Six Tips On How To Motivate Yourself To Work When You Don’t Feel Like

Key words;

How to stay motivated.

Tips on how to stay motivated.

If you’re wondering how to motivate yourself to work, you’re not the only one. Being unmotivated really is no fun. You know you have work to do, but you just can’t drum up the motivation necessary to get it done.

While there’s no silver bullet solution, there are a few ways to motivate yourself to get to work. We’ve all been there. You’re sitting, staring at your blank screen dreading the thought of work. New emails keep trickling in every few minutes. Your To Do list is getting longer and longer. Your boss is wondering where the Michaels’ file is and you’re just doing… nothing, or just probably observing.

I once read “The War of Art” ” Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles”, author Steven Pressfield said, “It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’shard is sitting down to write.”

Everyone faces resistance, but you do not have to allow it to define your reality. You do not have to accept “I don’t feel like doing anything” as an obstacle you cannot overcome.

In fact, there are some very practical things you can act on today or the next time you say to yourself, “I don’t feel like doing anything,” that can transform your productivity.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a designer struggling to get inspired or an office worker facing a massive pile of files.

These tips to get motivated can help.

1. First, Do It Badly;

Perfectionism is one of the biggest causes of demotivation. It’s really bad among writers.

You kind of want to work, but because you feel like what you’re producing is utter crap, you can’t bring yourself to do it.
The trick here is to decide that the work you’re doing isn’t final: it’s the first draft. It doesn’t matter if it’s bad, you can fix it when you edit. All you need now is a base, no matter how terrible—to work from.
While this trick is super popular with writers, it works for pretty much anything. Whatever the task you’re procrastinating from, just decide you’re going to do a bad first pass or create a super rough outline.

Once you’ve got something or anything done, you can start to build from there, Just do it.

2. Break down big goals;

It’s a pretty huge mountain, i know. But waiting until tomorrow, or when you have the perfect pants, or the right color pen is not going to make the mountain any smaller.

You know what will make the mountain smaller? Chipping away at it. So cliche, right? But with good reason.
Before embarking on a project, it’s important to break it down to its simplest form, bits by bits. For instance, cleaning the kitchen after a dinner party. Yes, I know, hire a cleaning service would be simpler. But it doesn’t help my example. So back to the kitchen cleanup. Take a few minutes to create a list and tick it off as you go:

Pack away or throw out all non-food-related party decor.
Clear plates and cups of food and drink.
Pack away leftovers, if any.
Rinse dishes and place them in the dishwasher.
Get the dishwasher cycle going.
Wash remaining dishes, set to dry.
Clean counters of clutter and give them a wipe down.
Sweep the floor and wipe other surfaces.
Mop floor, clean sink, and pack away cleaning materials.

Seems simple enough but until you can see a project broken down in its smallest details, it’s hard to think of the finished line.

Any project can be broken down this way and if you still find it hard to get started, it might not be broken down enough. Take that first step and see if you can break it down some more, it would be super helpful.

3. Be Inspired;

Someone has been in the same position you find yourself in right now. Take comfort in the knowledge that you are not alone.

You are not broken. You are completely normal. Others have found ways to connect with their motivation and move forward towards accomplishing their goals. You can do it too. Be inspired by their examples.

4. Stop Fantasizing and Day dreaming;

As a kid for instance, your schoolteachers and parents likely told you that you could accomplish anything in your wildest dreams. While having an idea in your head of where you want to be in life is a helpful part of establishing your goals, don’t get too carried away with elaborate fantasies.

If you spend too much time visualizing your success in your head, you may begin to feel a false illusion of achievement in the process. You can’t expect to get off of the couch when your daydreams leave you feeling like you’ve already achieved the rewarding feelings of success. If it takes you to shun any form of imagination that’s probably empty with no actions do it.

5. Reward Yourself for Accomplished Goals;

We all need to slow down for a second and celebrate our accomplishments. This doesn’t mean skipping out of work. Rather, it’s taking a beat—and sharing the news with another coworker, your mom, or your significant other, a friend e.t.c.

We work hard every day. It’s easy to get so lost in a comparison trap and forget to celebrate our own accomplishments. Try it out. Go back over your last year and point out your accomplishments. What did you achieve in your first three months at your position? Your first six months? Take note. It’s never too late to celebrate—even retroactively.
But seriously, get in the habit of celebrating—or at least acknowledging—your successes. Write them down. Share them. Give yourself the pat on the back that you deserve.

6. Give Yourself Permission to Do Something Else;

If all else fails there’s only one thing left to do: step away and do something else productive or something you actually want to do.
Time spent procrastinating mindlessly browsing Facebook to dodge work is completely wasted. You don’t want to be on Facebook, you’re just not motivated to work. If you’re not getting anywhere, then give yourself permission to give up and go and do something worthwhile.

Now, the key here is that the alternative has to be worthwhile. If it’s not, you’ll just feel bad about skipping work. However, if you clean your house from top to bottom, read a good book, or hit the gym, you’re actually using your time well. It’s basically positive procrastination.

While this option should definitely be part of your playbook for dealing with days when you’re completely unmotivated, it absolutely shouldn’t be your first play. If you take the easy way out and just start cleaning every time work drags a little, then you’ll never get anything done. This option is for the one or two days a month when you’d really rather be anywhere else.

Conclusion

Whilemotivation innovation vies for your attention, stick to the basics and kick it old school with your calendar and magic marker. If you’re really serious about ticking off those goals, put to practice these points with your consistency in place, it’ll work for you!