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.

Since I wrote that last post, we’ve been busy, busy, busy with work, school, family, and everything else that seems to happen these days. We’ve continued to put away a few things here and there, not always hitting our goal of emptying one box per day, but sometimes exceeding that.

One thing that I’m trying to conquer is that it’s really difficult to sustain that motivation from day to day. After working all day and fighting through 30 miles of traffic each way while answering emails and taking calls on the Blackberry, all I want to do when I get home is kick back and have a cold beer. Unfortunately, I’ll never make any progress on anything other than work if I let myself do that.

While it’s a good thing to be successful in your job, it’s also vitally important to spend time on your home life. Just as a healthy body is key to a healthy mind, a healthy home life is key to a healthy work life. Everything we do is connected in some way.

It’s important to keep motivating yourself in order to keep moving toward the goals you’ve set for yourself. I’m thinking about motivation a lot lately as there are areas in my life I’d like to improve, but I’m finding it hard to get started (like exercise!). I have a few ideas on this that I’m going to put together into a new post in the next few days.

So, here we are again. After another job change, another move, numerous large expected and unexpected expenses, I’m finding myself in a state of disorganization. Life has certainly been hectic over the past few months. I’ve found a fantastic young lady and remarried and also upgraded my employment to a job that suits my lifestyle and career goals much better than the last one. On top of this, we’ve moved to a new place, not far from the last one, but moving is one of those disruptive events that has the potential for disrupting routines and budgets and, worst of all, starting bad habits of spending and non-productivity.

I’m not writing to express my sense of self-pity, but to take the first step in dealing with the issue at hand: Yes, I admit it: I’m completely disorganized right now. I know that I need to take a few steps to get out of the rut I’m falling into. Based on past experiences, here is what I’ve come up:

1) Just admit it, you’re a mess! OK, we’re done with this step. My budget is in the red and my house is full of boxes. Too much eating out and not enough unpacking are the main culprits. Sure, I can use the excuse that my wife and I both work full time and we have kids to take care of, etc, etc, but those are the realities of most people’s lives these days.

2) Get the clutter of your head first. This is all about one of David Allen’s most powerful techniques. If you haven’t heard of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, then you must have been living under a rock. Go check it out now. This is the idea of getting all of those little (and big) things that are cluttering your mind, out of your head and into some place where they can be organized, acted on, or filed away as necessary.

This can take the form of just opening up a text file on your pc and typing line by line all of the things that are worrying you, writing it all down on paper, or even just gathering up all those bills, receipts, and notes to self and putting them in one box or pile to be gone through. When you think of or come across something else that should go in this list or pile, get it there as soon as possible. There’s no need to be handicapped by carrying all of those anxieties around with you.

3) Make a plan. This is another important step. Now that you have all these things in a pile of some sort, figure out what you have to do with each thing. Obviously, I can’t put all of the boxes in my house into one big pile, but I know I have to do something about it. How about my wife and I commit to clearing out one room today. This is, in fact, what we have talked about. Today is Sunday and we’re both off of work and the kids are out of the house until tomorrow. Our goal is to clear out our family room first.

I’m making this a much more concrete goal by committing to it to writing and publishing it on my blog, so I’ll have to keep that in mind as I work through the day.

We’ve also taken steps to reign in our nasty little habit of dining out. We’ve purchased the makings of cheap lunches and taken them to our jobs so that we always have a quick, inexpensive option that we can take advantage of right in the office rather than having to leave work and spend money. We’re also working on doing the same thing at home. After working all day, no one wants to come home and spend an hour cooking a meal. We’re going to shop for some quick and cheap meals for home, too.

4) Execute. This is the tough part. We’ve already started working on some of the things that we need to do to reign in our budget and our clutter, but this is definitely a mountain to climb. It’s really difficult to stick with a plan that involves climbing a mountain every day, though. The solution to this dilemma is to break up these tasks into small pieces. For instance, if we can commit to unpacking one box each night, we will continually be making progress towards our goal of having a clutter-free home. This is a doable task, even after working all day and fighting through traffic for an hour to get home.

Also, we can allow ourselves to have a lunch out once a week instead of every day. We can do the same with dinners, too, but on a more limited basis since those can easily get way too expensive. If we can commit to eating out only once or twice a month instead of two or three times a week, then we can make some real progress.

In the end, it’s necessary to start taking some action in a positive way in order to overcome the stresses induced by too much clutter, whether it be a box-filled home, piles of unpaid bills, or a mind filled with anxieties about all of the above and more. Feel free to leave a comment and share your ideas.

I went through a range of emotions as I came to terms with the result of my efforts and as I thought about it, I realized it might be helpful for me to write about. I find a kind of catharsis in writing and also feel that some of you may benefit from my experience as well.

I’m no psychiatrist, but I do believe there are stages that a person goes through in dealing with disappointment just like when grieving. In fact, disappointment could be seen as a loss of opportunity that certainly could trigger the grieving process. With that said, here are the steps that occurred to me:

1. Be hurt. It’s OK. It’s likely that a lost opportunity will leave you with injured pride or injured feelings. Don’t fight this feeling. Just let it happen, but don’t dwell there for long in self pity. Let it go.

2. Allow yourself to be angry. Maybe not everyone will feel this way, but I found myself getting angry after the initial shock passed. This is another emotion that’s useful, but only in the short term in this case. Let it be a motivator to further progressive action, but don’t allow it to fester and consume you. As with hurt, just let it go.

3. Take a little time. Yes, take a breather for a little while and let things sink in. It often helps to give these things a day or two to sink in. With a good night’s rest or two, your perspective on events will begin to change and the other emotions will begin to fade.
Count your blessings.

4. Count your blessings. I’m sure if you consider for a moment you’ll see that there are many good things in your life. Things aren’t as bad as they may seem at times. It may take a bit more than a couple of days, but let yourself enjoy the good things about the life you have.

5. Put a positive spin on events. As you realize that there definitely are good things in your life, spend some time casting the events of your disappointment into a better light. Don’t misunderstand that I’m advising you to lie to yourself. Far from it. What I would like to stress is that there are different ways to view the things that have occurred. You can choose to view them from a positive perspective or you can dwell on the negative. It’s your choice.

6. Get back on the horse. After you’ve taken some time and worked through the earlier stages of this process, it’s time to get back to work. Whatever your disappointment was, don’t allow it to haunt you through life. Remember that there will always be some disappointments and failures in life and that those who overcome the trials are the ones who will be successful. There’s no other path to success.

I truly hope that these steps are of some value to you. Taking the time to write about this topic has been a positive experience for me and I’m ready to get back to work. How about you?

Sometimes when you open your eyes and look around you, all you can see are the mountains that surround you. The many little foothills and gentle ridges that are far closer are beneath the level of your vision and thus, out of your field of view. All you are seeing are those towering, threatening mountains. Every once in a while you get a flash of those sharp, lofty peaks as the clean white teeth in the jaws of life, about to snap shut and devour you completely.

I know I’m not alone in getting these feelings occasionally. People I talk to often admit in private that they feel overwhelmed and paralyzed by all the pressures of life. This paralysis is the most dangerous thing. It allows your fears and doubts to rule your life. It can sap your motivation until your confidence and optimism are on life support, barely breathing.

Here are a few brief tips that help me and I think will help you to get back that spark that’s been so dim lately:

• Take a time out. A little breather away from the pressures of work and life can help you to restore some sense of balance. Take a mental health day from work and make a concerted effort to not even think about work or other pressing concerns. Don’t take too long, though, as things will pile up in your absence.
• Organize. Clear out some of the clutter in your life. Yes, I mean the physical crap that piles up around you. While you’re taking your mental health day, clean up your house or apartment. Just pick up a few things or do the dishes or throw out those old magazines and newspapers you’ll never read. When you get back to work, start clearing the papers off your desk.
• Deal with one thing at a time. If you have trouble with it already, you’ll have to learn to just say no. For your sanity’s sake, focus on one thing at a time. Ignore the phone and email until you’ve completed at least one task. You’ll feel better that you’ve accomplished something. You may want to break down larger projects into microtasks.
• Change. Make some changes in your daily routine for starters. Even small changes will inject some much-needed variety into your life. Small changes can lead to big changes after they become habits.
• Develop a personal mission statement. This step is important. I posted recently about the importance of having a personal mission statement and my own work on developing one for myself. Take your time with this one, though. You’ll want to really think about what’s important to you and how you want to live your life.

I hope you’ll find these ideas useful. That lack of motivation you’re feeling isn’t a good feeling, is it? Remember that your discomfort is a call to action. There’s no better time than right now to start building a better future.

My first encounter with personal mission statements was in reading Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The concept was very simple: define who I am, what I value, and how I should live my life in light of these realizations. I began immediately trying to put together a list of roles and values. I quickly found that the task was going to be more difficult than I’d initially believed, though.

After taking a good, hard look at myself, it occurred to me that many of us don’t know ourselves very well at all and that, even if we do, we rarely live our lives in accordance with that knowledge. For example, how many of us work at jobs that we profess to hate? And, yet, we still continue to spend the majority of our lives in these places without looking for something better. Or, if we do look for another job, we take the approach that anything is better, just as long as it’s different. This is a dangerous trap caused by either not knowing ourselves or ignoring our own values, needs, and desires.

Chuck’s tag comes at an interesting time for me because I was already working on my personal mission statement. I had started writing one a few years ago and my efforts dwindled away over time as other concerns took priority. A couple of months ago, though, I decided to read 7 Habits again and really work on defining my core roles and values and ultimately, a personal mission statement. When Chuck emailed me, I was in the middle of writing a first draft of this mission statement.

I think Stephen Covey’s approach to this is a good one. He suggests that you define your roles in life first. Think about it. You are one person, but you’re many things to many people, a father to your children, a spouse or significant other to your partner, an employee or employer, a writer or blogger, a member of a church or other group, and, most importantly, an individual. I say that your role as an individual is most important because it is the deepest layer, the most inner part of yourself that defines who you are. Without having an idea of what’s important to you, it’s almost impossible to develop a proper perspective on your other roles in life.

I have a lot more to say on this topic, but I’m going to save it for another post. I’ll be including some of my own personal mission statement, too, so check back soon.

What’s that sound? That’s me trying to get out of bed this morning to work out. It’s been a while since I’ve been exercising each day. Once upon a time, I used to get up early and run several miles each morning. After some knee problems, I started lifting weights and doing other exercises to keep in shape. Over time, though, life got in the way, and I stopped working out entirely.

Does this sound familiar to you? I’ll bet this happens to a lot of people reading this. Why is it so much easier to drop out of good habits than bad habits? First you skip a day, then another, then another, and soon the habit is only a memory.

The topic of maintaining those good habits indefinitely is one for another post. For now, I’d like to talk about getting back into good habits or starting new ones. I’ve found that the key that works for me is to start small.

Many times I’ve heard of people starting a new diet or exercise regimen and quitting after the first day because it was too hard. Sometimes, it’s necessary and effective to affect a total lifestyle change overnight, but most of the time it’s just too much of a shock. That’s why starting small is such a great technique to begin a new habit.

Here’s an example from my own life. I’ve been through many cycles of regular exercise programs that have been interrupted and then gone by the wayside as my priorities shifted. After a long time of beating my head against a wall while trying to pick up where I left off, I discovered that it was much easier to start with a very small step.

When I first started running regularly, I hadn’t been running for years. In fact, I hated running with a passion. It was my least favorite exercise activity. Running was something that I continued for a short while after getting out of military training and then gave up because it was difficult to fit in between work, school, and social life. Also, I was just plain lazy!

I tried to get back into it years later because I could feel how out of shape I was getting. I was alarmed by how winded I would get by climbing the stairs at work. I was a young guy, slim and in decent shape even though I wasn’t working out, right? Actually, being still young and slim doesn’t mean you’re in good shape! So, I tried to jump right in and do the things that I had been doing a few years before. Bad idea!

Going from huffing and puffing up a few flights of stairs to running a couple miles each morning was too much for me. After a couple of abortive attempts, I gave up. It was just too hard.

Fast forward a few more years. This time, I was fully cognizant of how I would react to biting off more than I could chew. I knew I wouldn’t be able to maintain the motivation if I got my butt kicked right off the bat. I had to start small. Baby steps.

To begin with, I started stretching every day for a week. This was something that provided some immediate positive benefits. I didn’t feel as stiff each morning and it helped to get my muscles and tendons warmed up and flexible again. After a week of this I started something a little more aggressive. I began to run again.

The running could hardly be called that. I was going from no exercise at all into a pretty strenuous activity, so I started with just a short jog at a pathetically slow pace. I think I ran much less than a mile for the first week or two. I was able to increase this incrementally every couple of weeks, though, until it was four or five miles each day.

The difference in how I felt before beginning the exercise program and after doing it for a while was night and day. It’s impossible for me to overstate the benefits of a regular exercise routine on your physical, mental, and spiritual health. If you’ve been through this before, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Getting started is the worst part, though.

The important thing is to pace yourself. I found that in this particular activity, I needed to give myself two weeks at each level before pushing myself harder. This meant that I didn’t have to worry about doing any better at all each day. I could just get used to a slightly more intense or longer workout for two whole weaks before having to think about upping my running pace or lengthening the time spent running.

This provides an important mental advantage. By doing something easy at first, it helps to convince your subconscious that it’s no big deal. You know right away that you can do it without too much trouble.

It’s crucial to remember not to judge your own progress by anyone else’s standard, though. Each person is different. It may only take three days at a particular level before you feel you can move on to the next or it may take three months. Set a schedule that you’re comfortable with and then forget it. Don’t worry about things. Making your new habit something stressful can kill it before it even gets started.

The idea of starting small can be applied to any number of activities in your life. If you’re looking at making a change, consider beginning with baby steps. Oftentimes even the smallest of changes can provide great benefits. Relax. It’s OK to start tomorrow. But, DO start!

These are some great questions. This isn’t just about time management. This is about how you live your life. This is about your own personal values and your own sense of self. It’s important to realize that the things we do every day are a direct reflection of our real values and priorities. As I wrote about in my last post, our true priorities in life are reflected in the time and energy spent on various activities. It’s what we actually do that is most important to us.

With that in mind, how are you spending your day? At the end of my last post, I mentioned that I would be reflecting on my own life. I’ve been doing that and I have to tell you that I’m not pleased with the results. In some respects, I’m doing well, but in others I feel like I’ve fallen flat. When examining your life through the prism of actual prioritization, you may find like I did that you waste a lot of time and energy on activities that aren’t benefiting you in any way.

Here’s an example. A long time ago, I wrote a post titled, Don’t Read The News! In this post, I talked about how much time I wasted reading the news and also what a negative influence it had on my outlook on life. There is so much negativity being reported. I asked myself what positive contribution did this information make in my life and the answer was a big nada.

The problem is that I realized that I was still doing it! I have still been reading the news sites at lunch time every day to see what’s going on in the world. Is this really so important to me? Sure, this may seem like I’m overreacting, but what else could I be doing with that 20 or 30 minutes each day that would be a positive addition to my day?

The reason for wasting time like reading news sites is to blow off steam or to let your mind relax. Is it having the desired effect? Maybe it would be better to spend this time doing something else that allows me to relax while at the same time moving me closer to the realization of my goals in life. Remember my post where I said your behaviors should be in line with your goals? It was great advice then and still is now.

The moral of this story is that our lives need constant maintenance. We must be vigilant in keeping ourselves on track with our own values as well as our own goals. You have to change the oil on that car every three months or so to keep it in good shape, right? The tires must be filled and the alignment periodically checked, too. There are lots of factors involved in maintaining a car and our lives are similar. Today is a great day to make sure your tires are properly inflated and your alignment is dead on.

In the post JD describes a recent situation of having to fire an employee who was not performing well. Actually, it was a lot more than just not performing well, but you’ll have to read the article to get the whole story. I’ll just note that I found the whole post to be incredibly profound. One line stuck out for me in particular, though:

“…the things that are priorities in our lives are the things we actually do.”

This is the gospel truth, friends. I never really thought of it in quite this way before, but it’s one of those obvious points that we all know, but probably never think about with any specificity. The things we are spending our time on right now are our priorities.

Like the unfortunate young man JD had to fire, many of us think things are our top priorities when clearly by this definition they are not. This guy said his job was his top priority and probably really believed that, but the truth was that other things in his life took top billing instead.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though. For this 21 year old guy, realizing that the job wasn’t his first priority should have told him something. This isn’t to say that his job should have been his first priority, but if it was important to him it should have held a higher position on his ladder of priorities. The fact that it didn’t may mean that it was a good thing for him to get fired. He didn’t care enough about the job to want to keep it.

Of course I want to talk about the lesson in this now. Think about the choices you make every day. What do you spend your time doing? What are the priorities you think you have? Compare those to the priorities you appear to have based on the time you spend on those activities. Is there a big discrepancy? Perhaps the lesson here is that our priorities should be in line with our goals and values. If you feel that something is wrong in your life, maybe this is it. Take some time to review your priorities. Believe me, I’m going to do the same thing.

Maki has written this article in response to a post by famed SEO guy, Jim Westergren, who has shut down a successful web business in order to pursue his dream of creative writing. Why did he do it?

Jim was making a ton of money online, the kind of money we all dream of. At it’s peak earlier this year, he was bringing in tens of thousands of dollars per month. Amazing, huh? A lot of those who follow his blog were shocked and saddened that he would leave the world of SEO and just drop his whole business. It does seem shocking, given the amount of income and the success of the business.

The reasons he is doing this are many. The primary reason, however, is because he wants to write fiction. He didn’t start out in SEO for the sake of the business, he started doing it because it held the promise of making him enough money to write. It seems that the business then took over his life. At some point in the last couple of months, he decided to throw in the towel.

This is a great story and provides some valuable lessons for us. One is that it’s possible to be incredibly successful in internet business with very little investment other than your time and energy. This has been proven over and over again and will be demonstrated many times more in the future.

Another lesson is more of a cautionary warning: it’s very easy to get overwhelmed by the demands of a business that you create. Like traditional offline small businesses, online businesses tend to expand in such a way that they can easily take over your life and run you rather than the other way around. It sounds like this is what happened to Jim.

His business began consuming more and more of his time until it just burned him out. He knew that this wasn’t what he wanted to be doing with his life. In the end, the only solution he found tenable was to divest himself of the entire thing by shutting down the business completely.

Several commenters on his blog suggested he outsource the day to day business. This would allow him more time to pursue his own interests. This sounds like a good idea on the surface. Unfortunately, things had gotten to a point where he found this to not be a workable solution. Maybe if he’d tried this earlier on it would have worked out.

That lesson is an important one for us to remember. Yes, there are a bunch of success stories out there where people have created one man internet empires. There are many more stories, though, of people who experienced some early success, but then burned out before really hitting their stride.

So, what do we learn from this? The lesson I take away is that we should be keeping our life goals in mind as we continue our efforts to be successful in our online endeavors. We should be thinking about what we really want out of life, how we want to live. That should be the goal rather than some arbitrary dollar amount. The monthly income goal that we establish is only to allow us to have that lifestyle, right?