Dear Friends,
Do you ever get stuck and can’t seem to get motivated to do what you want or need to do? That’s where I am right now. I can’t seem to get back into my groove after spending almost two weeks visiting family in California. Sure, some of my lollygagging can be written off to jet lag and having to take time to resolve some issues that arose while we were away. But I only have a few more days until I have to return to the office and there were certain goals I wanted to achieve before then.
Fortunately for me, our mid-century mentor Alfred Armand Montapert, shares with us 24 ways we can get motivated in his book Success Planning {Confidential}:
- Put your plans on paper. Spell out goals and ways to reach them.
- Be specific. The advice you give yourself must be such that you can put it into practice.
- Break the job down into small enough pieces so that you have no excuse for not starting it (emphasis added).
- Establish checkpoints so that you can check your progress.
- Remind yourself of benefits you expect from completion of the job.
- Avoid temptation by deliberately avoiding circumstances or thoughts that might sidetrack you.
- Recognize your limitations. Don’t set goals you don’t expect to reach.
- Take advantage of energy peaks, those periods of the day when you are habitually in top form.
- Take risks. Don’t be afraid to try new methods.
- Use negative motivation. Remind yourself of the unfavorable consequences of inaction.
- Keep a time-control budget, comparing the priorities of various projects in progress.
- Set deadlines and hold yourself to them.
- Make an honest distinction between “I can’t” and “I don’t want to.”
- Get started. Don’t stall.
- Improve your self-persuasion ability. Learn to know when you are reasoning and when you are rationalizing.
- Be optimistic, and your chances for success increase.
- Decide how you want to start, what needs to be done first.
- Read, especially literature related to your problem.
- Use self-signaling devices-notes, cues, reminders.
- Promise yourself rewards–small rewards for small accomplishments, big rewards for big accomplishments.
- Use the stimulation provided by good news to do extra work.
- Recognize conflicts and make a choice. Don’t let inertia set it.
- Give yourself the right to make mistakes. No one is perfect.
- Exercise your sense of humor. Laughter indicates a realistic point of view.
The most common advice given to writers is to “just write.” And so, I’m using Mr. Montapert’s suggestions of making a distinction between “can’t and not wanting to” and “to get started” to get myself unstuck. This isn’t the blog post I had intended to write today but it is the one that will help me overcome inertia to finish the more complex posts I’ve been working on for several weeks.
And I’m employing humor to clean out the refrigerator. Because, I just have to laugh that The Mister thought it was okay to put the pan with two bites of chili in the back of the refrigerator before we left town for two weeks (and before you say that I should make him clean it out, I have my own share of “science projects” in there, too). It isn’t that difficult of a task to clean it out and I’ll feel better when I just get it done. (Update: It wasn’t difficult at all, actually. There were only a couple of things that needed to be tossed. I had forgotten that I had planned ahead so that there wouldn’t be any–or only a couple–surprises upon our return from California…I was using all sorts of “avoidance energy” for nothing!)
Just writing this post already makes me feel better. It may not put me completely back in my groove but it makes me feel hopeful that I’ll slip back into it again.
Are you feeling stuck? Which strategy do you think will help you get unstuck? Share your ideas in the comments section.
To your fabulous Technicolor life!
Dr. Julie-Ann
Image credit: Fels-Naptha soap advertisement, June, 1924; Image courtesy of AmethystA2 on Flickr.com
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Betsy says
Glad to know I’m not the only one who has a hard time getting motivated! My will-power hit such a low that in the last couple of weeks I purchased two audio-books on CD from Amazon, and they have really helped me. They are both by Brian Tracy; “No Excuses! The Power of Self-Discipline” and “Eat that Frog!” They are available in book and other formats as well, but I enjoy listening to the CDs as I drift off to sleep at night. Mr. Tracy has a very calming, pleasant voice but his words are definitely motivating and I’m starting to get things done that I have procrastinated about for a long time. Much of his advice is very similar to Mr. Montapert’s. I am going to check online and see if I can find his book “Success Planning”. Thank you so much for always inspiring us, Dr. Julie-Ann!
Dr. Julie-Ann says
Thank YOU for the book recommendations, Betsy! They look interesting and I’ve downloaded the samples of them already.
Maria says
I’m totally with you on the “we both live here, so we are not going to argue about whose is whose” method of doing chores such as cleaning out the fridge. 🙂 For me, the biggest motivator at the moment is that here on the east coast the summer is really short. My reward for getting moving and getting things done is more time to enjoy the sunshine. I don’t know about you, but I have a way of “punishing” myself without even knowing I’m doing it, so I find myself procrastinating reading Facebook or something and then dragging myself through a few chores — and then getting to the end of the day dispirited and mad at myself because I spent the whole day indoors. Instead, I’ve started trying to plan my days off with what I WANT to do first (like spend a couple of hours on the deck with a book) and then work out my have-to-do list to accommodate it.
Rose says
This is the perfect post for me today! Thank you! One practice I’m working on is removing the “shoulds” from my to do list. I put together the list, and then I highlight the items that I really want to do, either because I think they will enhance my life or the life of someone I love or my community, or because I think I will enjoy them, The ones that are on there because someone somewhere might think I should do them get crossed off before I waste energy avoiding them. Leaves more energy for the good stuff!
Lisa says
Thank you for writing this post.
I certainly have what we name in our family as the ‘dropseats’. Grandma Smith used to say, I just don’t know what was the matter with me today . every time I saw a chair , I just had to drop my seat in it 🙂
I currently have tomatoes in a pail needing to be canned.
I WILL do them today !
Dr. Julie-Ann says
You can do it!
(and I might steal “dropseats!”)