Making Yourself Motivated

Do you lose motivation when working on your goals, business plans or writing? It’s rare that a person stays on a motivated high all the time. We all have our downtime. No matter how much you love what you do, there’s some days that you just can’t find the oomph to tackle your projects.

Today, I’m having a hard time finding the motivation to write. I love to write, so that’s not the problem. I have plenty of projects to work on so it’s not like I don’t have ideas to work with. I also got plenty of sleep last night, but sometimes when your motivation is low you just want to crawl back in bed or flop in front of the TV. However, being a writer I am often on a deadline and can’t do either of those things until work is done.

So how do you get your motivation back on days that it seems to be completely gone? One thing for me is music. As I write this I have on my headphones with Billy Squier pounding my brain. I have to have upbeat music to get going sometimes. I’m normally known for listening to Iron Maiden while I work, but today I wanted something different.

Not everyone can listen to music full blast and still write, it takes practice. Not everyone can work with 80s Heavy Metal either. So if you work with music, make sure it’s something that gets you pumped up and allows your mind to still work. Or once you get motivated, turn it off so you can work.

Some days I can listen to motivational speakers to get going. I enjoy Bob Proctor, Dani Johnson and Zig Ziglar. You may have others that you prefer. I can’t write with people speaking though, so once I get motivated I have to turn them off. How is that different than listening to someone sing? Well, being married to a musician, I’ve learned to listen to the voice as just another instrument. I don’t always hear the words. The vocals just become another instrument in the music.

Update: I wrote this entry this morning when I couldn’t get going. I’ve gotten all of my pressing projects done and can now relax for the weekend. It did take 5 rounds of my Billy Squier playlist to get my work done. Some days you just need to keep up the motivation all day. This was one of those days.

What do you do when you need to motivate yourself?