Motivation is something that a lot of people, including myself, lack. It doesn’t come easy and it is something that can hold us back from achieving our true potential. I am often in awe of the few students at university who sit at the front of the lecture theatre, record all the lectures, attend all the tutorials, and have their assignments finished a week early. But how do they do it and how do I become just as motivated as them? It’s that time of semester where I should be working on assignments but I just can’t seem to motivate myself to do some work. So in the name of self interest, I asked my friends what motivates them and here I have comprised a list of their responses.

Motivation tactic number one is action. A few people reported to me that if they just start doing what they have to do then they feel compelled to do more. Here is a response I received on facebook that I thought was appropriate, “If you get up in the morning and start doing something anything, you will find you are more motivated to do other things the rest of the day. But if you get out of bed and then go straight to the couch, more than often, that is where you will stay for the day.”  This is so true and it is such a fantastic piece of advice. Perhaps to get motivated, all you need to do is to stop thinking about all the work you have to do or everything that you should be doing and instead just get into it. Or as Nike would say, “Just Do It”.
But there are people out there who just can’t stop thinking about it all and get themselves all stressed out about the tasks ahead of them, and as a result they stop thinking about it all and avoid doing the tasks so that they don’t have to deal with those negative feelings. If you are one of those people, then the next piece of advice may just be for you. Another of my friends said that she finds some element of what she is meant to be doing that she enjoys and focuses on that until she gets right into it. The important thing to take out of that is to try and make your work FUN. Make of list of everything you enjoy doing to achieve what is ahead of you OR try to think of new ways to do your work so that you enjoy it. For example, when I have a huge assignment that I have to write, I find a park or somewhere relaxing to work to give me a change of scenery. It makes the tedious task of writing an essay, slightly more bearable. When I’m studying, I like to make big charts of notes with pictures or I’ll get with a group of friends to study. It makes studying enjoyable and I’ll actually look forward to getting into it. It could be something simple like taking your work to a cafe and doing it there, the atmosphere may be something that you enjoy.

There are also external motivators that can get people going. For example, competition was one of the comments I received about getting motivated. My friend said that he motivates himself by thinking of the people that he can beat by doing an activity. He likes to get motivated by thinking that the work that he is doing now will make him better than other people. This is a fantastic way to get motivated and is particularly effective for people who are competitive or who strive to be the best at what they do. Yesterday, this saying was passed onto me, “To have what others don’t have, you have to do what others won’t do”. That involves working late nights making sure that your report is perfect, doing that extra bit of study each week, and getting started early on the work that you have to do. Motivate yourself by competing with others. Pick one person in your workplace or in your class that you want to be better than and this will get you hyped up to do the work to achieve your goal.

I have summarised three simple techniques to get yourself motivated to do the work that is required of you. The first is action. Just start doing what you have to do and you’ll find that it will push you to do more and get going on other work. The second is to make your work fun, rather than thinking of it as a chore and finally, compete with others. Think about the people you want to beat and this will get you geared up to perhaps go the extra mile.

This is not an exhaustive list of what you can do to motivate yourself, so now I pose the question to you and all your friends. What do you do to get yourself motivated?

Get involved in the discussion. Let’s see if we can make the most comprehensive list on the net. So that when people are feeling like they have no drive, they can read our comments and get psyched up about doing their work. I could have referred to the academic theories about motivation for this post, but instead I wanted to make it personal, and from the people’s point of view. So make your contribution to the list, by including a summary of how you motivate yourself when you just can’t seem to get started on it all.

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