We were pumped up to do great things in life after seeing an inspirational video. We rose up from the comfort of our chair and did a lot of work. The day after that — nothing. Sitting on the same chair, we had a Netflix movie marathon, and no work was done for that day. Why did this happen? Why didn’t we maintain the same amount of work in both days? It’s because we rely too much on motivation. There are 3 reasons relying on motivation can negatively affect our productivity.
1. We do things only when we’re inspired
“Yeah! I’m gonna do this s***!” thoughts rarely come. We can hope for motivation to greet us every day, but they rarely do. It’s as if motivation is the fuel that drives us to do things when it’s actually not. We need to always do what we want to do in life no matter how inspired we are feeling. Motivation can accelerate the things we do, but it shouldn’t be the thing that moves us.
2. We are prone to waste our day and stop halfway while doing things
Relying on motivation can cause the All-or-Nothing thinking. All-or-Nothing thinking is the tendency to do things perfectly or not do it at all. How does this apply to motivation? Imagine waking up with little motivation. For those who rely too much on motivation, they’ll decide to not do anything for the rest of the day because they are not highly inspired.
Other than that, we will find that when we are motivated on a particular day, and suddenly, bad things happen in the middle of the day. Snap! Our motivation crumbled like a fortress made of chalk. We gave up and called it a day. Why? Just because losing motivation made us think that the day’s not perfect. That’s not the way life goes. Start, middle or the end of the day — we need to use all three periods productively, whether we are motivated or not. Motivation doesn’t indicate perfection but movement does.
3. We will forget why we do the things we do in the first place
Motivation is just a feeling. Like any other feeling, it can come and go. We need more than a fleeting feeling to move us to do the things we do day by day. What we need to rely on is purpose and discipline. Purpose is needed to ensure that we live deliberately. Aren’t we born to do great things in life? Each one of us is a world-changer so make it our purpose to make a difference in the world. But purpose is not enough, we’ll need discipline to ensure that we can fulfil that purpose. Discipline ensures consistency and it’s the cure for laziness and procrastination. Purpose + Discipline = The magic pill for success.
Stop reading and start moving!
Again, motivation is not necessarily bad. It’s good to help us do things faster but it shouldn’t be the one making us do them in the first place. To sum it up, here’s the key take-away from this article:
- Stop relying on motivation to help us be productive.
- Focus on finding a purpose in life.
- Be disciplined and do things consistently. (Don’t know how to improve your discipline? Read this Lifehack article to learn how).
- Stop watching too many motivational clips from Rocky (that includes Rocky II, III, IV, and V too) and finish that homework, report, and whatever you should be doing right now.
If you learnt something from this article, please share it with others so they can share the same experience too.
A question: Do you rely too much on motivation? Write your answers in the comment section below.
Featured photo credit: Steven Depolo via flickr.com
