Motivation? Hard pass!
By: Klára Kőszeghyová
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Motivation, Productivity, Work

Why do I need drive?

We all want to be more motivated, more productive etc. But we are forgetting that motivation is crap and I’ve learned that the hard way. As a college student, twice a year you get exam period, where you need to learn materials worth 3 months. And I think that most of college students will agree with me when I’ll say that procrastination is a dear friend and even trying those motivation tricks is doing nothing to us. Let me explain the thing about motivation.

Let’s say that I want to study or go for a run. When I want to study, I prepare water and coffee, or tea and I start studying. But since I am only human, my focus will last maybe an hour and then I need to switch to something else. Then once again I need to find motivation, which is hard for me. I asked myself the question when I am able to study and when I am not. I found out that coffee and water is a must for me, but I would be freaking crazy if I were to drink so much coffee and water that I wouldn’t move out of the toilet, right? And as soon as those things run out, I am out. I need to go and fill my water bottle etc. But that cannot go on. So, that when I understood my brother. How about I would drive myself into studying by changing my mindset? Maybe I don’t need coffee and water at all. Maybe I can do it without them, and it will be better because then I will have no distractions.

After couple sessions when I didn’t have coffee or water, I started to see it. My focus was indeed lasting longer. But it is not just about the things that make studying or whatever pleasant. It is about you.

To explain the jogging example. Let’s say that the weather is nice, and you feel motivated to go for a run. You change into jogging clothes, prepare all the stuff that you usually take, open the door and it seems it will rain. What does a motivated person do? Shut the door and go back to doing everything else, just not running. What does a person with a drive do? Grabs waterproof jacket and goes running. You stay motivated only if certain variables stay the same, but your drive doesn’t rely on such things as variables. It relies on your want and need to achieve things, to get better, to lose the weight, to learn the language etc.

Long-run game.

Most of us are playing the short-run game. We are focused on big goals in a short time, for example lose 20 kg in two months, or something similar. But the thing is that we often lose our drive to achieve this because we miss one workout, or we have two cheat days instead of one etc. But if we would to change our goal into a huge one in long period, let’s say years and then break it down into smaller goals, for example one for each one, two month or half year, we wouldn’t lose our drives so quickly, because we would have time to adapt and to fix our mistakes. Let’s say that in one week you would cheat twice, but the next one you wouldn’t at all, or just once and you would manage to get back at the right track.

This principle can be used for basically everything in our lives, we just have to think about it in a correct way. We have to learn to set up correct goals for us to achieve in an appropriate way, otherwise even the most motivated and driven people will fall right down. Trust me. I did.