Some Random Thoughts on Motivation

[Minuend]

Today has been a dreary day without motivation or energy. I managed to do some homework this morning, but since then my head has been foggy. I was drained and exhausted. It might be the winter and darkness that affects me.

I find myself refreshed all of a sudden, but dread starting my homework. I start thinking and my thoughts wanders to my future, an event I look forward to or a result that is to be. And my motivation sparks again.

Very often I find myself going inside to find an inner motivation to help me find joy in tasks. But the next day, when I go to the same place to fetch my motivation, it is missing. I wander aimlessly around, and if lucky, I find it laying around somewhere else.

Being disciplined is one thing, finding satisfaction is something completely different.

Answering questions (homework) is an disliked activity. That means I actually have to organize my knowledge into a structured form. I like it when it just floats around in my head, understanding it intuitively rather than form it into words. That's draining. On paper, at least.

When I write threads like these, I don't like to ask questions as that narrows the topic and reduces the appearance of fleeting thoughts. I do have one or two, but feel free to write your reply before checking it.

Spoiler

What does your motivation feel like?
Is it that you feel satisfaction from crossing off an "to do" point on your list? Do you get excited about the knowledge you will learn? Do you feel you are getting closer to a goal? Or do you force your work every time, always hating every bit of it?

How do you trigger your motivation?

 

[Minuend]

 

[downsowf]

As a law student, my motivation over putting so much time and energy into school was so I wouldn't look like an idiot or be marked unprepared for a class. If you get called on, you have to stand up in class, recite the facts and analyze a case, and answer any other questions the professor might throw out at you. Being prepared was really the only option. After first year, though, I've learned to bs my way through class, could care less about being called out, since the only thing that really matters to me now is getting a good grade on the one test that determines the entire semester.

When law was fresh and new, I did get excited about the material I was studying. It has definitely waned. Now the only motivation that keeps me going is fear of getting a bad grade and not being able to get a job because of it.

Also, usually when I get started on something I find the motivation to keep going. I have an innate ability to find anything interesting and worth my while. It might take a lot of will power to do this though. It the getting started part that's hard. Ironically, as I'm writing this, I have decided to skip my next class because I just need a few hours of chill time.

Your situation is completely different I'm assuming. You are given work just so you have something to do. It's "busy work." When you're doing work that actually has a purpose it's a lot easier to find the motivation to do work.

Sometimes it helps to find motivation when you approach the questions differently. Answer it unconventionally or use additional research methods to make it interesting. Teachers should appreciate an answer where critical thinking is involved.

Another thing that triggers my motivation is music and environment. I go to the library, put my headphones on, and crank classical music.

 

[Ozymandias]

Intellectual motivation: The only thing that has ever motivated me when it comes to intellectual pursuits is quriosity. Like you, it is only from inside that I find this motivation. I sometimes think of or hear a question which completely consumes my mind until I can find some form of answer. Where this quriosity comes from and why I feel a need to know the answer to certain types of questions I really don't know. This does not mean that I'm unable to work without quriosity, but there's no joy in it if i'm not even remotely qurious. Hmm... Is it possible to do something with no motivation at all? I guess there's always some form of motivation there if I perform a task. I use the term here as to what brings me joy while I work on something.

Physical motivation:

While I work out at a gym my motivation is the joy I get from, well to put it bluntly I would say I get joy from conforming to societys standard of an attractive male body. I like seeing muscles on my own body and knowing that every time I work out makes me more and more muscular is something that lightens my mood.

Regarding work my motivation is part peer-approval and part just pushing my body to see what it is capable of getting done. I work a very physically demanding job and being of relatively small size compared to some of the guys I work with, I like knowing that I'm able to do my job just aswell as they can. Small Mans Syndrome I guess. I sometimes catch myself saying to my coworkers ''I built that'' or ''I made those'' with a smile on my face, and I feel like a little kid bragging about what he's achieved.

 

[Meer]

I have nearly zero motivation. I'm just kind of alive.

Sometimes guilt, I guess.

 

[Puffy]

I would find it really difficult to motivate myself to do something I didn't want to do. Like, the subject I study, History, is something I get by in through pure intuition/ bull-shittery. It is a self-study topic, one that to go far in requires lots of reading, but I can't sit down to read for more than an hour without completely losing all interest and hence all attention.

I think motivation kind of necessitates a meaningful destination. If I'm motivated it is because I am moving towards something good or finding a new way of reaching it. For example, I may not like lots of reading, but I actually enjoy giving presentations, if I know my reading will support what I'm going to say or help me find interesting/ creative ways of expressing it I will be more motivated to do it because it is helping me reach that.

Really trigger-wise I walk, I really enjoy my inner world and walking is like a stimulus for it; if I'm writing I frequently pace around because it jogs my mind. Like, at the moment I'm writing some short horror comic stories, or trying. It is a meaningful goal for me so reflecting on it and feeling the momentum of accumulating ideas is really motivating to me.

I find actually writing quite difficult though, bringing ideas from mind to paper can be quite frustrating as you can never quite duplicate it as finely as it looks in your head, but finishing something and getting positive review makes for further motivation. I think that's also why I like presentations as the feedback is immediate, while you're speaking/ afterwards you can pick up the vibe of the room, if positive you're being motivated and picking up momentum as you go. When writing you have no one but yourself there to say if you're going in the right direction or not, and I'm a pretty harsh critique of my own work :S

 

[thelithiumcat]

I have nearly zero motivation. I'm just kind of alive.

Sometimes guilt, I guess.

Same. I extrapolate current information to future situations, decide that things aren't going to turn out well (largely due to my predicted lack of motivation) and lose all faith that things could work out otherwise. This hopelessness, on top of my "zero motivation", doesn't end well.