07 Feb 2013
Belle
Motivation
Tonight, I’m really tired. Annoyingly, painfully tired. The kind of tired where I’m grouchy and impatient, where I’m yelling at the kettle for not boiling fast enough and I’m bumping into walls that have always been there.
I don’t feel like doing any work tonight. I don’t even feel like doing anything fun. I cancelled dinner with a friend and very nearly went to bed at 6pm without doing a single productive thing after leaving the office.
And yet it’s almost 7pm now and here I am, typing this post. This dilemma of “do I give up and go to bed, or do I buck up and get something done” made me wonder what motivates other people to get things done when they can’t be bothered. Especially “after work” things[^fn1]. Tell me if I’m mistaken, but anything done outside office hours that could be categorized as even faintly “productive” appears to be the most difficult kind of work in my experience.
So, in the interests of honesty and openness (or simply navel-gazing, if you so choose to see it that way), here are the three biggest things that motivate me:
1. Guilt
As much as I hate to admit it, this is seriously true. I have a most shocking habit of creating self-induced guilt over not working hard enough, or spending any time at all relaxing (AKA “not doing anything productive”). In fact, self-induced guilt is probably what motivated this post, in truth.
2. This quote:
If it’s important to you, you will find a way. If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse.
If you know who said/wrote that, let me know because I use it all the time. It’s one of my favourites, particularly when I need a good dose of motivation.
3. The pursuit of achievement
I’m a big fan of achievements. I pretty much base my entire Scale of Self-Success (an excellent, alliterative phrase that I just made up) on achievements[^fn2]. Every time I publish a blog post, I feel a little sense of achievement. So, knowing that it’s likely I’ll get that little rush makes it easier to get started, even when I’m battling heavy eyelids.
Maybe none of those things work for you. I’d love to hear what does get you motivated when you’d rather be napping or eating caramel popcorn in a hammock (because who wouldn’t rather be doing that?). Come have a chat about it on Twitter or Facebook. I’ll be along shortly—now that I’ve finished this post, I’m going to celebrate with a dance break before I fall asleep.
— Belle
[^fn1]: If you’re new around here you might be wondering why I’m doing anything productive outside of the office. Put simply, changing the world is tough gig. We’re trying to do just that with Hello Code, but the workload’s yet to make it inside regular office hours. Such is (early) startup life!
[^fn2]: I don’t recommend this at all. I didn’t say this would be a clever or useful post, remember? I just said it would be honest.