But I Don't Want To!

 

But I don’t want to!

Was I thinking that this weekend?  Well, kinda.  But sometimes you need the weekend to catch up with life, so there will only be weekend posts when I get far enough ahead to have them all ready to go by Friday.

Back to the topic; how do you get yourself to do something you don’t want to do?  You have to assess what doing that thing will do for you.  Not what this particular step will do, but in the grand scheme of things how will it benefit you?

Take me not wanting to type up any blog posts this weekend.  The single blog post won’t do much for me, but in the perspective of having a successful blog, gaining an audience of regular readers it is very important that I keep writing.

How do you generate motivation?

1. Consider what you will gain if you do this task.  A cleaner house? An organized desk? A better relationship?  More money, more experience
2. How will you feel once you have benefited from doing this task.  Happy, loved, richer, professional, helpful, responsible…
3. Now how will you feel if you fail to do it?  Lazy, unloved, stupid, ineffective, depressed, unworthy…
4. When you have your own answers that apply to your situation, really feel both the good and the bad feelings.  Which way would you rather feel?
5. You know you’ll feel better if you just do it!  So do it.  And when you have completed the task, feel a sense of accomplishment, give yourself praise, and turn it into a good experience so you will remember it as positive when you have to do something like it again.

Taking action, doing something you don’t want to do gives you a real sense of accomplishment, it advances your personal growth, it puts you in a better place emotionally than if you took the easy way out and didn’t do it.  Taking the easy way out only makes you feel better for a very short time.  Think and act for the long term, you can rest or play after you have finished what you really need to do.

Today’s Action Item: Whatever you are putting off doing today, go through the steps and generate the motivation to do it now.