Self motivation, how do you do it?

[monaxlisa]

Originally Posted by zorana_dragonky

Oh man, I wish I had the magic solution to this problem.

PROCRASTINATION is my middle name.

SELF-MOTIVATION is nowhere to be found.

I am HORRIBLE at this. Even when it involves things I ENJOY, I am absolutely, positively HORRIBLE at this.

For instance, the suggestion about giving myself rewards... Who the heck is going to stop me from having a steak dinner right now? Or the awesome Hershey's Kisses right now? I don't have to wait until I'm done with this task I hate. The reward technique only works if you also have the willpower to deny yourself something you want! If I want chocolate or steak and I have chocolate or steak, the chances are... I am going to go cook steak or have chocolate. As you can see, the reward-oneself motivation technique does not work for me.

The suggestions of making lists don't work either. I make lists and then forget that I have made them, or forget to take them with me. I'll make a list of what I need at the grocery store, and then forget to take the list. Or, if I do take the list, I will still forget one or two things that are on it. It's horrible.

So basically I am absolutely horribly terrible at motivating myself to do anything.

One of the worst things is that I have this problem with feeling "obligated" to do something. It is pathetic. I even know that I do it, but I have a horrible time overcoming it. I love to give presents to people and to do things for people, but as soon as I feel like someone expects me to do something for them, all the sudden I don't want to do it. Or if someone expects me to get some task done (for them or me, whatever), then now I am obligated to do that thing and therefore I don't want to do it.

Stupid, huh?


Good luck motivating yourself! If you pick up any new tricks, let me know.

That's excatly how I am!!
Even if you don't have the magic cure I'm glad to know I'm not the only one like that.

Talk about frustrating!
I did like the idea of a daily planner, I'm not sure if it'll work but I'll give it a shot!

 

[enuja]

I've been having seemingly insurmountable problems with self-motivation (for thesis writing). I actually went to a therapist, who, just three days ago, suggested that I use a reward system. I'd never done it, for a variety of reasons including a lack of self control (would do reward without doing task).

My therapist suggested using a reward system anyway, and it's working wonders. I decided to use very dark chocolate, because it isn't nearly as tasty when I eat a lot of it at one time, but I love it in small doses. She had me define as a task "open file with statistics output" and other very small tasks, and I gave myself a reward for opening a file. It's been working splendidly, which seems kind of crazy to me. I think what happened before was that when I opened the file, I felt guilty that it had been so long since I'd opened the file, overwhelmed at how much I didn't understand the data we've collected, overwhelmed at how I was supposed to turn this into a coherent paper ... and all of this together made me quickly look away from the file, not work on it, and not even open it the next day. But, with the chocolate, opening the file made the think "Okay, open drawer, get out chocolate, put in mouth ... oh, wow, that tastes wonderful" which distracted me from having the cascade of fear and loathing. So, with the chocolate slowly melting in my mouth, I've been getting started on the doing the actual work. I'm fantastically happier in the last few days, and I'm finally staring to get some writing done!

So, MonaxLisa, I suggest you find a tiny reward (that you can do while you do algebra) and reward yourself for
1) opening the algebra textbook and getting out paper and pencil
2) reading one section
3) doing one problem
ect., ect.

Chocolate can't solve all problems (I was trying to learn R to analyze some of my data and make graphs, and that was a frustrating 4 hours full of procrastination because it was painful, confusing, and just full of syntax errors), but I'm definitely a convert to the reward system. Don't knock it until you try it!

One problem is that stuffing chocolate or other reward food into your mouth constantly isn't that healthy. I'm breaking the chocolate into very small pieces and I'm also using hard candy as a reward. I'm thinking of using sugar-free gum or knitting a row on a project (can do while reading, although not typing), and it is getting to the point where I need fewer rewards and I'm actually excited to open the file in the first place. However, I do like what I'm studying, so if I were you I wouldn't expect to be excited about opening the algebra book without a chocolate. But a piece of chocolate when you open the book and a piece of chocolate when you finish the amount of work you wanted to do in one day is probably a sustainable level of chocolate eating that you could simplify your reward system to, once it started working.