I always thought motivation is the starting part and then follows the action.
I always waited for motivation to knock on my head for starting anything.
We are not always in a good mood or inspired or motivated, are we?
We feel sad. We feel dreadful. The days drag on, gloomy and melancholic. And on those days, we do not find an ounce of motivation.
The other days are equally tedious, boring. Nothing’s happening.
We think, today is not a special day, I will start tomorrow.
But tomorrow is never here. Is it?
Now what?
So many times, I have just kept aside so many things because I lost interest or motivation to accomplish or even start those things. Forgotten and kept in a “Need Motivation” box.
Learn a new language. Play the guitar. Exercise. Write. All safely kept in a “Need Motivation” Box. Sealed. Forgotten.
All lost because of a lack of motivation.
I wanted to know what makes us feel motivated. Inspired.
I read some articles and see what I found?
Motivation happens when our dopamine spikes because we feel something monumental is about to happen.
“Yes! I am going to lose those pounds by exercising.” A burst of dopamine!
“But I don’t want to exercise daily for 2 hours. I will start tomorrow.” Whoosh! The motivation is gone suddenly.
Does this happen with you too?
So I went ahead and started researching some more. And I found something helpful for a procrastinator like me.
When we achieve a goal or accomplish a task, we receive a gratifying hit of dopamine in our brain that tells us that hey! you’ve done a great job.
We can train our brains to feed off of bursts of dopamine sparked by rewarding experiences.
We become stealthy and create the dopamine environment for the brain, and the brain does the rest.
Sounds great, right?
But how to become stealthy and fool the brain to think that it is motivated. One way to achieve it is by setting small and incremental goals. Dopamine will flow as a result of your brain’s positive reinforcement every time you complete a step and meet a challenge.
Easy, isn’t it?
But, how to achieve this.
- Be a creature of habit. Break the big task in small, incremental goals.
- Spend only 15 minutes a day learning the language. Read 10 pages of that book in a day. Strum that guitar for only 20 minutes.
- Keep a schedule.
- Setting a schedule is simple. It relieves the brain from making trivial decisions like making a time table every day. When you start keeping the schedule for your tasks, your brain will not have to struggle to decide when to start. It can focus on better things!
- Complete the Tasks
- Now, you have a fixed time for your tasks. Your goals are bite-sized, chewable. The only thing remaining is to act and complete the task. Voila! You achieved a goal. Here is your burst of Dopamine for feeling motivated.
So what it was telling me was – “Don’t wait for motivation to start anything. Do something, anything. Work on some tasks, achieve small goals, the motivation will follow.”
The simple trick to stay motivated was not to chase motivation. Contradictory, isn’t it?
But I still went ahead and tried this. What was there to lose? I was anyways struggling to stay motivated. What’s with one more failed experiment?
I tried this and it works. Believe me, these 3 small steps work.
I have been keeping a bullet journal for the past 6 months and tracking my activities. I have added my daily time table to it. I have broken my mammoth goals to small incremental goals. I have added a habit tracker in it to ensure I do not miss any of my tasks because of a lack of motivation.
I agree all days are not equal. There are good days and then there are bad days. On those bad days, it is important to keep our heads high. I know it’s a painful task on those days. But what is life without these obstacles? It’s important to decide should we give in to these distractions or keep working to ensure that we are moving ahead in our life.
For the past few months, I have been following the below mantra. Try it. Maybe it will help you too.
Do something. Achieve Goals. Motivation will follow.
Bookishly 