Can't stay motivated; still procrastinating. I need obsessive motivation

[ImTheDoubleGreatest!]

Okay so this isn't to say that I'm down in the dumps or anything. In fact for some weird reason I've been happier and more excited the last few weeks than normal. But for some reason I know what I SHOULD be doing at a given moment of time, but I just don't do it because I don't feel as motivated or encouraged to do it. Say when exercising for example. I know I should go more often, but it bothers me to see some of these people who smoke and drink and haven't done anything for several months just beat me when I used to be faster than them not long ago and also despite me having several weeks of training more than them. Or say right now, I'm thinking of this instead of sleeping even though I know that sleep is more important and I can write this up tomorrow. But something is holding me back. Maybe I'm too stuck in my head and need to think less and do more.

I used to be so dedicated to bettering myself but you all know how life just happens sometimes and stuff doesn't work out the way you want them to time and time again. I got discouraged. I want to be permanently motivated. I don't want to have to fall back on discipline because I want to always like getting better. I need to be obsessed with success. What can I do?

 

[RedScorpion]

What's doing it for me, is the sense that I'm literally wasting time. It feels like you have forever when you're younger, but as you age, I've found that you realize more that time is not on your side. You don't have forever to do things. Time gives no ****s, and it will kill you and me eventually. I'd like to think it's going to be in my 70-80s... but who knows. Might be a car crash or something horrific.

That doesn't mean you need a permanent frenzy in you, but you need to be always working on something that's important and life-giving to you. Find a hobby that you love, and do the things that had a spark of interest. You might grip onto it more than you might think.

Don't let time go by wasted. Because I can see it in many people, just walking around. Stories told about people basically just sustaining themselves in the crappiest place ever, no ambition/basic low-level job, etc. It works for them. But... seems to be... even boring. And... I don't want a boring life. I want to do something while I'm here. And not regret "Oh, I'm 50... I could have done this 20-30 years ago, why didn't I? I could have enjoyed so much..."

I don't think most people think about motive in such manners. But maybe it'll help stimulate something.

 

[TheProspect]

You don't need motivation. You need self-discipline.

Motivation implies accomplishing a task when you feel like it (temporarily inspired). Self-discipline is accomplishing a task even when you despise doing so.

This may not help you your situation but understanding the difference between self-discipline and searching/waiting for motivation will play a huge factor in your level of productivity.

Not sure if you read, but these books may help:

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
The Power of Focus by Jack Canfield
The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins
Getting Things Done by David Allen
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Drive by Daniel Pink

 

[Fruitbat]

I detect a mild hint of depression in your post OP.

When I was going through it, I only saw it looking back.

The "whats the point" view was the beginning. Keep an eye on it mate. I could be wrong, my tuppanceworth.

 

[backseatjuan]

Sometimes it's best to just sit back and relax, do something, or nothing, to your own pleasure. Like right now I'm have this feeling which drags me down, and prevents me from doing stuff around the house. What can I do? Either get up and do it, or I could just sit and do nothing, either way it's cool, life goes on. Things will get done eventually, this is not a race. Coffee doesn't help, sleep don't help, tea don't help, eating makes me want to sleep. I rather drop everything right now, heh, I'm already doing nothing, go to the beach and chill for an hour or two, then come home and drink some beer, watch some youtube, then go to bed in the evening, wake up the next day and repeat. Something inside my brain tell me to be a sloth, perhaps it's those neurons which have long wired my head this way. You are the way you are man, embrace it, be yourself.

 

[Fruitbat]

Sometimes it's best to just sit back and relax, do something, or nothing, to your own pleasure. Like right now I'm have this feeling which drags me down, and prevents me from doing stuff around the house. What can I do? Either get up and do it, or I could just sit and do nothing, either way it's cool, life goes on. Things will get done eventually, this is not a race. Coffee doesn't help, sleep don't help, tea don't help, eating makes me want to sleep. I rather drop everything right now, heh, I'm already doing nothing, go to the beach and chill for an hour or two, then come home and drink some beer, watch some youtube, then go to bed in the evening, wake up the next day and repeat. Something inside my brain tell me to be a sloth, perhaps it's those neurons which have long wired my head this way. You are the way you are man, embrace it, be yourself.

On the subject of coffee, I note my libido is lower recently. I reseached this and I find lack of sleep is the main culprit and I have been getting very low amounts of sleep for weeks because I have a major caffeine habit.

Gave it up after 10AM and switched to decaff and I slept an extra 3 hours last night.

I have even been tired yet keep waking up at night and can't sleep until late. I get this if I smoke cigs too.

Really think caffeine is a far badder drug than people give it credit for.

 

[backseatjuan]

I used to live in the city until a few months ago. I had hard time falling asleep and I woke up really late. Then I moved out of town in a house. I go to bed 11 at night, and wake up, usually at 5 am, at that I feel rested. Problem with sleep I think is related to the quality of air you breath, noise, air pollutants, water purity, electromagnetic radiation, and so on. Here I live about 50 meters from highway, even with cars, with open window, I sleep well. At night I sometimes even wake up on some noises, like a rat, or cat, or rakkoon, or cayote, even had a bear once show up. Healthy living yea! But believe me, amount of sleep is not ralated to motivation.

 

[ImTheDoubleGreatest!]

You don't need motivation. You need self-discipline.

Motivation implies accomplishing a task when you feel like it (temporarily inspired). Self-discipline is accomplishing a task even when you despise doing so.

This may not help you your situation but understanding the difference between self-discipline and searching/waiting for motivation will play a huge factor in your level of productivity.

Not sure if you read, but these books may help:

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
The Power of Focus by Jack Canfield
The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins
Getting Things Done by David Allen
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Drive by Daniel Pink

The reason why I say motivation specifically is because I do. It want to have to fall back on discipline. Those great people, say Will Smith or Arnold Schwarzenegger for example, were motivated every second of the day. Arnold even said how he never HAD to fall back on discipline because he was ALWAYS motivated. That's what I want. I want to be obsessed with success. And I know I have it in me to succeed. But I feel like time is slipping, the critical point that will make or break me is now and I'm leaning more toward the 'break' side of things.

I detect a mild hint of depression in your post OP.

When I was going through it, I only saw it looking back.

The "whats the point" view was the beginning. Keep an eye on it mate. I could be wrong, my tuppanceworth.

That's because when I wrote that post last night, I was really sad and upset. Overall, for the last couple of weeks, I've been feeling happier for some reason and I don't know why (I think that all the parts of my brain that feel negative emotions are starting to burn out like a drug addict's reward pathway lol). The reason why I was this way was because at practice I saw how these kids who smoke, screw around, and don't really eat healthier than me or do more than me, are still better. A 2 month hiatus affected me far more than it did them. With how hard I have worked, I really KNOW that I should be a lot better than I am, but I don't know what is holding me back. I think I may have something wrong with my lungs and/or my heart. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. But I don't care because I still want it. I want to be able to turn off my body's physical limitations and gain that superhuman strength and endurance that people get in those life and death situations, but I want to be able to do it at will. Many say that methamphetamine give people unlimited endurance and insane amounts of strength. Well I think that it just unlocks the body's normal ability to do so. I want that. But without the bad side effects of meth.

As far as depression goes, I've felt it before. But the time you should have worried about was 7 years before this post. That's when I had it really bad. But it was a good thing. Made me realize lots of things about life. I don't get depressed anymore, and the reason for that is because if I fee that I start to, I tell myself to quit being such a fvcking wimp and to be a man. So I'm left in a strange state of mind really. I'm not sad or depressed, but rather I logically know that I should be, despite the fact that I just am not. It's weird. If I was in that state yesterday, I would not have made this post because I would have thought it would be a sissy thing to do, and because I would have no problem whatsoever doing what needs to be done. At that point there is no 'feelings' anymore. Just the basic reptilian mind of aggression, rest, hunger and thirst, just the stuff that I NEED in order to live and in order to get things done. In a way, it would almost be better to be that way than to be happy/excited like I am now because it wouldn't even be about discipline or motivation anymore. I would do it out of feelings the basic NEED to do things. Think hunger and thirst for example, you can suppress those but only for so long before you NEED to eat something and drink something. Well I would get that feeling towards studying and towards going to practice or exercising in general really. In essence, I don't get 'depressed'. Depression is for the weak, and I refuse to be weak.

 

[Mike32ct]

Some people are naturally motivated in certain (or all) areas of their lives. If you aren't one of them (and I'm not either), that's ok; you just need to do what you need to do.

Trying to "create" motivation if you don't have it is like the ugly guy trying to "create attraction" with an uninterested girl lol. It's a waste of time.

Just tackle one thing at a time. Start out with baby steps to get you going. Many projects in life start out rocky and uncertain and then "smooth out" and come together later as you persist*.

*For example, as someone who does a lot of report writing at work, I recommend that one just starts writing and cleans it up later. Throw some words down on the computer screen. Purposely start out with a piece of SHYTE draft. Then clean it up. I've turned initially horrible, extremely rough drafts into masterpieces that the boss loves. But if I didn't start out with crap, I'd never finish anything. If I tried to write it perfectly the first time, I would still be staring at a blank screen, wasting time and beating myself up for low motivation.

Back on topic and along the same line of thought, I think Dr. David Burns said (and I paraphrase), "Motivation doesn't come before action; it comes after." He was talking about the importance of basically "priming the pump" by getting started.

 

[switch7]

motivation comes from action. Most times when you don't want to do something it's because you don't have those dopamine reward type chemicals fueling you yet. Whatever the task is you don't want to do, tell yourself you will just do 5 mins but don't have to complete it. Then once you have done the 5 mins you are now feeling good about yourself for atleast starting. The reward chemicals have kicked in. Now it's more likely that you will carry on to complete more of the task because you are feeling motivated.

For example today I really didn't want to squat. I told myself instead of skipping the exercise I will see how 1 set feels. After 1 set I felt like my blood was now flowing and I could maybe reach 5 sets but not the full 10. 5 sets through and I thought to myself I am half way through my normal workout, I may aswell go for 10 and I reached 10 sets.

Check this guy out he has some excellent articles on this stuff.

http://jamesclear.com/motivation#What is Motivation?

 

[Fruitbat]

Some people are naturally motivated in certain (or all) areas of their lives. If you aren't one of them (and I'm not either), that's ok; you just need to do what you need to do.

Trying to "create" motivation if you don't have it is like the ugly guy trying to "create attraction" with an uninterested girl lol. It's a waste of time.

Just tackle one thing at a time. Start out with baby steps to get you going. Many projects in life start out rocky and uncertain and then "smooth out" and come together later as you persist*.

*For example, as someone who does a lot of report writing at work, I recommend that one just starts writing and cleans it up later. Throw some words down on the computer screen. Purposely start out with a piece of SHYTE draft. Then clean it up. I've turned initially horrible, extremely rough drafts into masterpieces that the boss loves. But if I didn't start out with crap, I'd never finish anything. If I tried to write it perfectly the first time, I would still be staring at a blank screen, wasting time and beating myself up for low motivation.

Back on topic and along the same line of thought, I think Dr. David Burns said (and I paraphrase), "Motivation doesn't come before action; it comes after." He was talking about the importance of basically "priming the pump" by getting started.

I write a lot of powerpoint presentations and I completely get where you are coming from.

90% of everything is delivery,. You can polish something poor into a masterpiece, for sure.

 

[marmel75]

motivtion comes from within.

 

[Fruitbat]

motivation comes from action. Most times when you don't want to do something it's because you don't have those dopamine reward type chemicals fueling you yet. Whatever the task is you don't want to do, tell yourself you will just do 5 mins but don't have to complete it. Then once you have done the 5 mins you are now feeling good about yourself for atleast starting. The reward chemicals have kicked in. Now it's more likely that you will carry on to complete more of the task because you are feeling motivated.

For example today I really didn't want to squat. I told myself instead of skipping the exercise I will see how 1 set feels. After 1 set I felt like my blood was now flowing and I could maybe reach 5 sets but not the full 10. 5 sets through and I thought to myself I am half way through my normal workout, I may aswell go for 10 and I reached 10 sets.

Check this guy out he has some excellent articles on this stuff.

http://jamesclear.com/motivation#What is Motivation?

On this note, to link this back into wimmin and dating, this is good to be aware of how this works because it's also the primary cause of obsssion/oneitus.

I've had women play me or pursued women with little interest in me, yet I have invested so much time in to thinking about them, your mind will not give them up.

One just spoke to me for like 6 months for the attention and that chick was in my head every 20 mins for the next 2 years. It was like an addiction. I would not wish that on anyone, it really was rough and it was my mind saying "I've invested hours of thought into this woman and I won't give her up"

So, I guess what I am saying is this stuff can work with you, or against you.

 

[bigneil]

You can't be permanently motivated. Men have their period also.

 

[Fruitbat]

motivtion comes from within.

That's indigestion.