My regular readers (all 2 of you ;) may have noticed that I haven't posted anything to this blog for some time. There is a reason for this...
It isn't because of some kind of family emergency that took up all of my emotional reserves, leaving me with nothing in the tank to write a blog with...
It also isn't because I have been working 12 hour days at work, leaving me physically drained, and just allowing me enough energy to prepare myself basic meals and sleep between shifts...
The reason is more fundamental then that...
The reason that I haven't posted in a while is that part of my personality is that I find it difficult to stick with projects to their completion. Now... don't get me wrong. If I have a project at work, or while studying, I had no problem sticking with it and doing a superb job.
The problem comes when I want to do something for myself, and have to motivate myself to do it, this is when I tend to slip... I suspect I'm not alone in this...
The number of diets failing after the first month, the number of gym memberships with no gym attendance, and the number of new years resolutions that end up failing by the end of the year speak for themselves...
Just because other people have a similar failing is no excuse for not trying to make the change for myself however. As an aspiring "Real Man" I think that I should have the ability to stick with personal projects (particularly the project to become a "Real Man").
For me the problem normally comes when something in my life changes.
A good example of this is gym attendance. When I could get my life into something of a routine I could regularly attend a gym and make significant progress towards improving my overall health, and outward appearance. However if I had some kind of minor illness, enough to make me unable to attend the gym for a week, I almost always just failed to return to the gym after the illness had passed. This would lead to a few months of absence, before re-making the decision to return to the gym and starting my fitness training all over again...
The blogging issue was similar. I was settled into a fairly predictable existence of working on a farm during the week, and having weekends off. This is the time that I used to write my blogs. When I left the little farming community, and set off into the wider world, I had more leisure time. Technically this should have meant that I would have more time for writing. But without the work to contrast it against I never found the time to sit down and write. It was also easy to just say "I'll just do it tomorrow"...
I don't think it is any coincidence that this post comes after I have started working again...
So... what is the answer to this problem? Part of the solution has to be in self motivation. I have read some books recently that deal with this issue, and the main difference between most people and those that do exceptionally well in life is the motivation of the individuals concerned.
Here are a few tips on motivating yourself. The first thing to know about motivation is that there are 2 main types of motivation. These types are attractive motivation, and repulsive motivation. Attractive motivation is a motivation towards something, it could be money, status, beauty or anything else that could be desirable. Repulsive motivation is motivation away from things. People can be motivated away from being poor, being weak, being surrounded by ugly things, or anything else that could be undesirable.
Most people primarily use one or the other type of motivation, and either type can lead to success. A lot of people see attractive motivation as being superior. However many of the richest and most successful people in the world come from poor backgrounds, and their motivation is repulsive, ie, they want to get away from their poor backgrounds. The main problem with repulsive motivation is that it only takes you away from things, so you could still end up somewhere that you don't want to be, whereas attractive motivation takes you to the place that you want to be.
The most powerful way to use motivation is to use both types in conjunction with each other. And the best way to do that is to use visualisations. The first thing to do is to figure out exactly what it is that you want, and what you want to move away from.
So... lets take a common example. The gym... You would take a piece of paper and write down what you are hoping to achieve by going to the gym. This would be things like being more healthy, getting in shape or possibly running a marathon. Be as specific as possible when writing this. ie. I want to weigh 80kg and be able to bench press 100kg. After this you would write down all of the things that you could be motivated away from. This would be being overweight (or underweight), being unhealthy or being weak.
Once you have these lists worked out you can create mental images of what they represent. You could even have real pictures of these things. The away from motivation could be a picture of you at your unhealthiest, and the towards motivation would be a picture of someone with the body shape that you desire. It is important that you pick a picture of someone with a similar bone structure to you, otherwise you could be stuck forever trying to achieve an impossible figure.
Once you have these images then just take some time to commit them both to memory. When you are doing this you have to make sure the mind knows what it is working towards and away from. So just keep the powerful thought in your mind "I am moving towards this" while thinking of the attractive image, and "I am moving away from this" while thinking of the negative image. Just spend a few minutes a day for a few days doing this and you will find that the images will come to mind by themselves after a while. The meditation that I taught you in this post will help you to concentrate on the images single mindedly for long enough to be effective. The more you do these exercises the more powerful the motivation created.
Once you have done this you can keep your towards and away from lists, and display them somewhere prominent, where you will see them every day, and every time you see them it will nudge your brain to remember the motivation.
I have given the example here of going to the gym, but the same technique will work for anything that you can need motivation to do. Giving up smoking, setting up a business, getting a new job, achieving a lifestyle... anything!
So that is motivation dealt with. But what should you do if something trips you up, breaks your routine of achievement and stops you in your tracks? For example if you break your leg it might make it difficult to go to the gym no matter how motivated you are.
The important thing in this case is to not give up. It is easy when a routine is broken to slide back to how you used to be. The important thing is to get back on track as soon as you can. For example the most common reason that people start smoking again is because they just have one cigarette, socially, or in a time of particularly high stress, and then they forget that they quit and just slide back into the habit of smoking again.
If you remember what you were striving towards (the motivation exercise above should help with this) then as soon as the disruption is gone it should be possible to get back into the routine of doing whatever it is you need to do.
So... here I am... Taking my own advice. Just getting back into the posting habit. I'm going to motivate myself more, and pick up where I left off... And also, another important part of motivation is peer pressure. It can be used for good! Make sure your friends know what you want to do, and when they tell you that you aren't doing it try to listen to them!
So all you out there (those 2 of you ;). If I slip again make sure and tell me!
Thanks in advance...
