10 Motivation Killers and How to Avoid Them
All of us want to feel super-motivated, happy and excited throughout the day.
We want to be at our peak energy, achieve the things that we want to achieve and keep feeling good.
However, through the day, many of us end up becoming all sad and negative as the day progresses.
We end up feeling disgruntled or stressed out.
Here are 10 things you can avoid if you want to stay motivated throughout the day.
1) Waking Up Late For some strange reason, I have seen that waking up late spoils your day.
You feel lazy and just about OK.
Even I need to learn this lesson - I am trying to wake up early these days.
Whenever I've woken up early, I see that I feel excited about the coming day.
When I go out into my balcony and look at the sun rising, the birds chirping and people just waking up, I feel all geared up! There is something about early rising that makes you feel super energetic! Try to wake up early.
It will definitely help you feel more excited about your day.
2) Getting Too Stuck on How You Want Things to Be Sometimes we plan our day to the dot and we get pissed off when things don't go our way.
Why did that guy not meet us on time? Why did the internet suddenly stop working? Why did the project not work out the way you wanted it too.
To stay happy and motivated through the day, you need to practice a certain degree of detachment to outcomes.
The truth is that life IS uncertain.
Anything can happen anytime, we don't even honestly know if we will be alive tomorrow.
The best way to still stay motivated and happy through the day therefore is to embrace uncertainty.
Be OK with things going wrong.
In fact, whenever things go wrong, understand that life is wanting to teach you something.
Then smile, and keep going.
3) Insisting Too Much on Staying in Our Comfort Zone If you want to be too comfortable, then you will rarely have a motivated and exciting day.
The reason is that life is always springing things at you to push you out of your comfort zone.
You may end up meeting a person you didn't want to meet.
You may end up meeting tons of new people.
You may end up being asked to speak to 50 people.
Or you may be faced with a tough assignment at work that you think you can't handle.
Embrace new experiences and your fears.
Whenever something uncomfortable happens, notice the discomfort, and face the fear anyway.
Say yes to new experiences and things that frighten you.
Don't avoid the unknown, hug it.
You will renew your motivation and happiness.
4) Interacting With a Lot of Negative/Depressing People If you are constantly surrounded with lots of people who keep complaining about things and are sad about everything, then how can you stay motivated? Please note that human beings (including me and you) are affected immensely by the company they keep.
If you think you can be around someone who is always complaining and still be upbeat, you are kidding yourself.
Surround yourself with people who excite you and inspire you.
Try to keep interaction with people who bring you down to a minimum.
You need to be happy and excited first to help other people - and that will happen if you surround yourself with a lot of happy people.
Happy people will perk you up when your own motivation wanes.
5) Doing Things You Don't Like Doing If you want to stay happy and motivated through the day, then you cannot afford to do things which you hate doing.
If you hate accounting and you manage accounts all day, then no matter how hard you try, you cannot have an amazing day.
Minimize the things you don't like doing during the day.
Increase the number of things that excite you during the day.
I am not talking about activities that make you feel "OK" like eating a good meal or playing video games.
I am talking about a deeper, fulfilling excitement that comes into play when you do something you really want to do.
It can be painting, writing, exercising, singing, dancing, or anything else - do whatever deeply excites you more often.
If your job itself makes you feel bad, think deeply about finding a new one that excites you more.
Overall, decrease depressing activities and increase exciting activities.
6) Not Moving Throughout the Day Are you one of those people who stay put on their seats all day? You may do great work but you will still feel demotivated to some extent if you don't move your body.
I have to be honest with you - I have been guilty of this since years.
It is now that I am trying to exercise and move my body.
When I asked Robin Sharma some time ago on Twitter whether exercise affected one's mental state, he replied saying, "DRAMATICALLY" (in Caps).
Therefore, move your body.
Spend some time exercising.
Take a walk at least.
Play some outdoor games if that excites you.
Yes, all this helps keep you motivated throughout the day.
7) Being Concerned Only With Yourself As long as you fill your day with YOU, YOU and only YOU, you won't be able to feel very motivated throughout the day.
Pampering yourself is important and so is taking care of yourself, but after a limit, that feels just about OK.
If you really want to feel happier and more motivated, try to add in some activities throughout your day that help other people.
It feels awesome! On my last birthday, I visited an old age home and gave the inmates some gifts.
I had never done this ever before on any previous birthday.
Honestly, I felt happier and more excited this time than ever before.
Try to find small ways to help people intimate with you or strangers - it will make you feel beautiful.
8) Distracting Yourself at the Beginning of the Day One of the easiest ways to ensure that you have an OK (and only an OK) day is to start your day by checking Facebook, Twitter or email or by playing online games.
The first thing you need to do in your day is the most important thing you want to get done.
Steve Pavlina calls this the power of the first hour.
Leo Babauta talks about MITs (Most Important Tasks) that must be done first.
Robin Sharma talks about the Holy hour.
The point is that the first few hours of your day set the tone for the rest of the day.
Manage the first hour well - and fill it with what is most important to you.
Your motivation will increase as you go through the day! 9) Questioning Why People Are the Way They Are A very easy way to feel demotivated is to look at how other people behave and say, "why are they like that?" If you want to consistently feel motivated and excited, you need to develop the "skill" of accepting people as they are.
The person who lies is the person who lies.
The person who talks rudely is the person who talks rudely.
The person who is not punctual is not punctual.
I am not asking you to "bear" the presence of these people.
I am saying - accept them as they are first.
Then choose your response.
You can tell these people how you want them to change with a detached attitude.
If they agree, great.
If they don't, please know that you have the power to detach from these people.
True acceptance also keeps open not having a person in your life or at least minimizing contact.
In any case, do take stock of any person you resent - and either accept the person as he or she is right now, completely or detach from that person.
This will help you be happy in the long run.
10) Being Lazy and Doing Nothing Your intentions may be excellent and you may have a great attitude at the start of the day, but if you end up being lazy and doing nothing, your day will be OK at best.
Motivation follows action.
This means that when you take inspired action, you feel even more motivated.
I may procrastinate writing this article forever but that will demotivate me.
However, as I write this article right now, I am feeling immensely motivated.
Take tons of action through your day.
Don't wait to be motivated, act first.
Remember that acting and failing is better than thinking, thinking, thinking and doing nothing.
So there, those were 10 motivation pitfalls to avoid.
All the best for today.
Hope you have the best, happiest, and most exciting day ever - today!
We want to be at our peak energy, achieve the things that we want to achieve and keep feeling good.
However, through the day, many of us end up becoming all sad and negative as the day progresses.
We end up feeling disgruntled or stressed out.
Here are 10 things you can avoid if you want to stay motivated throughout the day.
1) Waking Up Late For some strange reason, I have seen that waking up late spoils your day.
You feel lazy and just about OK.
Even I need to learn this lesson - I am trying to wake up early these days.
Whenever I've woken up early, I see that I feel excited about the coming day.
When I go out into my balcony and look at the sun rising, the birds chirping and people just waking up, I feel all geared up! There is something about early rising that makes you feel super energetic! Try to wake up early.
It will definitely help you feel more excited about your day.
2) Getting Too Stuck on How You Want Things to Be Sometimes we plan our day to the dot and we get pissed off when things don't go our way.
Why did that guy not meet us on time? Why did the internet suddenly stop working? Why did the project not work out the way you wanted it too.
To stay happy and motivated through the day, you need to practice a certain degree of detachment to outcomes.
The truth is that life IS uncertain.
Anything can happen anytime, we don't even honestly know if we will be alive tomorrow.
The best way to still stay motivated and happy through the day therefore is to embrace uncertainty.
Be OK with things going wrong.
In fact, whenever things go wrong, understand that life is wanting to teach you something.
Then smile, and keep going.
3) Insisting Too Much on Staying in Our Comfort Zone If you want to be too comfortable, then you will rarely have a motivated and exciting day.
The reason is that life is always springing things at you to push you out of your comfort zone.
You may end up meeting a person you didn't want to meet.
You may end up meeting tons of new people.
You may end up being asked to speak to 50 people.
Or you may be faced with a tough assignment at work that you think you can't handle.
Embrace new experiences and your fears.
Whenever something uncomfortable happens, notice the discomfort, and face the fear anyway.
Say yes to new experiences and things that frighten you.
Don't avoid the unknown, hug it.
You will renew your motivation and happiness.
4) Interacting With a Lot of Negative/Depressing People If you are constantly surrounded with lots of people who keep complaining about things and are sad about everything, then how can you stay motivated? Please note that human beings (including me and you) are affected immensely by the company they keep.
If you think you can be around someone who is always complaining and still be upbeat, you are kidding yourself.
Surround yourself with people who excite you and inspire you.
Try to keep interaction with people who bring you down to a minimum.
You need to be happy and excited first to help other people - and that will happen if you surround yourself with a lot of happy people.
Happy people will perk you up when your own motivation wanes.
5) Doing Things You Don't Like Doing If you want to stay happy and motivated through the day, then you cannot afford to do things which you hate doing.
If you hate accounting and you manage accounts all day, then no matter how hard you try, you cannot have an amazing day.
Minimize the things you don't like doing during the day.
Increase the number of things that excite you during the day.
I am not talking about activities that make you feel "OK" like eating a good meal or playing video games.
I am talking about a deeper, fulfilling excitement that comes into play when you do something you really want to do.
It can be painting, writing, exercising, singing, dancing, or anything else - do whatever deeply excites you more often.
If your job itself makes you feel bad, think deeply about finding a new one that excites you more.
Overall, decrease depressing activities and increase exciting activities.
6) Not Moving Throughout the Day Are you one of those people who stay put on their seats all day? You may do great work but you will still feel demotivated to some extent if you don't move your body.
I have to be honest with you - I have been guilty of this since years.
It is now that I am trying to exercise and move my body.
When I asked Robin Sharma some time ago on Twitter whether exercise affected one's mental state, he replied saying, "DRAMATICALLY" (in Caps).
Therefore, move your body.
Spend some time exercising.
Take a walk at least.
Play some outdoor games if that excites you.
Yes, all this helps keep you motivated throughout the day.
7) Being Concerned Only With Yourself As long as you fill your day with YOU, YOU and only YOU, you won't be able to feel very motivated throughout the day.
Pampering yourself is important and so is taking care of yourself, but after a limit, that feels just about OK.
If you really want to feel happier and more motivated, try to add in some activities throughout your day that help other people.
It feels awesome! On my last birthday, I visited an old age home and gave the inmates some gifts.
I had never done this ever before on any previous birthday.
Honestly, I felt happier and more excited this time than ever before.
Try to find small ways to help people intimate with you or strangers - it will make you feel beautiful.
8) Distracting Yourself at the Beginning of the Day One of the easiest ways to ensure that you have an OK (and only an OK) day is to start your day by checking Facebook, Twitter or email or by playing online games.
The first thing you need to do in your day is the most important thing you want to get done.
Steve Pavlina calls this the power of the first hour.
Leo Babauta talks about MITs (Most Important Tasks) that must be done first.
Robin Sharma talks about the Holy hour.
The point is that the first few hours of your day set the tone for the rest of the day.
Manage the first hour well - and fill it with what is most important to you.
Your motivation will increase as you go through the day! 9) Questioning Why People Are the Way They Are A very easy way to feel demotivated is to look at how other people behave and say, "why are they like that?" If you want to consistently feel motivated and excited, you need to develop the "skill" of accepting people as they are.
The person who lies is the person who lies.
The person who talks rudely is the person who talks rudely.
The person who is not punctual is not punctual.
I am not asking you to "bear" the presence of these people.
I am saying - accept them as they are first.
Then choose your response.
You can tell these people how you want them to change with a detached attitude.
If they agree, great.
If they don't, please know that you have the power to detach from these people.
True acceptance also keeps open not having a person in your life or at least minimizing contact.
In any case, do take stock of any person you resent - and either accept the person as he or she is right now, completely or detach from that person.
This will help you be happy in the long run.
10) Being Lazy and Doing Nothing Your intentions may be excellent and you may have a great attitude at the start of the day, but if you end up being lazy and doing nothing, your day will be OK at best.
Motivation follows action.
This means that when you take inspired action, you feel even more motivated.
I may procrastinate writing this article forever but that will demotivate me.
However, as I write this article right now, I am feeling immensely motivated.
Take tons of action through your day.
Don't wait to be motivated, act first.
Remember that acting and failing is better than thinking, thinking, thinking and doing nothing.
So there, those were 10 motivation pitfalls to avoid.
All the best for today.
Hope you have the best, happiest, and most exciting day ever - today!
