Everyone has things they hate to do, but need to do anyway. Sometimes it is doing basic chores that need to be done. In other cases, it’s the boring part of an otherwise interesting project. People who get things finished (as opposed to people who just get things started) have mastered the ability to push through the things they hate doing, to work on the things they love.

Getting over activities you hate means combating a special type of procrastination. Everyone procrastinates. Even on things that they normally enjoy doing. I occasionally procrastinate with writing, even though it is one of my favorite things to do.

While a few minutes or an hour of procrastination for a neutral task happens occasionally, you can procrastinate for years on the jobs you really hate. If there are things on your to-do list that never make it to the top, you probably know which jobs these are.

Stomaching Unappetizing Work

There are a few strategies you can use to make bad tasting tasks a little more pleasant. The first is simply to focus on it. You might have noticed that you chew a lot more when you don’t like the food in your mouth. This is probably an instinctive reaction to force you to carefully examine what you’re going to eat before you swallow.
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I recently had a conversation with a reader over the 30 Day Trial method. The idea, made popular by Steve Pavlina, is that you stay focused on one change for thirty days. After that, it becomes a habit and no longer requires willpower. It’s a technique I’ve used to start exercising, switch my eating habits, wake up early and add various other productivity routines.

Our debate centered around whether you should implement one 30DT (30 Day Trial) at a time, or several. According to this reader, life was short, and he wanted to do as much as possible in a small timeframe. He was asking advice on whether he should implement 3-4 trials at a time, or just one.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this question, or the first time I’ve seen the results. Usually someone who stumbles upon the 30DT gets it in their head to multiply the effects by doing several at the same time. After ten days of this insanity, they slip and end back where they started. Nothing changed and nothing gained.

Runaway Enthusiasm

The problem isn’t that doing several 30DT’s at a time is impossible. I’m sure with enough practice and motivation, you could do it. The problem is that doing several trials at the same time is overkill. It’s taking something fairly simple and making it incredibly difficult, just to save a month or two.

This is just one case of runaway enthusiasm, but I’m sure you know of others. Runaway enthusiasm happens when a new idea or interest fuels you with intense motivation. For about two weeks. Then that motivation dies out and you’re left with the wreckage.
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Motivation is a strange beast. When you have it, life seems great and the world is your oyster. When you are unmotivated, however, even the simplest of tasks can be a struggle to complete.

Lack of motivation is something that I often have to deal with, and I know I am not alone (one of our biggest sources of traffic comes via people Googling “motivation“).

So today I am interested to hear your own personal methods for motivating yourself. Is it something as simple as a song? Or, are you driven by something much deeper and personal? Please share tips and tactics for motivating yourself in the comments below.

Book Giveaway

We have 10 copies of Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience to give away. In this book Stephanie Palmer, former MGM Director of Creative Affairs, reveals the techniques used by Hollywood’s top writers, directors and producers to get financing for their projects. It also explains how you can apply these techniques to be more successful in your own high-stakes meetings as well as in other areas of your professional life

Check out the Amazon reviews if you want to know more about the book - it is not often you see everyone giving a book 5 stars! To be in the running just leave a comment below. We’ll announce the recipients sometime next week.

Link Karma

Here are some articles that John and I have enjoyed this week:

• The Red Pill: 10 Films Guaranteed to Blow Your Mind
• 10 Super Creative Uses for Everyday Things That You Already Have
• Knowledge; The Jeckyll and Hyde Inside Our Mind
• Beat High Gas Prices This Summer With A Stacation
• Our Life Journey: Break Free From Limiting Beliefs
• Running and Finishing the Excellence Mile! - Part 1 of 2
• What Makes a Good Life?
• The Knowing-Doing Gap

Staying motivated is problem that is both simple and complicated at the same time. It’s simple because the key to staying motivated is to find what drives you and connect that to whatever you do. It’s complicated because if that advice worked all the time, you wouldn’t ever fall into a slump.

Anyone who’s started a project longer than three weeks can tell you that motivation isn’t the problem. Finding something that drives you to get started isn’t hard. The difficulty comes when, several months later, you need to keep going. Where does motivation come from, and how can you make it last?

Static and Dynamic Motivation

The reason staying motivated is hard, I believe, is because we make the mistake that all motivation is the same. The motivation to get started and the motivation to get finished are actually quite different. Trying to pursue one when you need the other pushes you into a slump.

As a quick aside, I arrived at these ideas after reading Robert Pirsig’s book, Lila. It’s the intellectual sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and it’s definitely worth reading. In this book, Pirsig discusses the idea that reality is based on Dynamic and Static Quality. I’d like to extend his idea into the realm of what drives people.

The two types of motivation I’m referring to are dynamic and static motivation.
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