What's new

Maintaining Motivation

Hey all! I was wondering how everyone maintains their motivation to keep their healthy habits or hobbies. I am an aspiring writer and sometimes when I have my creative juices flowing I find it hard to get the motivation to actually start writing. I always run into roadblocks then immediately lose any motivation I did have to write. I always have my document open but never have more than 50 words written. I also run into this problem when working out. I get all ready and everything then proceed to lay in my bed for hours on end.

I would really appreciate any and all of your tips and tricks to help!
 

Cdixon1225

New member
For the writing aspect, I understand the pain of having this huge idea and not being able to get it out. I personally like to create a web and just jot all those notes, all the one second ideas. After ive filled my page or pages of nonsense, I ussually organize it that way. That helps starting the piece itself.
On the work out concern, I rarely find motivation to work out due to my extteme labor intensive career. You should try to stay out of the bed as long as you can when you are going to work out. Try walking around the house or anything to keep your body moving. Being physical actually excites your endorphines, thus motivating you to want to work out!
 

epalmer

New member
I have the exact same issue all the time! What helps me the most is to truly schedule these activities in, and promise myself I’m going to do them. Someone recently told me that you wouldn’t like it if you had a super flaky friend who always cancelled on plans - don’t be a flaky friend to yourself!
 

Bryan411

New member
Whenever I can't get the words out on paper, I create an outline of my ideas. After I completed my outline, I research to see if my ideas have already been implemented by somebody else. You want to stay original and not step on anybody's toes. You can then start writing your work, maybe start with the first chapter and set a time each day to complete it. There are also writing groups on Meetup.com where you can work with a community of writers.
 

MelissaSharpe

New member
When i cant get out of bed, music always works. When I hit writer's block, I try to skip ahead to a part I know I want to get out. Often I get stuck on how to comminicate a specific idea, so skipping ahead and working backwards often works the problem out for me. Kind of reverse engineering. Good luck!
 

negedemeg

New member
I feel this! I have so many ideas in my head and it's frustrating that I can't find the moment to let them out on paper. I can never just sit and write something out even though I love writing. I used to write every day after school all night, but now I can't seem to focus. I have little advice but I really relate to you!
 

alex

New member
I have this problem all the time! There isn't any clear way I have found so far to generate motivation, but more often than the not what gets me up and going is thinking about what the end-goal is of the thing I need to do. I really don't want to do homework for classes, but I need to so I can graduate. Thinking about what graduation entails (moving, starting a career, etc.) usually provides enough motivation for me to finally do it. Good luck!
 

howremarkable

New member
I find that weekly to-do lists are super beneficial to maintaining motivation. Having an idea of what you need to do (and when it should be done) should help relieve the anxiety associated with procrastination. That's my experience, anyway.
 

jay05

New member
I struggle with this constantly. The most obvious advice I have ever received for dealing with it is both near-insulting in its simplicity and also near-perfect in its accuracy. It is: just start. If you can make yourself start, you will continue. That sounds like a bit of a Catch-22, because you're struggling with the motivation to do it in the first place, so starting is the thing you're not doing, but generally, starting is difficult because you're envisioning the entirety of the task before you, and it becomes overwhelming, and so you don't start because you can't possibly visualize completion. So don't. Forget about completion. Visualize starting. Visualize getting out of the bed and working out for 2 minutes. It's significantly easier to continue working out for an indefinite period of time than it is to jump to and say "Now I will start my hour-long physical drudgery."

Once I started doing this, it got easier and easier to "just start" on whatever it was. No end goal in mind; just "beginning." I bet it will work for you too!
 

Top