Karsten Aichholz

Things I learned.

Stop Asking How to Get Motivated

by 10 Comments

Solar VW Bus
The solar-powered Volkswagen bus of Vecna CTO Daniel Theobald.
Range: 30 miles.

Imagine you owned a solar powered car. Silent, clean, and cheap to run on top. Great for fun rides, afternoon appointments or weekend excursions. Not so much for getting to work every day and on time. For that you would need something that’s less dependent on time, weather and seasons. Because although sunshine is free, it’s not reliable.

Motivation as a driving force is similar to sunshine. It doesn’t cost you any effort, but it’s not very reliable either. If you lack the necessary drive to complete a task, you might try solving that by looking for ways to get ‘more motivated’. Unfortunately that road is a dead end. Asking for more motivation is like sitting in a solar-powered car, asking the sun to shine more. The problem isn’t that the sun doesn’t always shine, it’s that your car depends on it.

Asking for more motivation is like sitting in a solar-powered car, asking the sun to shine more.

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The Alternative

If you’re in the dark, frustrated, unable to get anywhere, it’s time to consider a more conventionally powered car. How about one that’s running on gasoline? It’s not as clean, silent or cheap to run, but it’s reliable. If sunshine is motivation, what’s the equivalent to gasoline? It’s what moves you forward even on rainy days: Discipline.

Oh. That’s not very sexy. Neither is a Toyota. Yet discipline-driven Toyota sold nearly 8 million cars in 2014. The entire market for inspiring, motivational, commercially available, solar-powered cars in 2014? Zero.

Why It Works

If you find yourself without both, motivation or discipline, you might wonder what difference it makes. In fact, if you don’t have any money, sunshine might even seem more obtainable than gasoline. Is it easier to get started with motivation? Sure. But if you want to make it all the way to your destination, you won’t be able to avoid discipline.

You Can Influence It

Discipline is hard, but at least it’s something you can influence.  You can kick-start discipline by creating external pressure, like entering a weight loss contest with your friends or committing to deadlines that you communicate to your clients.

Any initial boost you receive, is a shot at leveraging this one-time burst into a long-term habit. Initial results can show you that you’re on the right track, giving you more confidence for the future. The real change then happens after you establish new habits.

You can increase discipline by removing distractions – whether it’s blocking websites, or throwing out unhealthy snacks. Changing your environment, making it easier to stick to good habits and more bothersome to continue with bad ones has a significant impact on your levels of discipline.

Few things will affect your ability to exercise self-discipline as much as getting enough sleep. You can literally become more disciplined while you sleep. If you need an alarm clock to get up in time, that’s usually a sign that you don’t get enough sleep. When you’re well-rested, your gas tank is full and you’ll go much further.

You Can Depend On It 

It’s hard to predict motivation. If you’ve been motivated all of last week, that doesn’t mean you’ll still be motivated next week. However, if you’ve been disciplined the entire last week, odds are you’ll carry on that way.

I don’t know if a sporadic activity that depends on my motivation at the time – like an impromptu run in the park – is really going to happen. But I’m virtually certain that my activities that by now have become habits, be it brushing my teeth or logging calories, get completed.

You Can Overcome Obstacles

There’s obstacles that can stop a solar car dead in its tracks: Rain storms, night fall, and sometimes even just steep hills. If your car runs on gasoline, those may be mere nuisances at most rather than the deal killers these present for solar-powered cars.

Motivation let’s you do the things that are fun and easy. Discipline let’s you power through the hard and unpleasant parts.

It’s that cost of effort that makes the outcome valuable. If an effort is only made up of easy, fun or inspiring steps, it may not lead to something that other people are wiling to hire you for.

Pick Worthwhile Destinations

Running a car is expensive and cumbersome. Insurance, maintenance, gasoline – it all adds up. Not to mention traffic jams, finding a parking spot and dealing with bad drivers. Unless wherever you’re going is worth that kind of effort, you won’t see much point to getting into the car and putting up with it.

When discipline fails, it’s often because of one of two causes: We either try to reach a destination too fast and crash on the way, or our destination isn’t that worthwhile to begin with.

If you don’t feel strongly about going, a thing as small as a traffic report can be all the discouragement you need to opt to not head out. If your destination isn’t truly important to you, you’ll only bother going if you enjoy driving in the first place. If your destination isn’t rewarding, you won’t see it worth the cost of getting there. If your destination isn’t inspiring, it won’t matter what kind of car you have. You’ll end up staying at home and watching Seinfeld reruns.

Rocky Department Store
I came across this ‘motivational’ department store on a road trip through Japan. If you have any doubts about the name of the store being inspired by the movie, these will be quickly dispelled once you hear the rocky theme song playing. On a non-stop loop. #pleaseshootme

You Can Do It

Motivation costs you little, but it won’t take you to your destination unless it’s only a sunny day’s drive away. Discipline, on the other hand, can be purchased with effort, doesn’t require you to design your schedule around its availability, and won’t get you stranded just because the earth rotates.

If a rainy day brought you to a stand still, don’t ask how to get more motivated, but instead, push towards ending your dependence on it.

  • This is a great post.

    I’ve been thinking about the same thing for the last few weeks, but wasn’t able to put it as eloquently as you have here. I’ve tried to rely on solar (ahem… motivation) for years, thinking that my excitement was what mattered most. Now I’ve realised that my excitement and motivation will go up and down, seemingly unpredictably, while my discipline is something I can call on whenever I choose.

    John McIntyre (referred by Almog)

    • Hey John – welcome to the blog :). Are there any specific issues / tasks you’re struggling with?

      • The issue is hard work.

        I want to work for 14-15 hours a day, but I know if I just jump into it, I’ll burn out and get depressed. So I’ve been thinking about ways to change my mindset and work up to it. There’s no question it’d be good for business, but only if I can sustain it and maintain my health at the same time.

        • Update. Today was a rough day. Couldn’t tell if motivation was down, or energy. Either way, I went to bed at 830am for an hour. I didn’t feel like working. I struggled to focus. I felt depressed. It’s all related to some core business issues.

          I struggle in those situations to know if I’m just tired, or just lacking discipline. There’s guilt if I push too hard, because I want to be healthy. And there’s guilt if I take a rest, because I feel like I’m not being disciplined.

          I find that I can start things with a huge amount of force. But I run out of momentum and it gets harder and harder to stick with the routine. At first, it’s automatic, and I feel great because I’m doing what I said I would do. But eventually, it’s like my mind and/or body starts revolting against my rules, and I start acting differently to how I want to act.

          • I remember early days of our company when we worked 80+ hour weeks. We basically had our backs to the wall and not much of a clue how to prevent excrement from hitting the fan. In the end, the turning point was switching strategies from a PPC approach to SEO. It was a risky move born out of desperation, but not necessarily the result of countless hours of work.

            A few years later, we had the opposite form of stress: The company was selling more than ever, but it was seasonal and we had to move as much as possible within that 2 month period. At the same time, we were hit with DDoS attacks. Again, we ended up working insane hours. This time around – maybe it was just me getting older – it wasn’t without consequences and I started getting migraine and stress headaches. I had a six week, uninterrupted, low intensity stress headache. At that point I decided to take a step back and do something more sustainable.

            Nowadays I aim not to be in the office longer than 10 hours a day, while keeping weekends work free. This seems to be in line with what a lot of start-ups and VCs say: If a founder works non-stop, that’s not a sign of dedication, but a sign of something being seriously wrong with the business itself.

            My impression is that you’re putting yourself under some insane pressure and then stress yourself even more if you don’t live up to your own, high expectations. Sure, working hard is the basis for success, but I feel working consistent is significantly more important. Based on what you said, I’d recommend aiming for a consistent work output that you can maintain over weeks without burnout, rather than forcing yourself on a merciless path that has a serious risk of a ‘motivational yoyo effect’.

            There’s actually a lot you can achieve with working on time and priority management.

            Are you using pomodoros or a similar time management technique (which also incorporates breaks to help you mentally recuperate)? How do you determine priorities (e.g. the stuff that gets done and the stuff that gets ignored)?

          • My current approach is I accrue 5 mins rest per 25 mins worked, though I don’t take a break every 25 mins. I’ll let it accumulate and take 30 mins off after working for a few hours.

            To be completely, there are serious problems in the business that need to be resolved, and that’s a big part of why I’m currently working a lot, and looking for ways to work more. I made some critical mistakes in the model I chose over the last few years, and the shift to something better is going slowly, with cash tricking out the bottom and the pressure mounting. I don’t have any physical symptoms, and I’m not overly stressed. It’s just random moments on random days when I hit a wall or tiredness and lack of motivation.

            Once the new model is proven and generating consistent cashflow, I’ll be able to dial back my efforts a little bit. But for now, I think it makes sense to go hard. I’m also thinking that at 26, I have more energy and “gusto” than I’ll ever have, and that life will only get more full, so I feel like now’s the best time I have to grind.

            Another thing I’ve thought is… by 30 years old, will I regret working too much or not working enough? The more I think about it, the more I think that I’ll regret not working enough.

          • Gotcha. I think if it’s a specific phase – e.g. issues in the business you are looking to resolve – and if you’re not noticing any physical issues, I’d probably charge ahead as well.

            What you could consider is to skip work and tasks that you can complete easily (e.g. something you can do even when feeling completely unmotivated) while you’re on a roll. You specifically safe up the ‘easy’ stuff for when you don’t have the drive to do the hard things. Works well with non-time-crucial tasks. For me it’s filing, answering e-mails, reading up on industry news. Requires a different kind of discipline, but might be easier than trying to get yourself to become really productive when in a low phase.

            My own physical symptoms started at age 27, so you should have another 12 months or so to put to good use ;-). On a more serious note – you’re probably right. This is about as much energy and time that you’ll ever have available to dedicate to your business. As I got older, I found my priorities shifted towards other issues and I also got a lot more mellow about business itself.

            When I turned 30, I didn’t actually think about whether I worked too much or not enough. I was however wondering if I worked on the right issues. But that’s probably another can of worms.

          • That’s a great point. I try to do that. Hit emails when things are easy. Go for the hard stuff when I’m full of energy. But there’s the other side of the coin where sometimes you just have to push through.

            There are some fascinating articles about grit, and how it correlates to success in anything much more than talent, motivation, passion, and so on. Turns out, there are ways to develop grit and “sticktoitiveness”. Strangely, one of the best ways is to practice mindfulness. To use mindfulness when in the thick of depressing emotions, or lack of energy, or sore eyes, or whatnot.

          • Would love to see what you’ve been reading about in regards to grit and mindfulness. Got a link?