Five Keys to Finding Motivation

photo by istock

Earlier today I was really unmotivated to write a blog post.

But as you can see, I went ahead with it.

Most days I talk to at least one person who is having a hard time getting motivated. Motivation is one of those things we can never have enough of. Often it becomes impossible to find when there’s a task ahead that is either daunting, dull, confusing, or uncomfortable. And sometimes we’re not motivated to do anything, even something fun, because that’s just our overall mood.

Where there’s a will there’s a way. But what if there’s not much will? Then what?

To illustrate the keys to finding motivation, I’ll use an example from a client I spoke with a couple of months ago, whom I’ll call Sarah, who was having trouble getting started on finding a camp her 11 year-old son could attend for a week this summer.

She knew she had to get going on this, but she kept putting off doing the research because she felt it was tedious, she worried she was too late, and she had a million other things to do.

The Five Keys

1. Find the meaning

Figure out why you care that this task gets done. The tricky part is to connect the “why” to a deeply-held value.

Sarah wanted to find a camp for her son for several reasons, the most important one being that she valued giving him experiences that would help him gain independence and a sense of confidence. She also felt strongly that summer camp activities would be a lot of fun for him, and she believed that in today’s over-scheduled and stressful world, kids need all the fun they can get.

External motivators, such as money, typically don’t have enough oomph to feel motivating. But when something that is intrinsically important to you is at stake, it’s much easier to commit to following through.

2. Change how you do something

Sarah’s usual M.O. is to attack a project and work it through until the smallest detail is done. She was picturing setting aside a couple of evenings to research camps, talk to other parents and talk with her son, but she couldn’t find so much open time on her calendar.

We came up with a plan that reduced the tasks and spread them out over a week in small chunks of time so that the project would appear much more doable. Suddenly she wasn’t feeling overwhelmed by it.

You may be feeling unmotivated because you’re imagining steps in the task that don’t play to your strengths, that are too complicated, that are too numerous, and so on. Look at how you might change your approach, delegate, or re-design the work.

3. Visualize the outcome

Sarah was spending all of her mental energy fretting about the research and none of it on imagining how great a summer week her son (and she and her husband) would have.

Early April in Seattle is still cold and grey, and it was very hard to picture a sunny week in July or August. So Sarah took just a few minutes on the days she scheduled to work on the project to imagine how excited her son would be about summer camp, as a way to boost her enthusiasm.

4. Choose to do it

How many times a day do you tell yourself that you have to, must do or should do something? It is hugely unmotivating. If you can shift your language and choose to do something, it feels much more empowering.

It sounds kind of silly, but try it and see what happens. You move from complaint to positive action just by changing from “have to” to “choose to”.

Sarah realized that choosing to do the work to get her son to camp automatically connected her to the meaning attached to the task. Bonus!

5. Just do it

Sometimes it takes good old-fashioned discipline to get started on something you’re just not feeling motivated to do. Schedule the dreaded task first thing in your day and commit to working on it for 15 minutes. Then reward yourself for a job well done!

How I Used These Keys Today

How did I find the motivation to write this blog post?

First I reminded myself why I care about writing this blog – I want to connect with sandwich generation women and offer solutions and support. I challenged myself to get it done in less than 90 minutes, which lit a fire (or at least created a few sparks!) because I work well with deadlines. I also incorporated a “Just do it” mentality and opened up a blank file and simply started to write.

What are you trying to get motivated to do? Please share!