Motivation
Don’t you just love those days where you sit down, knockout hours and hours of hard work that you’ve been putting off for quite some time without any distractions.
At the end of the day you sit down, look back on the day and you’re proud of your achievements.
You are not only productive but also motivated to complete the tasks and even though they weren’t exciting they still had to be done.
Now I don’t know about you but those days for me didn’t happen very often. In fact I would spend a lot of time doing all other things that I didn’t necessarily have to do just to avoid being productive.
Something I would regularly do is write things into my planner and every day I would just push them to the next days tasks. In doing so give less importance to the task and in the end have no motivation to complete it.
Luckily for me I have discovered a few things that have helped me get so much more motivation and complete tasks at hand on a much more frequent basis.
Providing me with satisfaction of completing more and seeing greater results in the things that I do.
Why do you get non ambitious?
The reason why you might become lethargic or non-ambitious is that something is driving you in a different direction to what you want to do.
It could be either something in your brain or in your body steering you away from the tasks at hand.
Unless you address these first you will be always fighting an uphill battle to be as productive in the things you want to be doing.
This is because your brain is always seeking dopamine hits, which is a chemical produced by our brain for how we feel pleasure.
As humans, we still very much rely on our hormones to experience the world and just like our primitive selves a few centuries or millennia back we seek the easiest ways to get those dopamine hits on a regular basis.
This can be quite problematic in today’s day and age because many of the tools that we have such as phones, laptops, tablets and so on, are specifically programmed to give us a dopamine hits regularly, making them quite addictive to use.
This is either through notifications, colourful animations or just the idea of a constant connection to others. We have this idea we might miss out if we don’t reply instantaneously and in doing so regularly check out phones for any updates.
Companies these days are making billions of dollars from stimulating our brains to release dopamine to stay active for longer periods of time on the applications, websites and so on. Just take a look at the most addictive games on the market.
If you are not completing a task because you constantly finding something to do over the tasks you set yourself to do than it doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you, it’s just that your brain is seeking the simplest way to achieve pleasure possible.
If you have programmed your brain to receive dopamine easily, either through gaming, drugs, alcohol, sexual or even mobile addiction then your brain will have a preference to seek that out and give more energy towards achieving those.
By not achieving set tasks you put yourself into a bit of a spiral where you begin feeling like you failed and because of that, you seek more pleasure.
This, in turn, would mean you could end up drinking, taking drugs, sleeping around, playing games, or just being stuck on social media for hours and hours days, months, years.
Most likely you have been in the situation once or many times in your life and from experience you know that as it continues to progress you seek more and more pleasure to help counter the feeling of failure and non completion.
So without further due let me share with you ways to increase your motivation, focus and ability to complete any if not all the tasks that you set yourself up to do.
Disconnect From Distractions
One of the biggest distractions to us as people these days are our phones.
After all at your fingertips, you have access to so many applications, games, social media, pornography, contacts and more which provide you with constant dopamine releases whilst using it.
The best thing we could possibly do is get rid of our phones but seeing as most of us will not do that, then it’s important to find a way to reduce the amount of usage you have from it.
This could be either by turning off all notifications so that you don’t get distracted while you are working, uninstalling unnecessary game apps, banning certain websites such as pornography websites.
The simplest fix you could do for yourself if you are not willing to do any of the above mentioned is to simply turn your phone on airplane mode and put it away somewhere out of sight for the period you set yourself out to work.
You will still have cravings to reach for your phone but as long as it’s out of reach and without any notifications to distract you can easily forget about it for a prolonged period of time
The same goes for your computer.
After all, it is most likely, not news that you might have checked out Youtube to watch one thing and three hours later you are researching things that you definitely don’t need in your life at this point in time.
You can install extensions to your browser to block certain websites. I like the Extension Block Site for Chrome and Brave (I use this browser because it’s safer, eliminates many distracting features on websites and very importantly it’s faster)
By preventing using certain websites you will force yourself to use only the websites that you require. This will make it easier to focus on what you need to do.
You could also have a laptop or computer that is specifically dedicated to working on.
By doing this you are not only programming your brain to simply work while it’s on but also prevent yourself from using it for entertainment purposes.
Another tip which you could use and is finding yourself a space in your house or an office which is dedicated to completing your tasks that you are working on. Distraction-free and only for working.
Again this is to program your brain to complete things whenever you are in that space.
And finally, use music that you only listen to during work. Something relaxing, simple that will help you focus.
It works on the same basis as when having specific gym music to make you work out harder.
I really enjoy listening to Classical and Frequency music.
Action Points to reduce distractions
- Mute all Notifications on your devices
- Delete and block unnecessary apps on your devices
- Place your devices on Airplane mode and place them out of sight
- Install a extension to block distracting websites
- Use a separate Device for working to insure to stay focused
- Find a space specific for working
- Listen to music that gets you in the mood for working
You don't have to learn everything
Learning a lot used to be a big problem of mine as I always found the need to learn more and more and in doing so I ended up knowing a lot but not completing much.
It would really hurt my motivation to complete certain tasks because I always had to see if what I learned was correct. Instead of doing anything I would just focus on learning more and more, and in the end I would have no results.
What I did to help out with the situation was unsubscribing from unnecessary channels, podcasts or websites that provided me with plenty of amazing information but unfortunately things that were not relevant to what you I was doing.
Try focusing on only one thing at a time, learn more about the topic and work with it until you achieve the desired results that you are after.
Afterwards, you can begin educating yourself in something different.
The main idea behind this is to literally empty your brain from unnecessary clutter which will constantly be disorientating you and distracting you from what you wanted to do.
Action Steps to increase focus
- Unsubscribe from unnecessary channels (youtube, Podcasts, Instagram etc.)
- Determine what you need to focus on most at the present time
If you don't sacrifice in your life the things you care about, the goals you care about will become the sacrifice
Consider The Foods You Eat
Now everyone knows the saying “you are what you eat” but the first thoughts that might come to your mind are health-related and or weight-related.
Did you ever consider that the foods you put into you can have an effect on your productivity and motivation as well?
After all, when you eat sugar people can get hyperactive and have a surge of energy which will prevent them from concentrating and seek distractions to use up that energy.
Another one can be alcohol which might be fun for the end of the week celebrations but due to its high sugar content and toxins (alcohol), you will find next day that your mind will be foggier, making it hard to concentrate.
Heavy foods can also affect your mood, in fact, if you have a huge meal you will feel sluggish, tired and mentally drained.
The simplest way to determine which food you should eat is by trying to reduce the ones that have a higher likelihood of causing any sorts of inflammation within your body.
These foods include sugary foods, processed food, bad foods (e.g. Pizza, Kebabs, Take away food)
For everyone it is different so I would recommend researching what foods affect you. You don’t have to go get scientific tests, you can simply just eat foods and record how you feel after them.
Once you get enough data you will be able to start eliminating the foods that affect your moods or productivity and motivation.
Now, something I didn’t mention is that your digestive system uses up most of your body’s energy.
If you add foods that are inflammatory, toxic or high in sugar then your body has to spend more time and energy on digesting and getting rid of these from your body.
In doing so providing you with less energy and also reducing your mental and productivity capabilities.
Now a solution to this could be to cut out all the foods that affect your mood, motivation and productivity.
But let’s be real here, would you really want to give up many of the things that give you pleasure?
So my suggestion is instead to try and minimise any food intake until you finish work.
This would mean that you wake up, do the number of hours that you set yourself to do without the hindrance of your body having to digest food.
This would also mean that you have all that energy ready to get pumped straight into your work.
Now it might seem like a drastic but reducing your food intake to after you finish work can have a significant benefit to your productivity and motivation throughout the day.
Afterwards, you can reward yourself with a meal of your choosing which will also be motivation enough to get you to do all the work that you require.
Action Steps to increase energy
- Eat low sugar, non processed and easily digestable food
- Figure out which foods affect your mood by keeping track of how you feel after each meal
- Eat after you complete all your work
- Reward yourself with your favorite foods on days off work
Find Fulfillment and Purpose
You probably have those memories of days where you would spend hours upon hours working, playing a game or doing something in which you were 100% immersed in.
You would do this activity without having a need for a break and at the end of the day you would feel joyful and energetic about the idea of doing it again tomorrow.
If you know what I’m talking about then you should look back on these kind of days and break them down to figure out what exactly were the things that motivate you.
This could be a great breakthrough for you for imagine what kind of pleasure it would give you if you were able to work on projects that you were completely interested in doing.
Like many people say, “Do what you love and you will not work a day in your life”
This in a way is true because you will always be ready to jump out of bed for another day but one thing to consider that even doing the things that you love will provide challenges which could impact your motivation.
By having the right fundamentals, such as no distractions, eating the right foods, focus on the task at hand and very importantly knowing what provides you a sense of fulfillment than it will make going through the difficult times much easier.
An example of something that gives me a sense of purpose and fulfilments is creating this blog.
For me learning information and then sharing it with others incorporates my curiosity for discovering new things and my willingness to teach others what I learned.
On top of that I like creating things, such as renovating properties building things or simply designing and creating websites.
With these three things in hands I am able to write large amounts of content for hours on end and have the motivation to continue writing regularly.
Action Steps to increase enjoyment in what you are doing
- Think of activities that you have immense pleasure in doing
- Figure out how you can turn it into a job for yourself
Delaying Gratification
Today it is ridiculously easy to go out to the shops and buy yourself foods, clothes or things that you like without having to work for it in the first place.
Which in turn means that you are rewarding yourself before actually doing anything constructive.
This, in turn, means that you get yourself used to this process of constantly rewarding yourself for the most insignificant things which in turn prevents you from motivating yourself.
I mean why would you motivate yourself and work if you can get just right away.
That’s why Amazon is so profitable because all it takes is a thought, then you tell Alexa what you want and the next day it will be delivered to your doorstep.
It’s a fantastic business plan but for the average person, it is a way to get hooked on constantly providing yourself with treats even if you haven’t done anything to deserve them.
If you do have a problem with purchasing things without putting in the necessary work than it might be a good idea to prevent yourself from purchasing more until you complete a set of tasks.
One thing that you will notice also is that by completing the set of tasks and then rewarding yourself is that you will value the reward much more.
Action Steps to increase enjoyment in what you are doing
- Set tasks to complete prior to rewarding yourself
- Don't address each one of your cravings whenever you get one by rewarding yourself immediately
Conclusion
In the end it is super important to work on your motivation.
This is because the more motivation you can gather and work unhindered the more you can do and achieve.
Obviously it’s not gonna be something that you conquer overnight, but the more you work on it the sooner you will be able to get better at it.
After all it always starts with the first step.
What I have provided for you a simple and manageable tasks that you could do today but as time progresses you will figure out ways that work better for you.
So, if you have found this article to be helpful in any way please make sure to share it with people who might need a bit of motivation boost.
Also if you use techniques to motivate yourself that they have in the mentioned in this article please leave them in the comments below as I would happily read over them
Infographic with more Motivation Tips
