Motivation is a fickle little creature. One day it is firing you up, holding you on its wings and not releasing until you’ve completed everything on your to-do list. On another day, it’s sitting there quietly reading a newspaper, ignoring your calls for immediate attention.
But it does not need to be this way. Motivation is like a restless kid — it refuses to play with you until you occupy yourself with something else. Then he wants to play, and he wants it now.
To trick my motivation, and have it at the ready, I started collecting useful gems on how to regain focus, feed my creativity and overcome procrastination. I look for things that excite, inspire, or infuriate me. I take part in self-inflicted challenges; I give myself promises and I create pacts with myself. And all in the name of unwavering motivation. And to boost productivity, of course!
My cherry-picked 19 motivational gems to help you beat inertia and overcome procrastination (fingers crossed):
1. Enjoy your sofa
This is one of my favourite super motivators of all time. I call it Sofa Day.
The rule is to remain on the sofa all day. Whatever you do, do absolutely nothing, and then you win this game.
The trick is that as soon as you allow yourself to do nothing, all sorts of ideas spring to your mind, like a flock of fluffy lambs, baaing and fighting with each other for your attention. I call it the lazy person's way to unlock the inner drive. Stay on the sofa to get motivated.
2. Get Positive
Those ‘feel-good’ chemicals are there for a reason. Not only do they make you happy, but they also make you more productive. Because a cheerful person is an active person, and vice versa. We lack motivation when we are sad, upset or overly anxious.
To regain your motivation, watch a funny video, swipe through some lovely photos, play with your dog, hug someone (not a stranger, they might not like it) or have a glass of water. Once you feel more positive, the chances are you will feel more motivated to work on your project.
3. Ask questions
Do you have a problem that needs solving but you procrastinate like a professional procrastinator? Why not use the Socratic method and start asking yourself questions about your topic/project/task?
Socrates has left this enormous legacy showing that not knowing the answer is not always a bad thing. Instead of enlightening his students by providing a direct answer to their questions, this strange man would pose a question instead. This ploy would deepen his student’s thinking process and inevitably bring a more insightful answer.
So next time you feel a lack of motivation looming over you, use the Socratic method and see if you can come up with something unusual.
4. Disagree with your own ideas
Have a debate with yourself. See what arguments you could create against your own great ideas.
“Intellectual humility helps to evaluate a broad range of evidence and become less defensive.” — Julia Dhar
In debates, you are often expected to come up with arguments for and against your case. This helps to make your voice and point of view less subjective and more dispassionate. Learning to make a reasoned argument is a good professional skill. But it could also help you in your daily life by broadening your horizons and making you a quicker thinker.
Julia Dhar, in her TED video, recommends asking yourself this question: ‘What is it that you have changed your mind about and why?’ This question will open up an internal debate and help you reconsider why you were so sure about your ideas in the first place.
5. Practice a bit of bibliomancy
If it’s a solution to a problem you are after, it might be beneficial to imagine where it could be hiding. Is it in a book? In a film? A video?
Take a random book and open it on a random page. Read the first line that catches your eye or randomly point at any line. A video — randomly fast forward, press play and listen to the wisdom being uttered by your favourite actors.
As an example, you need to come up with an idea for a social media post. Open a book on any page and read out what it says. Then spend some time thinking about how this passage could be turned into something useful. In the worst-case scenario, come up with a myriad of ridiculous solutions that should ignite your imagination and tickle your motivation.
6. Explore a new tool (software, game, book, etc.)
If nothing works, put all tasks and ideas aside and pick a new tool to test.
Are you into time management? What’s the latest ‘great’ tool on the market? Test it, try implementing it for your business or personal life.
This simple trick would help you access a slightly different part of your brain and trigger motivation from an unexpected angle. It’s all about novelty feeding our curiosity. And what could better spark our motivation than a genuine interest?
7. Define your superpower
Do you know what your strengths are? You might know that you are good at math because you are an accountant. But what about those small skills that you take for granted?
List down all the talents that you can think of. What comes easily to you? What colleagues ask for your help or advice? This exercise should help your creative juices flow at an improved speed. Because we remember our big and important skills and achievements, neglecting all the small but equally significant ones.
8. Complete a ‘done’ list
It might sound too boring or too trivial, but listing everything you’ve accomplished today could help your motivation.
Quite often, we undermine our own abilities, downplay achievements and refuse to give credit where it's due. It’s because we consider certain tasks too small, too easy or not important enough.
During this exercise, try to remember and write every small and insignificant task you accomplished: I made coffee, I put the washing machine on, etc. It will show you how much you’ve achieved and hopefully motivate you to do more.
9. Attend your personal Dragon’s Den
Pretend you are attending Dragon’s Den to sell or get feedback on your product, proposition, essay, or art.
How would you start your presentation? What would you say? What are your project’s strong points? Are there any weaknesses? How much money would you ideally like to get from Dragons?
Let your imagination go wild. Don’t stop and censor your thoughts. The likelihood of you wanting to work on your project straight after this exercise is high to super high. Trust me, it's a fun way to beat procrastination (or shall I say - sweat-provoking).
10. Count your pennies
Start counting how much money you could save if you put aside $10 per month. What about $15 or $20? Take a pen and paper and calculate the sum. Now try thinking about what you could cut back on to achieve this. If this does not motivate you to continue with whatever you need to be doing, then at least you’ve created a simple saving plan to rely on.
11. Become an imaginary podcast guest
Choose a podcast and pretend they have invited you to speak as a guest. Write about why you’d be an ideal guest. What makes you special? Then return the favour and tell the interviewer why you chose them, and why you wanted to be on this podcast.
How would you introduce yourself and your project? Would you start with a joke to break the ice? Would you list all your accomplishments? Have a play, and you’ll be surprised how motivated you will feel afterwards.
12. Write an acceptance speech
Imagine your project/task/product has won you an award. Imagine you won an Oscar, because why not?
Write your acceptance speech. What would you say? Who would you say thank you to? What else would you like to mention?
Now find a mirror or a pet and read your speech out loud. Give yourself that Oscar. It might be chocolate — because a reward is still a reward.
You sure thing should feel motivated after this fun endeavour. But if not, you would have at least had some fun, exercised your body, honed your focus and improved your reading comprehension. Because that’s what reading out loud is all about.
13. Have a nap
Oldie but a goodie. We all know how useful power naps are. Think Google and their sleep pods.
But new research quoted by Wired shows that a nap (or a bit of alcohol) can help with insights. It’s about that groggy, half-asleep or tipsy state where the magic happens. When we pay little attention to our thoughts, many images and associations might come out of nowhere. So next time you are bored or unmotivated, try to doze off and watch the magic unfold.
14. Listen to a random playlist
Choose a playlist you usually would not go for. If you are into dance music, listen to classical or lounge. A good thing about randomness is that you never know what sort of inspiration you might stumble upon. And as randomness has a close tie with creativity, you will inevitably come up with something fresh or brilliant or both.
15. Act out your downfall
Ok, this is a tough one. You need to brush up on your acting skills and fast.
Tell yourself that you are not only procrastinating but that you have already failed. Sit down with your failure. Imagine the worst likely outcome that could happen. Feel as sorry for yourself as you can. Be as sad as you can master, maybe cry a little. Watch this video if you need to learn how to act realistically.
Now that you’ve survived your downfall, go and do your thing.
16. Turn your life into a fairytale
What fictional character are you? What universe are you living in? What secret powers do you have?
Spend a few minutes coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas about yourself. Don’t be shy. Have you always wanted to have superpowers? Well, give yourself one. Or two! Dreaming about having wings and being able to fly up high? Now you can.
Make sure you do not stifle your imagination and creativity. No one needs to know, so why don’t you enjoy a few minutes living in this imaginary universe? My daughter wants to be a Spidey (Disney version of Spider-Man but for kids). If I lived in a fairy tale, I wish I had a magic wand - because whatever I do, however I motivate myself, the house does not want to clean itself.
17. Your project as a photo collage
Create a mood board or a photo collage of your project or a task at hand.
What images best describe how you feel? What images best describe how you want to feel once you are done with your project?
If you are procrastinating about applying for a job, browse the internet and find captivating images of either resumes or confident people who can help you land any job. Yet again, if you fail in creating earth earth-shattering mood board, you will at least get inspired enough to continue with your task.
18. Use ideation technique
Ideation is used in UX and design thinking to develop as many ideas or solutions to a problem that could later be tested and then implemented.
It might sound like a glorified brainstorming session. And it probably is. But applying a different approach or a lens to your challenge might help you move away from that ‘dead-end’.
Come up with as many ideas and solutions to your problem. Which two solutions would you choose to be tried and tested?
Once I heavily procrastinated when I needed to clean my house. I came up with 13 ways to do it. I then chose 2 to try out: clean during TV breaks and clean for a timed 15 minutes a day. I am thrilled to report that both ideas have passed my prototype and test phase and are now happily implemented within my weekly cleaning routine.
19. Have a coffee
You didn't expect that, did you? Too easy, you think? But coffee could help to kick start your motivation and creativity. First, it’s warming and nice tasting. Second, it helps to stay alert and focused and increases brain function, which in return could improve your productivity.
But also, according to a recent study, coffee aids problem-solving. So the chances are you will have a good time drinking your favourite beverage and solve a problem or two.
Final Thoughts
And there you have it. My 19 motivational gems to overcome procrastination and inertia, my super easy way to get motivated.
You don’t have to apply them all at once unless you want to. You could pick and choose a tip or two for whenever you need it the most.
Let me know if you have any other tricks up your sleeve to kick-start your motivation.
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