I remember reading or hearing something awhile ago, it had to do with motivation. It struck a chord (or perhaps a nerve) with me in particular, because I used to wonder about all this self-motivation, affirmation, self-improvement stuff. How come, even though I've read so much of it and practiced so much of it, do I still hit lazy spells and lose motivation? If it's so effective how come so many people just go back to their old habits?
To answer that question, I have two questions for you:
1. How come you keep getting hungry, even though you keep eating? You put food into your stomach six hours ago, why is it grumbling again, goddammit??
2. How come you keep feeling sleepy every night? Didn't you just sleep 4, 5, 6 maybe 7 or 8 hours last night? Why does this keep happening?
I hope my analogy is pretty clear, but just to be on the safe side: Your mind needs a consistent intake of motivation, just like your body needs a consistent intake of rest and fuel.
I wish I could remember which motivational speaker said this and turned the light bulb on in my head, but I don't. I want to say it's Tony Robbins or Steven Covey, but then I might be doing a disservice to whoever actually said it.
It made sense to me because I am aware of how most people view motivation: We watch a movie like Rocky or Beautiful Mind, feel wonderful for awhile, are satisfied by that ephemeral feeling, ride it for awhile but decline to make the effort to SUSTAIN it, to keep it going, through daily, ritualistic (and often tedious) practice. It's the quinessential story for failure: it was fun and exciting at first, became drab or tedious, and we stopped. The same is true for health, diet, sleep and exercise: if we keep it up even when we don't feel like it, it'll stick around and results will inevitably (but precariously or randomly) appear. If we quit, the results we have built up will stick around for awhile, but gradually disappear.
I realized this when I developed two habits: think positive thoughts consistently throughout the day, and watch something motivating, positive or optimistic every morning before starting my day.
It starts the same. At the beginning, it's powerful and I can feel the effects tremendously: I'm pumped, ready to go, wondering why I didn't discover this (or keep this up longer) earlier. Soon enough, I reach a sort of plateau, where I can think of a dozen "better" things to do. Eventually, I make excuses: it's been working, I can skip once; it's not that important; I could use the time to play a little poker or check out some interesting website. Up until now, this was enough to turn the snowball into an avalanche and eventually I'd quit, weeks or months later wondering where my motivation had gone.
Well, I'm pretty sure there's a correlation, because for the past month or so I've been forcing myself to keep up these two habits whether I felt like it or not, whether I did them well or not (kind of like how I feel writing this now. I'm pretty sure stylistically what I'm doing sucks, but I don't care, it's more important that I do it imperfectly than use imperfection as an excuse not to do anything). I set up a timer on my iPhone that goes off every hour and reminds me to think something positive, no matter how trivial or minor. Every morning, some time between 7am and 7:30am, I watch at least one positive, motivating or optimistic video on YouTube, and then listen to some uplifting music. If, for some reason, I don't have access to YouTube or videos, I read something positive or motivating. Here are some examples:
These are just a few examples. Some small, seemingly trivial, some major. I don't care, whatever makes me want to work harder, exhaust my effort more and contribute. Watch and GO. And it's been having an effect. It's starting to feel natural, just like eating, drinking or sleeping. It's slowly becoming an integral part of my day, to the point that I actually feel weird or icky if I don't do it. People who exercise regularly will probably understand what I'm talking about: even if you don't really feel like doing it, you know you'll just feel "wrong" if you don't, so you do it, without really even thinking about it. Speaking of which, it's about time for me to do a bit of exercise.
Try it. Every single day, for at least one month, preferably more. Even if you don't feel like it, even if it's cumbersome or you're tired. Just do it. See if it doesn't make a difference. If it doesn't, you'll have wasted a total of 150 minutes of your month, maybe less. You were going to waste that watching TV anyway.
If you're not sure what to watch, here are some channels you can check out:
Sean Stephenson
Brian Tracy
Positively Positive
Eric Thomas the Hip Hop Preacher
Or, just check out the "Motivation" and "Positive Videos" playlists on my channel.
To answer that question, I have two questions for you:
1. How come you keep getting hungry, even though you keep eating? You put food into your stomach six hours ago, why is it grumbling again, goddammit??
2. How come you keep feeling sleepy every night? Didn't you just sleep 4, 5, 6 maybe 7 or 8 hours last night? Why does this keep happening?
I hope my analogy is pretty clear, but just to be on the safe side: Your mind needs a consistent intake of motivation, just like your body needs a consistent intake of rest and fuel.
I wish I could remember which motivational speaker said this and turned the light bulb on in my head, but I don't. I want to say it's Tony Robbins or Steven Covey, but then I might be doing a disservice to whoever actually said it.
It made sense to me because I am aware of how most people view motivation: We watch a movie like Rocky or Beautiful Mind, feel wonderful for awhile, are satisfied by that ephemeral feeling, ride it for awhile but decline to make the effort to SUSTAIN it, to keep it going, through daily, ritualistic (and often tedious) practice. It's the quinessential story for failure: it was fun and exciting at first, became drab or tedious, and we stopped. The same is true for health, diet, sleep and exercise: if we keep it up even when we don't feel like it, it'll stick around and results will inevitably (but precariously or randomly) appear. If we quit, the results we have built up will stick around for awhile, but gradually disappear.
I realized this when I developed two habits: think positive thoughts consistently throughout the day, and watch something motivating, positive or optimistic every morning before starting my day.
It starts the same. At the beginning, it's powerful and I can feel the effects tremendously: I'm pumped, ready to go, wondering why I didn't discover this (or keep this up longer) earlier. Soon enough, I reach a sort of plateau, where I can think of a dozen "better" things to do. Eventually, I make excuses: it's been working, I can skip once; it's not that important; I could use the time to play a little poker or check out some interesting website. Up until now, this was enough to turn the snowball into an avalanche and eventually I'd quit, weeks or months later wondering where my motivation had gone.
Well, I'm pretty sure there's a correlation, because for the past month or so I've been forcing myself to keep up these two habits whether I felt like it or not, whether I did them well or not (kind of like how I feel writing this now. I'm pretty sure stylistically what I'm doing sucks, but I don't care, it's more important that I do it imperfectly than use imperfection as an excuse not to do anything). I set up a timer on my iPhone that goes off every hour and reminds me to think something positive, no matter how trivial or minor. Every morning, some time between 7am and 7:30am, I watch at least one positive, motivating or optimistic video on YouTube, and then listen to some uplifting music. If, for some reason, I don't have access to YouTube or videos, I read something positive or motivating. Here are some examples:
These are just a few examples. Some small, seemingly trivial, some major. I don't care, whatever makes me want to work harder, exhaust my effort more and contribute. Watch and GO. And it's been having an effect. It's starting to feel natural, just like eating, drinking or sleeping. It's slowly becoming an integral part of my day, to the point that I actually feel weird or icky if I don't do it. People who exercise regularly will probably understand what I'm talking about: even if you don't really feel like doing it, you know you'll just feel "wrong" if you don't, so you do it, without really even thinking about it. Speaking of which, it's about time for me to do a bit of exercise.
Try it. Every single day, for at least one month, preferably more. Even if you don't feel like it, even if it's cumbersome or you're tired. Just do it. See if it doesn't make a difference. If it doesn't, you'll have wasted a total of 150 minutes of your month, maybe less. You were going to waste that watching TV anyway.
If you're not sure what to watch, here are some channels you can check out:
Sean Stephenson
Brian Tracy
Positively Positive
Eric Thomas the Hip Hop Preacher
Or, just check out the "Motivation" and "Positive Videos" playlists on my channel.
