Hello, do you know any methods or techniques to have infinite motivation ?
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Iām not sure, but I like David Gogginsā take on the subject:
- There is no hack.
- Thereās no āmotivationā that suddenly appears and does the hard parts for us.
- It requires getting up and doing things over and over, and that process involves suffering. Sometimes the choice comes down to suffering while not improving ourselves vs. suffering while improving ourselves. The feelings are bad either way, but the latter choice offers potential.
- Mental strength comes from doing things we donāt want to do over and over and over.
- The brain has to understand that āthis is what we doā so that it sees the hard work as being the new normal. He talks a lot about not giving the brain any choices other than doing it.
- He has mentioned that he hates to run and stretch, but he does it every day, because doing things he doesnāt like to do builds mental strength.
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I started gamifying my life. If I eat healthy, I earn XP. If I exercise, I earn XP. But if I eat fries, scroll on TikTok, or do something I donāt really want to do, I lose XP.
I always try to see myself as a character in a game. For example, if Iām playing and need to kill 500 monsters to unlock a skill, Iāll do it, even if itās boring. Thinking of myself as a character and tracking my XP helps me push through boring tasks or things I donāt feel like doing but know are good for me.
To reach my goals, I need a certain amount of XP. Iāve been doing this for about six months now, and itās working really well. Right now, Iām at 893 XP. My goal is around 2000 XP. Of course, that number is just an estimate. I donāt know if reaching it will actually mean Iāve achieved my goal, but having an āendpointā makes the process much easier.
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Not sure what infinite motivation means. Motivation to do something really boring or repelling? Motivation to work 24/7? Thereās the danger to burn out yourself when you overdo things. Better look for just the right amount of motivation. But thatās just my opinion.
As far as I know, the best form of motivation is intrinsic. This means you enjoy the activity itself. Thatās easier said than done, though. Not every activity is fun, and not everyone likes the same things.
When you need some motivation, you could try the following:
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Find something you really want, but donāt have at the moment. A desire. Maybe you dream of becoming rich. Or you would enjoy to be famous, with people admiring you.
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When you donāt find a desire, you can also create one. Letās say you love to eat pizza. Or to scroll through social media posts. Stop doing it. (Donāt choose anything that takes a toll on your health, like reducing sleep.)
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Think of your desire for a few minutes. Imagine all that sweet money, fame, pizza or posts. Then look at your current situation. Tell yourself that you will have everything you want in the future, after you have achieved your goals in life. Reverse procrastination, so to speak. Do this on a regular basis.
The purpose is to build some frustration. When all needs and desires are fulfilled, it makes sense for an organism to go into an idle state. But when something is missing, frustration arises, making it easier to jump into action.
In my experience this can help a lot. Itās not a pleasant feeling, though. You will mostly feel unsatisfied.
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Thereās a free app that does something like that called Habitica. I used it years ago, but Iām not sure what itās like now.
I also just remembered another book that I liked: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. It gets some mixed reviews, but I found it inspiring. I got the audiobook version. I didnāt read the sequel yet, but I plan to.
Another technique that people might want to look at is time blocking (via Cal Newport).
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My solution is that even if I donāt feel like doing something, I keep repeating to myself: I do it even when I donāt feel like it, for example
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This Habitica app i just installed and is very good. I didnāt know that thereās something like that for free. Thank you for this!
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The Tools, by Phil Stutz. https://www.thetoolsbook.com/
Motivation is important to a certain extent, but if you have a goal and donāt feel motivated, donāt wait until you feel motivated to do it.
Doing the things you think are important to you is more important than waiting for the motivation to do themā¦ someone who works carrying sacks of rice doesnāt do it out of motivation, but out of necessity, even if they donāt want toā¦ which is why you must create the need to do the things that are important to you, the obligation and the commitment.
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Remember thisā¦ Motivation ceases, but discipline doesnāt. There will be times when you feel like you donāt wanna do it, motivation wonāt always help, itās just not how the human mind works. However, I know one idea that may help you have more motivation and more engaged.
Use the pomodoro techniques and within breaks, use the breaks not to watch shorts, maybe stare at the wall, or do something productive but not hard to do.
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I do not agree with you. What many people say about being disciplined or doing things when you donāt feel like it is really nonsense. You can manage sometimes with that mindset, but not in the long term. Thinking about your family who could die of hunger or something else is a motivation. Telling yourself that if you donāt do something youāll have regrets or miss an opportunity is also a motivation. If you had read the most famous book on gamification, youād know there are eight types of motivation, and without realizing it, we do use themānot all of them, but some in certain situations.
My take on this:
I will give you an analogy.
I have suffered from being overweight,not morbidly (about 67-70kg).That may not seem like a lot ,but I never exercised.So all of it except the water,bones, tendon mass, was plain fat.
I decided to before active,and run 4-5km daily.
When you start running,you notice some early changes.Face feels let bloated.Better sleep.
These are early signs, enough for you to get going for 3 days.
Not sure if I will be able to explain this.
For me motivation is all about noticing changes.
When I ran,some of them came early,then there is a period,where another change slowly builds up,and then you notice it when itās the time
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Isnāt infinite motivation same as compulsion? However if you are interested in highly robust motivation system than Intrinsic mativation is where you should research. Intrinsic motivation is nothing more than you yourself wanting to work on something without any external stimulus. It is same as you wanting to solve another maths problem in highschool after you realized that it was easy for you and assume you have certain talent for it. The best part of this phenomena is that you will take on another harder maths problem and start solving it all by yourself as a chain reaction to your previous experience with maths. During that very moment there is no friction(what if I could not solve it, Is it too hard for me, Was i mistaken) and mental energy is not scattered further decreasing cognitive load.
There could be various ways to reach this state but I know of one which led me there and that is competence.
What I did was take a very specific task (it was A minor pentatonic scale) and practiced it with a backing track for over a week. At one point I felt that I could just be certain of quality of A minor pentatonic scale over that track(how it felt). It gave me confidence to continue that pentatonic scale in low E string which is the thickest uppermost string in guitar. Than I tried to follow just that pentatonic scale omitting other notes in that string just by my preceived assumtion that I can distinguish pentatonic notes on their own. To my suprise I could do it. It motivated me to try this in other strings and I could do it. Thatās how I feel it but there might have been many instances where my thought of me being right on finding pentatonic notes was false but I did not care about it.
Intrinsic motivation is self re-enforcing.
So the steps are
1 competence
2 confidence
3 intrinsic motivation
Note that yo are not developing anything new here. The phenomena is already there and you are just creating circumstances which will lead you there. The phenomena happens and you are leading a situation for it to happen. So, you should work on competence enough to be confident in it and everything else follows. Hope it helps
Listen, in my opinion, I think that this issue of having infinite motivation does not exist, and there are no miraculous shortcuts to this goal. We can find some techniques to help us have more clarity and goals to be achieved. However, most of the time, motivation is like a family member who visits you sometimes but does not want to live with you. It is something fleeting. What you must actually have is clarity and goals to be achieved. If not, your brain will see no reason to continue doing that, and procrastination will soon come. But over time, procrastination and laziness will come. There are no ways out. You must exercise constancy and create the habit of doing that every day, being true to yourself. Remember that there will often be days when you will not be able to perform your tasks perfectly. Or you will forget something that was supposed to be done and did not do it, or due to the weather, you did not execute it at the time you established. This is normal. The important thing is to continue and adapt to the circumstances, because life is made of circumstances!
I like a quote from Bruce Lee, which goes like this: āIām not afraid of someone who has practiced a thousand kicks once, but I am afraid of someone who has practiced one kick a thousand times.ā
So, my friend, donāt depend on motivation, depend exclusively on yourself. Practice consistency, create habits, donāt take shortcuts, donāt think too much, just do it. And last but not least, the three biggest tips: practice, practice, and practice.
I liked how Lecunff said: donāt beat yourself up for procrastination, youāre shooting the messenger. Try to understand what your brain is telling you.
For example:
- Very often I donāt start because the first step is not clear. During the time I spend thinking how I should start, my motivation vanishes. Breaking tasks in small steps (even ridiculously tiny steps) helps a lot.
- Sometimes I donāt really have a plan so my brain isnāt actually convinced that what Iām doing is actually going to help me reach my long term goals. Or maybe I didnāt actually define any goals. Or maybe these goals arenāt really mine.
- Sometimes what I want is not actually what I want, but what other people think I should want (social expectations) or what I think I should want (wanting myself to be different). For example, I wish I would like exercise because I need to keep fit and itās a good thing to like sport. But forcing myself to do exercise I despise is not going to work. Itās only going to make me want to do the thing even less next time! Itās better to think through about how I can learn to like new things and introduce it in a way that is sustainable long term.
- Or maybe I donāt feel competent or that what I do will be any good (then I should build up competence first and/or ask for help).
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They Dont Know Me Son ! STAY FOCKING HARD
My take is:
Motivation is nothing.
Other possible interpretation: I have endless motivation to stay the whole time in bed.
Set a goal, break it down in sub goals and use a checklist to get an overview what you reached / had done .
If you use programs like habitica or write it in excel/google sheet etc.. is personal preference.
I personally use a wiki plugin that I write for myself.
This is because I can not only check what I done or not, but also can include more information or for books I can write on which page I am and so on.
Also it is possible for me to include small learning programs or links to usefull websites for my learning material.
That way I have everything context based in view without needing to search it everytime I want to access it.
Tip for āprocrastinationā:
- check yourself if your body say that this is now what you should do?
After 8 hours work going to the gym after that can be something you do not want (=no motivation) , depending on the work it is that you could need a time between work and gym. - you are not sure if you can reach the next goal.
then go and look if you need to break down your goal.
Learning a language : you set the goal to learn on day x a complete unit.
Today you have other also interests, maybe you should break that goal to complete one page.
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It really isnāt very straight forward. Most of the time people are talking about motivation, they mean a desire to do X Y or Z above all else. Itās fully conflated with āpassionā or āinspirationā and really what weāre asking for is a constant high.
Infinite motivation does exist, either through the lens of obsession presented to us with such lush green grass we call it passion while ignoring the dark side- to the point where even when it is recognized, we split it in two and act as though they arenāt the same thing.
ā¦Or through drug abuse, and Iām sure I donāt need to tell you the dark side of that path?
I donāt agree with the specific statements Goggins is making / being paraphrased on, but his overall message is pretty congruent with my experience. There definitely are hacks, and motivation is a very real thing. Iāve been dealing with depression for decades, and there are times where my motivation is so low I can just barely bring myself to eat peanut butter sandwiches. Anything more than that is too much effort, and I was only eating to give the illusion of normalcy to others.
Most of us already have enough motivation to do everything we want to, if only we change our expectations on what motivation actually is and we put a real effort into coaching ourselves. If there were 3 things I could get people to actually try, the first would be to have everyone just get started on whatever task theyāre putting off.
I find the mind is like a magnet- or maybe more like a compass. When you are pulled in two dozen directions to try and avoid something specific, just starting can align you toward that task. It doesnāt even have to be something with any real commitment or consequence. Scribbling when you were going to draw. Typing nonsense when you were going to write. Committing to washing 5 utensils when youāre going to do the dishes.
Your overall goal might be to do 30 minutes of this, 4 hours of that, or to clean the entire house but you can never finish if you donāt start. You might never start if you donāt give yourself an easy way in, and an easy way back out.
Each step of the way challenge yourself to do a little bit more: Youāve washed 5 utensils, now how about a cup? Done, awesome. Now a plate? So on and so on. If the point comes where you decide youāre absolutely done before your intended stopping point, assuming it isnāt something critical, then stop. Whatever, you still did more than you would have had you not started, right? Just make sure you get started again.
The second would be to have people change their mind on what sacrifice means. Not sure where I got this from, but someone pointed out that we look at it the wrong way around. You donāt sacrifice things like watching TV for your goals, you sacrifice your goals to watch TV. Little realisations / mentality shifts like that can make a huge difference in keeping motivated.
(Apparently I never actually clicked reply, and this has been sitting in limbo for over a month.)
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Great points. When I was stuck, unsure how to proceed during my doctoral research, I sometimes complained about feeling lost and unmotivated. A friend and fellow researcher used to respond to this with āactivation precedes motivationā.
The idea was that you canāt always rely on motivation to magically appear so you can get started, but if you just try to get started, motivation will likely show up as you build momentum.
So I found it super useful in those situations to sit down and write out one concrete ānext actionā, a concept also described in David Allenās āGetting Things Doneā book.
Thereās a Youtuber called James Lim who got me thinking about this stuff. In Youāre too intelligent to take action (Why overthinkers canāt execute), he shares a model of action that breaks our minds into two separate entities: the planner and the performer.
The planner makes plans for the performer, who actually does the work of executing the plans.
Something like this happens to us:
- As young children, we have weak planning skills, and rely on trial and error to get things done. As a result, the performer gets relatively strong.
- Then, as we move through the school system, college and work environments, more and more focus (and reward) is given to the planner. So we get good at making and describing plans, and it feels powerful and constructive when we do it.
- But as the plans become more ambitious and complex, the performer gets less time and investment, and when we (less and less frequently) actually give control to the performer, it becomes totally intimidated by these high-level, overcomplicated, overly-ambitious plans. It has no idea where to start, and it often responds by switching to easier tasks it knows how to execute, like watching Youtube videos or playing solitaire on your phone at 1am.
- The performer then gets negative feedback from the planner, who despairs at why nothing ever gets done despite producing all these impressive plans.
This model resonated with me a lot. Iām not sure I fully grasp the solution yet, but in the video it boils down to:
- Your performer is weak and you keep giving it unrealistically complex/difficult and vague plans.
- Instead, start producing MUCH simpler plans with:
- smaller, easily understood, easily-started steps
- clear completion conditions
- clear (or easily figured-out) next steps
- As you do this (and actually cede control more often to the performer), the performer levels up, builds confidence and becomes more able to tackle harder plans.
Thatās what I took from it anyway. Iād be interested in your thoughts on it.
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Hey, to create something better than infinite motivation is a self-renewing system that keeps you going even when motivation fades. Here below are some methods or techniques to have infinite motivation:
1. Start small
ā When you start new things, your brain feels good for taking action, and that gives you more energy to continue.
2. Remember your āwhyā
ā Always ask yourself, why did you start this? Why do you want this?
3. Keep a routine
ā Do it regularly at the same time.
4. Track Progress
ā Write down what you did and check your progress.
5. Do small steps when tired.
ā Small steps still move you forward.
6. Rest to recharge
Motivation dies when you feel tired, so take a proper break, sleep, and have fun.
Hope this will help you.