What strategies or advice do you offer for regaining motivation and finding your enthusiasm when it wanes? How do you personally tackle periods of low motivation and rekindle your drive?
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Top comments (16)
Motivation comes naturally if you are in good health.
Only if you lack the energy / sleep / rest does you productivity and your natural drive to do something suffers. If you are full of energy you motivation to do something will come naturally.
Tier 1 - General health advice
Tier 2 - Health advice geared toward people doing creative/mental work
Tier 3 - Stoicism / Asceticism
If you have the drive, ambition and willpower there are more drastic measures one can take
Would you also classify LinkedIn and online forums as social media platforms that should be avoided?
Depends if you get value out of it.
Linkedin is very much an echo chamber / a way to impress hr with corporate speak and being a obedient employee and accepting any and all corporate bullshit without any complains. If you work in HR then Linkedin is a valuable tool for recruiting and filtering how much people are malleable to your corporate thinking.
I found this tweet pretty funny and I think it captures the spirit of corporate culture very well
twitter.com/roshanpateI/status/171...
Same with online forum - it depends.
After you spend 1-2h browsing it through, have you found a different perspective new way of thinking or knowing about something ? Do you find this new findings valuable? Does it give you satisfaction and fulfillment? The hard thing is being conscious enough to be able to answer this questions and doing things consciously and not mindlessly.
The best way is to back off from the main focus area a little bit and switch gears. It really helps. Just donβt go too far away. In my experience, reading helps (fiction especially), arts (like playing music instruments, singing, drawing) does great job, physical activity (not boring fitness but rather traveling, walking, hiking β that is changing perspective at least a little bit) is one of the best, healthy time with your family and friends, or even rewatching a favorite flick or series. Rinse and repeat.
When youβre back, youβll either gain the lost energy to do your thing, or will get a power to say the last goodbye to the project that doesnβt spark joy for you anymore.
When low on motivation, sit and give yourself a micro task regardin problem that is in quetion. Then you can have positive feedback feel when it is done. Another one will be easier. In time you can tackle bigger and bigger problems like that, motivation is for week, learn to become master.
Yes, I've heard of this. In a different way, but this is a good one. What I've heard is - if you have a larger project you're working on - also work on a smaller side project. Because if you cannot find the motivation to work on the larger project, you can switch to the smaller one and by the time you switch back you'll probably be more motivated.
It's a good idealism =)
A few thoughts that I hope help.
I try to motivate myself studying another areas, like literature or history, and frequently end up finding some intersection between what I am studying and software. Those insights make me think there's a lot to be done yet and it makes me regain drive.
Does prayer work? Cause I wanna say prayer.
But probably more so finding a way to re-cultivate hope. Right? You can use this idea in any situation. As long as people can sustain hope in something, they can place effort into it. So just finding personal habits to establish this, however one finds it, would probably be the best answer. And of course, that answer is personal. Some people like to be alone, some people like to be with others. Some people like to mountain climb, and some people like to help food pantries.
But equally, some people find motivation in tenacity and will lean into a problem until something clicks and that motivates them. If relationships have waxing and waning aspects, it can be assumed that this trait repeats itself in all things. So some times you'll be more motivated to do something, and other times you'll not be. I guess it's just important to note when things start to drag too often. Because that usually is the sign of something needing to be changed.
So there's my relatively abstract answer, enjoy!
Simple things like books and movies can help find your motivation. Chariots of Fire (movie), Seabiscuit (movie), and Zen Pencils - Cartoon Quotes from Inspirational Folks by Aung Than (book) are useful.
Motivation is not a constant thing that is always there for you. It comes and goes, and comes and goes again, like the tide. But realize that while it may go away, it doesnβt do so permanently. It will come back. Just stick it list of phobias out and wait for that motivation to come back. In the meantime, read about your goal (see below), ask for help (see below), and do some of the other things listed here until your motivation comes back.
when I loose motivation I just tell myself that I have to do this task for 5 minutes. just five minutes and that's how everything gets in the flow.
Do you consider this a regular rule or only when you have a deadline?
Usually when I have deadlines because that time I have no other optionπ
This is a good one, start small, focus on making small progress, its better then no progress.
Sleep enough π. I find it the best remedy to stay positive and motivated