You know those days when you have tons to do? Wash the clothes, wash the dishes, take the car to the shop, go pick up the dry cleaning, go grocery shopping, mow the lawn, etc.
“Meow gonna get any meow down to-meow. Might as well meow down now and meow the best of meow. Meow.”
It’s those days where there’s just so much to do, whether at work or at home, where it’s very tempting to just say in bed, pull the pillow over your head and sleep it out. Now, you know as well as I do that that is never the right choice! As good as it feels, we almost always regret it the next day especially when the pile of stuff we need to do just keeps getting bigger.
Here and now I want to help you get off your lazy butt and get some stuff done! That’s right! I’m being a little crude here, but sometimes we need that extra kick in the butt! Yeah! Here are three motivation pitfalls that you need to look out for and fix.
Pitfall #1: Empty Affirmations All Over The Place
Yes, I understand Jack Handy had a great little skit worked out on Saturday Night Live: Stand in front of a mirror tell yourself some cute things and the whole world will be awesome. Right? Wrong.
Affirmations are a very useful and truthful thing, but there are a couple things you need to know. They need to be tailored for you and they the need to be positive. They need to use language that moves the goal or the affirmation towards you (and I’ll explain that in a second). And, they need to be something that you believe!
All of that is all is pretty self-explanatory except for the ‘toward you’ part. Instead of saying, “I would like to move away from this house and go to a new one.” Say, “I will see myself in this new house within the next couple of months.” Now this is not a self-motivational affirmation there, it is more of a goal oriented affirmation.
But, the difference is your pulling yourself toward that goal as opposed to pushing yourself away from where you don’t want to be. Pushing yourself away from where you don’t want to be keeps your mind focused on where you don’t want to be. You want your mind totally focused on where you want to be.
Pitfall #2: Looking For Externals From Other People
Internal motivation is the key to everything. I understand that there’s a lot of factors that motivate people from the outside. These are the rewards, the “that a boys” from other people, and the feedback you get from the world that exists around you.
All of those things are external. But, if you’re on an empty deserted island and none of those things exist will you know how to operate? Of course you will! You’ll know how to survive. You’ll have that inner drive to “hey I have to eat”, “I have to build shelter”, “I have to get off this place”.
That internal motivation is what gets you to drive. If you can focus on building that alone, then you won’t need any of those external things to keep you moving. They will be nice to have, but irrelevant, because you have something better inside.
Pitfall #3: Not Truly Understanding Your Motivators
If you have kind of a wishy-washy idea of what gets you going, that’s not enough. Sure, you know that you like a pay check at work. But is that really what gets you to drive? Or is it just the fact that you’re getting rewarded publicly for the good work that you’ve put in?
Or, that the work you’ve done on your own has made such a difference in a large organization that it instills some kind of automatic authority in you? Or, some feedback that you appreciate as it verifies that you are useful as an individual. These are different motivators they are not the same thing. And most people will stop at the money or the wealth part. There’s more to it.
Jump and Be Motivated
Stay from the motivation pitfalls that can ruin your day, and seek to work away around them. Get away from the empty affirmations. Get away from looking for external motivators. And, get better picture of your internal motivation. There are quizzes, articles and all kinds of tools to help you understand your motivators.