How to feel motivated

Hello. I’ve been absent for a while so I thought I might share with you a little vignette that often comes up in my work, in one form or another. I probably could have just written a truncated version of this in the form of a ‘Note’ but I object to having to feed the social media monster so, perversely, and at the risk of self-sabotaging the chance of anyone actually reading, I’m just going to leave it here.

Someone asked me this week, ‘how can I feel more motivated and disciplined to apply myself at work?’

When you think about it, the question of motivation is pretty much transferable across a myriad different scenarios and, happily, the solution to all of them is essentially the same.

It all started like this.

One day, I was facing the prospect of emptying the dishwasher, a task surely everyone detests, unless you are a masochist or you’re coming off the back of days without a dishwasher because it broke down last week and you’ve come face to face with what it used to be like to do the washing up by hand, back in the day.

While I don’t like emptying the dishwasher, I like putting everything away even less. As for the cutlery basket, well, don’t get me started.

What I really do like though, is cooking.

Then I thought about the only two sources of motivation we rely on to make the decisions in our lives, and it gave rise to the answer I always give when someone asks me if I’ve got any ideas about how they might improve their motivation.

Question: How can I improve my motivation when I’m…(put whatever you like in here)?

There are only two sources of motivation we use in our lives whether the question is, ‘what shall I have for breakfast?’ or, ‘I need to look for a new job’

The first motivation is the one that moves us away from pain.

You might rely on this source of motivation when your house is burning down, when you have hurt your ankle and are faced with the prospect of walking to the shops for a bottle of milk, or find yourself in a job that is so grindingly boring it makes you feel as if your soul is leaving your body.

The second motivation is the one that moves us towards pleasure.

You might use this motivation when you notice a particularly luscious piece of chocolate cake in a bakery window, or stand under a hot shower until you are shrivelled like a walnut after arriving home in the freezing rain.

Of course, many decisions contain an element of each, the escape from pain and the move towards pleasure, but where we tend to let ourselves down is in the reliance on one over the other, especially when we realise we are stuck.

If you are feeling demotivated and unable to move forward with a task or decision, it’s likely you are relying on outrunning some kind of pain. People stay in relationships they don’t want to be in because they’re afraid of letting go of the pain they know rather than creating a compelling story about what might come next.

Perhaps you find your work dull, you struggle to see where your career is headed, or maybe your real passions lie away from work in some other creative outlet and you feel that work prevents you from spending enough time on them. Alternatively, you may just be faced with unloading the dishwasher having cleaned an inordinate number of those Tupperware pots that are an absolute menace to store and you’re hoping someone else will come and do it, even though you live alone.

To address your low motivation and any problem with discipline, you need to find a route towards pleasure rather than away from pain, because the journey away from pain, after any genuine danger is averted, has less energy and inertia in it than the relentless pursuit of something full of promise.

Try to visualise what is good about doing and completing whatever it is that you’re stuck on.

What will it feel like when you’re done?

What will be the tangible benefit of finishing whatever it is?

How does it feel when you reflect on doing something you set out to do?

What new opportunities might completion unlock?

To feel motivated, you must find a persuasive and personal reason that your endeavour and effort matters. To you.

If you can create a compelling story about the purpose of moving forward you will find it much easier to do so.

Today, I walked one of the dogs (the other is recuperating from an operation) up onto the Downs. There’s a very steep slope we sometimes walk down which inevitably means a huge climb back up to the top again.

Before beginning our descent, I wondered if it might be too slippery and considered I may fall and break a hip only to be found, partially mummified, sometime in the spring.

I thought about how exhausting the climb is on the best of days, when I’m feeling at peak fitness, let alone when I’ve been a bit poorly and sitting around drinking tea for a week.

Then I turned my mind to the great feeling of euphoria I always get when I’ve walked all the way down and then made my way back up. How I can see for miles across the cricket ground where I used to play in my early teens with my friend John Robinson, whose mother made an excellent cheese pie. Through the vineyards that used to be pasture and wheat fields before climate change made us into the southern England equivalent of Bordeaux, and off into the distance towards the coast, to France and beyond.

My heart rate hit 145 on the hike toward the summit but, by that time, all thoughts of not doing it were both irrelevant and felt like a ridiculous notion.

Back in the kitchen, I consider the difference between my dislike of emptying the dishwasher and my delight at having a clean and tidy kitchen in which to make new and delicious food.

I focus on how my kitchen will look when everything clean is put away and everything currently dirty will be safely stowed in the now empty dishwasher. I think about how it feels and where in my body I feel it. I concentrate on that sensation which makes it more powerful still.

Before I’ve had a chance to really notice anything else, the dishwasher is dealt with, the kitchen clean and tidy, and I can turn my attention to making a brand new mess.

By the way, what’s the deal with ridiculous advent calendars? You know, the ones that contain period products, hot sauce or sex toys?

I favour an advent candle.

Burning down a single number each day is perfect motivation for spending time in quiet contemplation and reflection because, if you don’t, you’ll find that you’ve burned down to number 7 even though it’s only December 2nd, because you were too busy trying to multitask.

So, if you’re finding it hard to motivate yourself to do nothing other than stare at the bewitching flame of a single candle while giving yourself a bit of a rest, that’s probably your answer, rather than buying an advent calendar with a vibrator or gimp mask in it.

You’re welcome.

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