How I find my Motivation

When all the issues are piled up, all the responsibilities flooding in, and all your friends are doing something fun, getting done what needs to be done becomes incredibly difficult. Setting aside the time to put the work in necessary to achieve whatever goal you have set for yourself is rarely an easy task. Unless you only get pure joy out of the activity itself, there is always going to be some thought in the back of your mind telling you to just relax, it’ll be there later.

I struggle constantly with my own internal and external battle to find time to do the work I know needs to be done to achieve the results I’m looking for. So often it seems that successful people have no issue finding the motivation to get their work done. There is no way this can be true. Everyone has those moments of sloth. Where all you want to do is shut your brain off and watch an entire season of The Office. So for me, I must set structure to my motivation.

Discipline is not something that comes easily to me. I do not have the laser focus of a Theodore Roosevelt that can get so immersed in a book he reads it overnight. I have to put guidelines on myself to make sure that I stay focused. If I want to read more, I set a timer for 30 minutes every single day that has to be taken care of. Whether traveling for work, on vacation, or overwhelmed by other responsibilities. It’s an everyday thing. This is how I structure my motivation.

Anytime I don’t want to do what should be done, I think about the negatives. I think about the positives. I think about what might happen to me if I decide to slack off. Will I achieve the dreams and goals that I have set for myself. Asking these simple questions when I don’t want to put in the effort is what drives me. How is this laziness going to turn me into the person that I want to be? It won’t.

These questions and these activities are a constantly moving target. I’m never perfect on asking or answering all of them. But I always make sure to remember that end goal, desire, dream, job, whatever, and bring close to heart the reality of what needs to be done.

So, how do you keep your motivation?