having trouble going to the gym, then it’s probably not fun enough for you to even want to begin. The answer to this is to mix it up. Do something different that will stimulate your motivation and build some excitement and interest. The treadmill is boring? Then join a hiking group or Krav Maga (brutal, but effective Israeli martial art) class. If the story you’ve been working on no longer gets your juices flowing, try writing about something completely different, a topic that you’ve never explored before.
5. Get a partner. I’m not saying that you should go sign up for e-harmony, but aligning yourself with a friend or family member who also needs a little encouragement toward a common goal can be an enormous benefit. Even if it’s someone from work whom you can trade updates with during lunch once a week, this can be the one thing that motivates you to do something before that next lunch date. Maybe you can talk your spouse or neighbor into trying out rock-climbing and then if you both like it, turn it into a regular exercise thing.
I hope that these ideas will prove useful for you. It’s the result of my reflecting on the issues affecting my own life and my own lack of progress toward certain goals. Living a successful and productive life means filling your days with positive activities that benefit you and the people around you. Feel free to leave a comment and tell me about your own experiences.
19 Responses to “Finding the Necessary Motivation”
- 1 Pingback on Sep 24th, 2009 at 6:28 am
Excellent post! These are all tips that I can and will implement in my own journey. I often find the same answers to the same questions; but I find these recommendations to be fresh. Thank you for sharing them.
Hi MelodiousZ – I’m glad you found this post to be useful. I find that this is one of the most constant struggles for me and I’m sure it’s one that many others face every day in one way or another. Thanks for stopping by!
I’m so glad I’m not the only one with this problem. I work long hours and so does my husband, we both work for a drug rehab and I like my home to look nice but, I can’t seem to get motivated unless I have an outside reason to do things like guest s coming over. I wish I was as energetic as I was in my twenties.
Hi Melissa – I’m guessing this is a dirty little secret that many people share. It should probably come as no surprise, though, as we so often hear people make offhand remarks about all those things they should do or should have done in the past. Even if many of these wishes are pie in the sky, I’m sure there is a significant number that could be accomplished if the person had just been motivated enough!
Thanks for your comment!
Motivation is directly proportional to the gain that you derive out of the particular work/task. If you do the stuff that you enjoy/like the most, you will be naturally motivated
Having said that, there are times when you get bored. All the points you mentioned will help in such situations. What I also do is to set short term goals, trying different ways of doing the same thing, take a break etc.
Hi Ajith,
Those are great ideas. If you can’t find something enjoyable about what you are spending a lot of effort on then it’s almost impossible to sustain that necessary motivation. I think it’s key for us to continually try new approaches to keep things fresh.
Thanks for your comment and I really like your blog!
It is the not-so-fun stuff that’s difficult to start doing. Blasting the music or opening MTV helps when you’re doing simple stuff. But what about writing, where you needed intense concentration and focus…that’s a struggle for me too.
Any tips friends? I’m sure a lot of bloggers here would appreciate your comments.
Hi Adventurous! Yes, I agree with that, too. Writing generally takes more specialized focus and requires that creative inspiration that can be very difficult to artificially stimulate. I think it helps to just force yourself to write something every day at the same time. Find a place where you build that habit to get writing and just write something. Keeping a journal can be a useful way to exercise those muscles as well. I’m sure I’ve written a post or two on this back in the day. I’ll try to dig up a couple of links that you mind find useful.
Thanks for your comment!
Hi Ray,
Thank you for sharing. Tip number 3 works best for me. Focusing on the rewards or the end goal keeps me motivated. Number 2 also works for me but I know one person who cannot multi-task, my husband. He cannot do two things at once and he’s more effective doing one stuff at a time.
Nancy
If we connect our goal and our love to family. Any pain we feel will gone and we will keep doing it.
For some of us who did online business will feel that online business is full of stress. especially when dealing with web hosting trouble. It could be more stress if the customer service response our message slow. But we know we will get something that can make our family have better living, then we still doing it.
Great piece!
Some difficulties surrounding writing or blogging for a living is that to do this well frequently requires a lot of time alone concentrating. And that is just plain tiring!! Too much being alone and tired can send one over the proverbial edge.
I think the ‘make it fun’ part has got to be central to mental survival in this gig.
Thanks!
MAS
To feel envy – in a positive way somehow can be a strong whip to get me moving. Making communication with people that have the same interest and goals can also keep my motivation alive and not to give up so easily. Everything you wrote in this post so makes sense and applicable, thank’s for sharing this.
By the way I’m new here.. nice to know you
Motivation does require inspiration – and sleep! It is difficult to be creative when one is fatigued. Unless you are writing humor, being tired just makes the sentences run on and on without coherence.
One does need the discipline to push ahead every day though. Glad to hear I am not the only one wrestling with this.
Thanks!
MAS
Good idea.I do agree with you.Its really not-so-fun stuff that difficult to start doing.But you can practice the tips and that can help you a lot..thanks for sharing it with everyone.
I agree with the being accountable to someone part. But a strong force to get things done is to start moving and that creates its own momentum. It doesn’t have to be on the desired task, but it could start in a different field could eventually get one back to task on hand.
Like writing new blog post that has been procrastinated, so starting to wash dishes may lead to putting in some laundry which lead to one actually sit and write out a post. Start doing something somewhere.
If you find a way to motivate yourself- you can truly consider that the half of the task is done. However, it is usually so difficult to do. I always fight with my laziness before doing some difficult task.
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I will tell my student about your post for them to get more exp
Great point. I’ve found that when I’m surrounded by mountains to climb, it’s much easier to get motivated to climb even the smallest hill and that leads me to find the motivation for next highest one. Then on to the mountains!