Be Unstoppable: How to Keep the Motivation From Running Dry
Motivation is like bathing, says Zig Ziglar — you need to do it every day. It’s a great analogy, but not if you want to be unstoppable. I’ll tell you why. First, though, let’s take stock. Be Unstoppable: How to Keep the Motivation From Running Dry We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle The movie in your mind Think back to a movie that gave you the chills. The main character displayed extreme courage, endurance or faith, and the story reminded you that there is more to life than you have been giving yourself. Perhaps, as you walked out of the theater, you even decided to make a change. Your mind can make its own movies to inspire you. Pay attention to what lights that fire in your belly. Is it a certain memory or an affirmation, or motivational videos, or maybe even a song? This is precious material that will sustain you on the long road ahead. Motivation is volatile Now, think back to what happened after you left the theater. You’re talking to other people, but maybe they weren’t impressed by the film. Or you’re debating where to grab dinner. Sure, you are still thinking about the movie, but the feeling changed. It doesn’t seem as alive as before, but more like a memory, a memory that is well and truly relegated to the past by the time dinner is over. You are lucky if your thoughts circle back to the movie as you fall asleep. So, let’s figure it out. What was the expiration date on the feeling you had? One evening, if we are being generous? So yes, motivation evaporates. Fast. Starting To be unstoppable, first you have to start. First thing in the morning preferably. Otherwise something or someone else will take over your mental resources and you’ll be too spun around to even notice. Starting means calling on your favorite memory or listening to that song, or whatever it takes — it doesn’t matter as long as you feel the energy rise in you. With enough practice, you will learn to work yourself up to a state where it gets hard to NOT act. READ: 5 Morning Rituals That Will Transform Your Life Combine the energy with a clear picture of what you need to do today and you are all set. Well, for about two hours. The problem with once a day The phenomenon you experienced with the film? It’s the same thing with your mental movies. Their effects fade away just as fast. Yes, acting on your goals immediately after your motivation session does help keep the fire going. It could even sustain you the whole day. But somehow, sometime, something’s going to happen. You get stuck on a sentence or your husband is being mean or you run out of toothpaste. If you’re still relying on the juice from this morning, you’re going to crash. Thankfully, eventually, you will go to sleep, wake up to a new motivation session, and hit reset. Well I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a half-day or a quarter-day or any fraction of a day to waste until I can get back on track. Putting fuel in the tank By now, maybe you've guessed where I’m going with this. The solution is simple: the tank is empty, so refill it. Motivate yourself more often. Tut tut tut. Not so fast. The solution merely seems simple. The crux of the issue is contained right there in the analogy. When exactly do you refuel your car? You need fuel in your tank to get fuel in your tank, don't you? Well, you need motivation to get motivation. READ: How to Sustain Daily Motivation for Your Long-Term Goals If you have already run out of motivation, the last thing you will want to do is be a cheerleader to yourself. By the time hopelessness is nibbling at you, the only place you're heading is down the black hole of a bag of potato chips and a YouTube video. You need motivation to get motivation — that’s a conundrum worthy of Escher. But don’t worry. There is a solution. Treat yourself like your car. You would not let your car run out of gas before refueling, right? So, don’t let yourself run out of motivation either. Yes, Zig Ziglar, motivation is not like bathing. Motivation is like fuel. However, I am not suggesting you go around with one eye on your motivation-gas-gauge at all times. How are you supposed to get any work done that way? And besides, it would be too risky, considering the number of distractions surrounding us. On the hour On the hour. That’s the sweet spot right there. Motivate yourself on the hour every hour. It’s a long enough gap for you to make headway on your projects, and it’s short enough that you can still rely on the motivation from the previous session to keep you going. The best part? You don’t even have to remember to do this. Just set a timer for one hour and go. When it rings, you can reset yourself and the clock at the same. So there you are. Never get stranded again. Get into the habit of refueling and ride into the sunset.
Halve Your Day to Double Your Productivity
Scramblers, this one is for you. And no, we are not talking about egg aficionados here, but rather those who rush around finishing tasks before bedtime. Procrastinators, listen up too. And also on the guest list are those who: Get into bed wondering where their 24 hours went Need a double ration of hours in their day Want to give up on life by lunchtime The following method could quite frankly change your entire life. It is simple, but it works like a magic trick. How? First, by freeing up mental space to make you even more focused than a heat-seeking missile. Second, by emphasizing immediate action -- the only type that counts. Halve Your Day to Double Your Productivity 1. Decide what to do today Write everything down, but don’t forget that first word — decide. It is of prime importance. It's the acknowledgement that there are always more things to do than you have time for. Which is fine. Most of it is not worth your time anyways. 2. Group activities If you subscribe to the Getting Things Done philosophy, you know how important a clear mind is. Your brain is not a storage unit. Rather, it is the workshop in which you construct all your brilliant ideas and inventions. To take this analogy a little further -- what is easier to move around? A pile of knick-knacks or a box of knick-knacks? In order to do your best thinking, the minutiae of your day needs to be put away somewhere reliable. This is where grouping comes in. Instead of having a laundry list of tasks on your mind, figure out the key goal of the day in each of the main areas of your life. Keep the details on one part of the plan, and the general breakdown in a separate section. I keep it real simple. My listed areas are work, food, sleep and other. “Other” is the knick-knack box to end all knick-knack boxes — cooking, laundry, cleaning, personal emails, errands and so on. These individual subdivisions don't have dedicated spaces in my plan because they are flexible and constantly changing. Time and experience have taught me that life runs smoothly if I allocate two hours to this general category. As for the rest of the areas, work is the second major one — I list the hours to spend writing and the specific project to complete. Sleep is not quite as complex -- I just have a bedtime written down. And food doesn't require me to write down a general target at all --rather I put away the details of this subject by quite literally boxing them in. My plan has a little box with the menu for the day and the times at which I will have each meal. So now, when you are considering your day, you can play with this overview and be free from the details until you are ready to go deeper into a particular area. 3. Halve your day, halve your tasks… and halve them again Take the number of hours you have set aside for each of your major categories and halve them. This amount is what you will have to do by halftime, roughly eight hours from when you woke up. Halve it again. Congratulations, you have your general breakdown for the first quarter of your day. 4. Assign exact times and specific tasks This is where the detailed list comes back into the picture. Four hours with breaks should give you approximately three different segments. This really feels like the sweet spot. I have a theory that the mind doesn’t want to hold onto more than three goals at a time. Do make sure to build in breaks, especially if you have trouble with procrastination. You have full permission to do this because the goal is not maximum efficiency. It is finishing by the end of the quarter. That’s one of the major advantages of this method. It shows you that you have time to work and also to rest. 5. And… go! Some extra tips: Try front-loading your schedule slightly so that you can take advantage of the morning, when you are freshest. This also has the advantage of helping you build momentum. Work towards moving things out of the final quarter and into the first three so that you can keep the last part of the day free. Again, breaks are the way to go!