It will be nice when it is done (Motivation)
Can you occasionally be found procrastinating? What even is procrastinating? Well it is basically putting things off, being lazy (in so many words), not doing what you should be doing, finding excuses to do what you know needs to be done and instead doing nothing. I am guilty of this. If you do find yourself delaying activities or chores or anything productive for that matter, it pays to actually spend some time to look at what exactly is going on inside your head, i.e. the pictures you are making, the voices you are hearing and the feelings you are getting just prior to the activity or task that you need to be doing (it may even be just getting up in the morning). Some people may get a voice that says ‘You should go and do the dishes’, which often prompts the immediate response of ‘I don’t want to’, which leads to inaction, as nobody likes being told what to do, even if it is a conversation in your own head.
Other people may get an image or play a video of the activity, which may also prompt a negative response. For example a movie of yourself filling out your tax return (or some other equally tedious activity) is unlikely to fill you a rush of excitement to go and start the activity. One way to combat the ‘You should go and do such and such’ is with a softer ‘it will be nice when the activity is completed’ or ‘it will be useful to have this activity finished’.
This will then lead you to think about the activity when it is done, which should provide more motivation for you. Alternatively if an image or video of the task being done doesn’t fill you with motivation, then perhaps you could change it to a video of the task completed, and see how much more motivated you become. Think of the task as finished instead of the process of actually doing the task (especially if it is a mundane activity such as doing the dishes).
Everybody’s motivation strategy will be different and what works for one person may not necessarily work for somebody else. It is best to learn what goes on in your own mind, and if it is not producing the results you want, then change it.
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