These 4 Ways of Thinking Are Draining Your Motivation
Nobody’s perfect and neither are you. Don’t try to mimic what others do, but find your own way
More often I have trouble finding the motivation to do about anything and are days that I just want to lay in bed on my phone or on Netflix. The sad part is that I’m not the only one.
Perhaps is a recent thing. You can’t get through a year like the last one and continue to have the motivation, right?
Or is something not so obvious, like a world dumped in a pandemic?
Don’t compare with others but learn from them
We are social animals, and we seek validation from other people around us. Thus, we seek to be like others to have meaning in our life. But you do this not because you want to evolve, you do it because you want to copy another person who is successful and is loved by others.
Why this affects your motivation? Because you see in others nothing but the good side and not the unpleasant side of it. You think that if someone makes it; you are not capable to duplicate the result.
That famous writer who makes 100k+ per year? You can’t be like him or her because you don’t have the skills or you didn’t read as much as them. That millionaire who spends his holidays on his yacht? You can’t be like him because your parents didn’t loan you a few million dollars to begin your business.
So you just sit in your bed and imagine how it might be if you were in their position. But you don’t know that the writer spends 10 hours per day writing and edit. You don’t see the millionaire alone on his yacht because he has the emotional availability of a 5-year-old.
You choose what you see in other people, and that is draining your motivation to get up and do whatever the hell you want.
It’s easier to find excuses that drain your motivation and that way you thank for your 9 to 5 work and a roof above your head.
But if you learn from those people you are too afraid to compare with, you’ll find something that they can teach you to become a better self.
Overthinking takes you away from today
Who doesn’t love to overthink every single piece of information or something that happens, obsessed about it, twist it on every side, to the point when you are so far that you don’t even know from where you start it?
Yeah, I’m that kind of person.
This is a modern problem, unfortunately. We received so much information day after day, moment after moment, that our brain can’t handle it.
If you think about it, is a modern problem. Do you think your ancestors spend a day thinking about what Laura from HR said in the hallway this morning?
The world bombards you with information every day, and your mind doesn’t know what to do with that information.
Some years ago I was inches away to get hit by a car because I had an argument in my head with someone with whom I had a fight an hour earlier. I want to thank the driver who could stop that 3 tons car before it made me one with the street.
The funny part is I remember every second of that scene, but even if you pay me, I can’t remember what that fight was about or what I imagined in those moments.
When you overthink, you’re running through your head every bit of information and you chew it mentally for every second of the day. You criticize your decisions, your actions, and your motives. And the most important thing is that you live either in the past or in the future, but you’re not doing anything in the present to change the future or make peace with the past.
Nobody has a perfect life
How can you get up and do something with your life when you see all kinds of people living their best life, having what you didn’t have in your life, and being loved?
Is hard to see how others have a better life than you and how you fight just to keep your head above water.
But is all a lie.
Nobody is perfect, and nobody has a perfect life. If you spend a couple of hours on social media looking at how others live their life, you will not have the time to accomplish your objectives.
So let others be and keep your mind on the thing you want to achieve.
Laziness vs. procrastination
Man, I love to sit around doing nothing all the time, and I don’t believe in procrastination. I believe this is a word invented by lazy people. I didn’t invent the word; I was being busy being lazy.
Laziness is the worst feeling in the world. You might say the broken heart is the worst, or remorse, or something else. But can you see how your life is passing by you while you’re happy to browse Reddit for 6 hours a day? Have you ever miss a job interview because that was on the other side of the town and you were too lazy to take a bus? I know I have more than I can admit.
Your laziness is keeping you from achievements you can only dream of.
Is easy to beat laziness if you want to.
That extensive project you need to do till the end of the week? Plan your moves and decrease the amount of work by making it in smaller parts that you can do in 20 minutes a day. That way your resistance towards the work will be minimum and you will feel the accomplishment of doing even one point in your plan.
When you do your daily 20 minutes word, avoid distractions. Put your cellphone on silent, block every social media you have on your computer. And most importantly, set a timer for 20 minutes. You’ll see that those 20 minutes will pass in no time and you will end up working even more.
In order to start doing what you want and increase your motivation towards doing it, you’ll have to keep in mind?
- Don’t compare with others. What others do is their business. You need to only compete to be greater than the previous day.
- Stop overthinking. You don’t live in the past either in the future. You only live in the present.
- Nobody’s perfect and neither are you. Don’t try to mimic what others do, but find your own way.
- Being lazy didn’t kill anyone (I believe), but why neglect something small that you can do today?
