4 killers of motivation and how to overcome them

Hey there! ??

Do you ever feel like you're in a constant battle with laziness and procrastination? Trust me; you're not alone. Despite what some may think, even the most productive individuals face moments of sheer laziness. Today, I want to dive into this topic and share some insights and strategies to help you overcome these hurdles.

Some people think I am this robotically productive person - jumping out of bed, taking a cold shower, meditating for 30 minutes, journaling for another 30, hitting a workout, and then ready to conquer the world each day.

Well, you may be surprised to hear how lazy I can be at times. It definitely ebbs and flows, but I am probably not any more naturally motivated than you. I may just do one thing differently.

In fact, when I was in high school and college, I couldn't have been lazier and less ambitious. All I cared about actually was partying.

And if I did have to submit work for a school that I couldn't somehow get out of by befriending the teacher or finding the test online, I would be procrastinating until literally the last minute and barely scraping by - no exaggeration - the teachers liked me but I wasn't a good student.

A lot has changed, and luckily in the world of entrepreneurship, there are a lot of highly lazy - highly successful people.

And this may not mean exactly how it sounds.

What it means specifically - and in my case - was that I was lazy - really lazy actually - in the areas I wasn't interested in or didn't see the point in learning.

But for the things I was interested in, I have always been really motivated and dedicated to getting better or understanding them.

This is one of the points we will get to below, but I think it's worth calling out. Most people aren't lazy across the board; they are just lazy when they are forced to do something that they have zero interest in.

And that was me - I didn't see how a college marketing course that didn't show a single piece of information on digital marketing techniques could be applicable in the real world. And the truth is - it wasn't. College is outdated and not about the information.

I am going to cover the 4 main reasons why we are lazy or procrastinate and how we can overcome them. For each, we will cover the root of the problem in most cases and then the solutions I recommend.

1. We don't know what we should be doing / or the order to do it in

Problem

What this means ultimately is - lack of clarity. It's really hard to make decisions without information.

And even that much harder to take action without some level of clarity. And what typically happens when there is confusion around making a decision - no decision gets made.

I see 3 things happen here regarding to information or learning what to do:

People take in too much information

People take in the wrong type of information

Or take information from the wrong people

When there are too many inputs, it's really hard to have a clean output. This is number one on the list because it's the one I probably struggled with the most. As you guys may or may not know - no one in my family had anything to do with real estate, and I was highly encouraged to be a teacher or accountant.

Nothing against either of those professions, but for anyone that knows me well, they just weren't for me.

In addition to not having real estate friends, most people told me I was insane at the beginning. Then when I did start learning - I was learning about 20 different strategies at once, it was a recipe for nothing to get done. Which is exactly what was happening at first.

Way to overcome it

Ultimately - doing something will always be better than doing nothing...unless it kills you, I guess.

I personally recommend getting a small base education first so that you can take action more effectively, but if you are the type of person who can just jump in and learn as you go, you will probably be just as successful.

If it were me, I would take about 30 days to consume a lot of content. The purpose of this would be to find 2 things - first an idea of what topics seem interesting to me and align with my skills and second - who are the top players in the industry.

From there I would narrow my topic list to 1-2 topics and 1-2 people in each industry that I want to learn more about. If I can talk to those people or pay to talk to those people I will definitely consider it, but it's not always possible. But you would be surprised, I have found mentors in almost any industry for free by providing value. And even got mentorship from one of them for free when he usually charges 50k.

Then I would commit to focusing on one category and trying to learn from 1 person or methodology for 90 days exclusively. Everything else goes on the back burner. As the saying goes, you can do anything but you cannot do everything.

And by focusing exclusively on an area for an extended amount of time, you will see that the tactics are usually pretty clear, it just takes some time to execute and build your lead and lag measures.

2. We don't like the activity or not good at it

Problem

This one's fair. There are a lot of things that suck - and tons of things that suck at the beginning.

Sounds simple. But the funny part is I bet you don't need to do 90% of the things you may hate doing in your business.

Now, for a lot of people - including myself - at the beginning, you will be doing everything. But by doing everything you will realize which things you don’t like because you are not good at, and you will realize which things you only don’t like when you are bad at them. It’s weird what happens when you start to get good at something.

But only at that point can you make the decision of what to do next....

The important part to remember here is that you have to recognize and admit you’re not doing something because you don’t like it. Excuses are usually what people say here - but until you admit that you hate cold calls, you cannot work on getting better at the problem or solving it by outsourcing.

Way to overcome it

Learn enough about it - then outsource it.

The biggest problem I made in this area was thinking that everyone liked and disliked the same things as me. If I didn't like writing emails, everyone else hated emails. If I didn't like making designs in Canva, everyone else hated that too. This is a really stupid way to think.

What I learned quickly after my first mentor and then after hiring employees is that there are millions of people who actually love everything you hate doing. You just need to find them.

Use tools like Upwork, Fiverr, onlinejobs.ph, and Facebook groups to find people who can be the integrator to your vision. If you don’t know what that means - read the book Rocket Fuel by Geno Wickman. Getting help in your life and business is one of the biggest hacks to happiness but so few people actually jump into it. I know it can be scary - especially for my control freaks out there - but at a certain point you need to realize something done is better than nothing done. And once

something is started it can be improved, but it cannot be improved if it doesn't exist.

So create your first project and hire your first contract employee. You may be surprised.

Okay let’s say it is something you really cannot outsource like making YouTube videos or starting a podcast - even though having a VA to help edit can be the difference for some people to get started - but let's say that's not the problem here.

In that case, you just need accountability. It can be free or paid but you need a buddy like a trainer at the gym who will not let you bail on your life when it gets hard. And it's amazing what we are willing to do for other people we wouldn't do for ourselves.

So find a friend, FB friend from a group, or pay a coach - but get accountability to push yourself - it can make all the difference.

3. We don't feel a personal why (deeper meaning why)

Problem

All this means is - do you have motivation? Do you have a motivation that will get you out of bed in the morning when it’s cold and early? This is about your vision. Your goals. Your dreams.

It’s all those good things. But it's also the people who told you, you would be a loser for life and should quit before you get started. This is your locker room material, your fuel when things get tough. This entire section can be summed up by this expression - good is the enemy of great. We need a reason to go after it. And most people settle at some point because they get comfortable. We all struggle with it. We have a goal, we hit it, we look around and say now what? A lot of people will just hang it up after that and go back to watching Netflix. But the people with a deeper why - get back to work because it’s not about a specific thing. They are also in love with the process instead of the outcome. Cheesy but it’s true for all the greats.

And some may disagree with this - but I think almost anyone can drum up a strong enough reason to do great things, way more than they ever expected of themselves.

Way to overcome it

Make a physical list. I have one. It's very personal, but I look at it anytime I'm struggling for motivation. It has 2 sides. One positive - with all the things that make me happy and things I want, and one negative - with all the things that bother me or make me angry.

No one has to see this list, and in a lot of cases, no one should see this list. It’s yours, it’s personal and in some cases, it can be a little weird lol.

And another thing - Don't let anyone tell you you shouldn't use negatives for motivation.

Tiger Woods, Lebron James, Michael Jordan, and Tom Brady are the best at what they do, and they are obsessed with finding motivation.

And since they have everything anyone could already ever want - most of their motivation is pulled from negative things or even petty things. It doesn't matter. They know this is what they need to get going. You need to find yours. Only you know what really gets you going and keeping that close to you is an incredible way to keep going.

4. We don't feel a connection to the end goal. (tactical why)

Problem

Very similar to 1 where you may not know the steps to take or what to do in general, we don't like following a plan we don't feel will get us to our goal. It's the reason sales teams are much more likely to hit a goal they believe they have a chance of hitting - they don't become demoralized. It's the same thing here.

I have a feeling for a lot of you - this could be the biggest obstacle. In my early years when I was the least productive with nothing really good going on - it was because I didn't feel like anything I was going to do - would get me to the outcomes I wanted.

Way to overcome it

I like to make a step-by-step plan for every project we take on. Basically taking a bigger goal and then learning about the tactics to break it down into smaller goals and tactics.

And then I like to show that plan to someone who has already done it. In some cases other people publish their plans publicly we can just model there's for our situation but that's not always the case.

Regardless - you need a plan. And in a lot of cases, the plans are published for very little amounts of money in books.

And you don’t need to know all the steps ahead of you - you just need to know the next one. It’s like driving in the fog, if you drive slow, you just need to see 10 feet in front of you. If you know you need to analyze deals to make offers, then you may have a lot more energy to analyze deals. If you didn't know that was the key tactic to make offers, you may not want to do it.

Conclusion and my current motivations

1. I have the self-awareness to find which of these reasons is causing me to be lazy
2. Once I have the awareness of why something is not getting done, I can trick myself into doing the thing or I will hire someone to do those things

Luckily - these are skills you can learn easily. I wasn't born with them, and they actually took a lot of unlearning before I could do anything.

Right now my motivations are continuing to remove the things or people that give me stress and then making money that supports my goals and lifestyle. For me, I want to be able to play golf every day at a country club - no matter where I am at - I also want to get back into competitive golf, and that means lessons - which are also expensive.

These are tactical goals that make my purpose of making money and putting out value worth it.

One additional note. This won't be for everyone, but…

I’ve realized that a lot of people who follow me struggle with one of two things (maybe both):

Not knowing how to analyze deals that would turn a profit on Airbnb (or where to find them). Let us help you get into your first (or next) Airbnb property - in 90 days or less (or you don't pay).

Struggling with the hiring process and can't find the right VA to help them with their business. Good news - we have a free training you might like that outlines our hiring process and covers the biggest mistakes I see people making when hiring an overseas person.