How to motivate yourself when there is absolutely no desire to do what you need? When even the thought of starting some business, cause irritation and the desire to switch to something else? Why is the performance of some even simple work turns into a real torment and overcoming yourself?
Many people begin to think that they are some kind of wrong: lazy, good for nothing, and so on. In fact, they are all right, just people do not know how to use the resources that they have.
The problem is that people often identify with their mind, when in fact it is just a tool with which we know the world, like a hand or an eye.
Any tool has its limitations, instructions for use, purpose and so on. Accordingly, if you use your mind for other purposes, or give him some overloads, the person at best will be very disappointed with the result, and at worst will exhaust his psyche.
Using the recommendations that are written below, you will be able to act much more effectively and understand why you have something does not work.
What does motivation consist of?
To put it simply, any motivation has two components: emotion and intelligence. In order to motivate yourself, both components must be involved. At the same time, each of them has its own role.
The mind is a kind of starter that triggers new behavior. He directs us and sets the movement, and emotions allow him not to leave the case halfway.
For example, we decided to start Jogging in the morning. It is the mind that allows us to get out of bed early for the first time, put on our sneakers and start running around the house, in the Park or in the stadium. However, the mind has a very limited supply of energy at its disposal. Therefore, all the things that are done on one will, very quickly come to an end.
Emotions play a different role. Emotions contain a sea of psychic energy. When we are overwhelmed with emotions, we can do something all day long without any rest, forgetting about food, sleep and everything in this world.
However, emotions are difficult to control and any control, if you do not know how they work.
When the mind and emotions begin to work in the same direction, then we can talk about a strong motivation, which is popularly called enthusiasm. But to do this, you need to learn to use both.
How to manage emotions?
Any emotion in itself is the strongest motivator. For example, anger motivates us to be aggressive, fear of flight and caution, and interest motivates us to gain new knowledge and skills.
There are no good or bad emotions. All of them are necessary and can be useful if you know how to use them. Each emotion can play both a useful and destructive role. For example, anger allows us to overcome the resistance of circumstances, concentrating maximum energy in a very short period of time. If a person knows where to send it, he gets only benefit, and if not, this energy goes into destruction.
Take such a positive emotion as interest. It would seem that it can negatively affect us? Very easily. For example, it can force a person to play computer games until the morning.
Fortunately, we can control our emotions. But this is not done by the will. Emotions can break almost any will. This is done by changing their way of thinking.
The basis of any emotion is personal involvement.
“What does this mean to me personally?"- so the question is posed. Emotions are activated when something touches us personally. Even when we experience pity and empathy, we experience them only because we identify with the other person.
That is why people can safely eat a sandwich, watching on TV reports of some mass genocide. They're not personally involved. To experience emotion, a person needs to feel in the place of those people, identify with them. This way is the simplest example of managing emotions.
What does a person do in this example? He puts a filter on his perception — " I Am they. What if it was happening to me?”. And at this moment a person's emotional — “It affects me, turn the emotions”.
The secret of managing emotions is to change the perception of the situation. We can't influence emotions directly, we can't make ourselves feel anything. But if we believe that reality is arranged differently, then emotions will "believe" it.
You can motivate yourself through almost any emotion. You can motivate yourself through interest, through fear, through anger, and through joy. However, I believe that it should be some pleasant emotions, such as interest and excitement.
How to motivate yourself through interest and excitement?
Excitement and interest often go hand in hand. Together, these emotions create the strongest motivation. Let's see how it happens.
Excitement.
What is excitement? Excitement is the anticipation of getting some significant result. Usually, when they talk about gambling, they remember gambling. However, excitement is inherent in almost any activity. A prerequisite for the emergence of excitement - is the presence of a clear and desired goal.
Set yourself a goal that causes personal interest. There should be a carrot in front of your nose, which will beckon us forward.
Suitable goals for the emergence of excitement: fame and recognition, money and power, popularity with the opposite sex, in a word selfish interests.
Unfit purpose for the emergence of passion: the happiness of mankind, duty, salvation blind kittens and that sort of thing.
Interest.
What is interest? Interest is the emotion that makes us explore. What is the object of interest? Anything that can grab our attention.
It can be something bright, new, or something that is closely connected with some activity that causes us excitement.
The strongest interest is expressed when it serves a global goal.
For example, the hunter is interested in exploring the area, because it will help him in hunting game (target). The programmer is interested in learning a new programming language because it will expand his tools for writing programs (goal).
That is why, many students are not interested in learning, because they do not have enough goals. Why study what you don't need? If schools taught subjects through the prism of practical interest, the performance would be much higher.
Together, these two emotions cause excellent motivation for action. Excitement and interest should concern you personally or people with whom you identify. It is impossible to imagine a situation where something attracted the attention of another person, but woke up the interest in you. It is impossible to imagine the situation that some activity benefits another person, and the excitement arises in you. There must be personal involvement in everything.
Perception control to trigger the right emotions
So, we have decided what emotions we optimally evoke in ourselves. Now about how to do it.
How to cause excitement?
Suppose that a person already has some desired goal (let it be a house in Miami) and an activity in which he needs motivation. Suppose a person is a programmer by profession.
So how does he transfer the emotions he feels about the house in Miami to the work he needs to do?
To do this, our programmer must have a clear idea of how programming will bring him closer to his cherished home. If he does not have this understanding, then no motivation will work. A prerequisite is the presence of a clear plan of action, the more detailed, the better.
An action plan is like a channel for emotions that allows them to flow from the desired goal to the work we need to do. The plan allows a person to believe that his actions are really leading him to the desired goal.
Or, you can just get it into your head that the work you do, somehow miraculously lead you to your goal. If you can convince yourself of that, it will work, too.
Let me give you another example. Imagine a person who wants to start going to the gym regularly. How does he motivate himself? Just as well. First you need to imagine the goal (toned body), and then make a training program and most importantly the timing when the first results should appear.
How to arouse interest?
On one passion it is possible to achieve only short-term goals therefore it is necessary to strengthen motivation by interest.
Fortunately, the feeling of excitement allows you to evoke a sense of interest. Our programmer will be much easier to convince himself that he is interested in writing code, if at the same time he will keep in mind the dream of a house in Miami.
Look for moments in your activity that cause positive emotions.
If you do not succeed, I recommend to take it as the lessons of patience. This will create a small interest in activities, albeit a bit another plan.
In addition, you can repeat to yourself that you are interested in something and sooner or later this feeling will really arise.
Interest will not only increase your motivation, but also make you much more productive.
Motivation and intelligence
Managing emotions is very good, but without the work of the mind to motivate yourself is very difficult, and most likely-it is impossible.
The mind has two functions-thinking and will. Unfortunately it has a very limited energy resource. This means that it is difficult for us to think about something for a long time and make long-term volitional efforts.
However, only behind reason there is a choice: to do or not. Emotionally, a person may very much want to get up and start doing something, but at the same time continue to lie on the couch. Reason is what tells us to stand up and take the very first step that begins the journey of a thousand Li. A preparatory work with emotions allows us to go through it to the end and not give up.