How do you keep yourself motivated and on track?

I didn't know about it either, but there is a motivational area on this forum

There is some awesome stuff to read there.

And most likely this thread will be moved there.

It isn't always easy staying motivated and I know how you feel when you're going through a bad time in your life it can get you right off track. My dog passed away a few weeks ago and I was absolutely devastated and I just lost all interest in my online work and it really got put aside, I also stopped running as I couldn't bear the thought of going out and not being able to take my dog.

Anyway, now I'm back into my online work and with a vengeance, but my main motivation is that I want to get a puppy and they are quite expensive for the breed we want. So that is my motivation, I need money for a puppy, and to keep myself on track I write a list of everything I need to do in my diary. My diary sits on my desk next to my computer and I cross the tasks off as I do them. I find I am much more productive when I have my 'To Do' list next to me.

Still haven't got back into the running yet though

-Concentrate on the activities that make you money
-Unsubscribe from lists that mean you no good
-Check your email during free time or end of the day
-Stay out of forums unless you are acquiring knowledge
-Keep a list of your bills in front of you for when motivation leaves you

Tony

By choosing work that makes you passionate, so you cant wait to do it everyday.

Staying away from forums and email lists would make me "less" motivated.

There are 2 types of motivation:

intrinsic and extrinsic

If you are not feeling the intrinsic "You gotta fake it til you make it"

What you are experiencing is why most people won't make money online. They get distracted then defeated.

I think when you are going through those stages it is very important to communicate on forums like this.

Or you could do what I did for about a year... Get hooked into playing World of Warcraft and letting my businesses go to hec

Edit: When you are running a business, writing music, or doing anything creative.... Most of the job is "tedious"...

It is not fun doing SEO, Backlinking, etc......

You have to be doing something you love and than once the money starts to follow your passion will deepen.

Going through a tough time in your life can really kill your motivation if you let it, I have recently been through some times that made my focus and motivation very difficult and I am just now getting myself back in tune.

Here are a few things that help to keep me on track:

Give yourself a certain amount of time to do each task, when the time is up the task is finished. You will find you do things much faster when you have a set deadline.

Stay away from "busy work" such as checking emails, stats, chatting, etc. except for during break times, after the daily tasks are finished, or during designated times. It is too easy to feel busy doing things that aren't productive.

Try to break tasks down into their smallest elements and do one thing at a time until the task is done. Just pick something and do it, don't give yourself more than 1 minute to decide what you are doing next.

Don't think about stuff too much, just put it out there. It is much easier to course correct something that is out there getting feedback than thin air.

Reward yourself for getting things done. Take a few minutes of conscious enjoyment after you finish a major task to reward yourself. It can be anything you enjoy, a special treat, a cigarette, a walk, anything that helps you look forward to finishing that next big task.

Accountability - Be accountable to someone. You will get more done if someone is watching you. Every day let your accountability partner know what you plan to do and when it will be done, then when you finish the task, let them know.

Think of where you could be, whenever I get tired of the daily IM tasks I think about 2 things. Where I could be if I were working at my optimum level, and where I could be if I stopped all together. The vision of driving my dream car, living in my dream house, taking vacations, etc sure does look better than the vision of flipping burgers at the local grease pit lol.

I hope it helps, focus and motivation are things that are hard to get back once they have been lost. Once we are out of the habit of moving forward constantly, it is difficult to get back into it but it just takes small successes and some planned discipline to make it happen again. Take small steps toward making productivity your daily routine and the motivation will follow.

When demotivating things happen, do not put your focus on them. Start thinking about the good things that happened to you. Start counting your blessings. As you think on positive things, which you possess, you will start feeling differently.

Pick a niche that you actually enjoy. It makes a huge difference in my opinion.

Its not easy to stay motivated. As Mike Litman says, focus on the reward and not the process. Thats helps me out a lot. Cause sometimes the process seems so daunting. But when I think of what will come out of me getting things done, it gets me motivated.

Lots and lots of rewards keep me motivated ;-)

Dude, go sit in peak hour traffic every morning for a week. That in itself should be enough motivation.

Wow... There's a lot of gold in this thread... Thank you - all of you - so much.

It seems like the common theme here is to focus on what you want and what you'll get if you don't act... Right?

The pain/pleasure principle.

Also, a lot of you talks about rewards... Are you talking about taking a break, buying something you like or what do you use a rewards?

I also like the idea about having someone to be accountable to. That's also something I've been thinking about a lot lately. When you have a 9-5 job, you just get up, get to work and do what you're told (more or less)... If you don't show up, your boss will call you!

In our line of business, we have to find that "boss" ourself. It's funny because, many of us start with IM to get away from that boss

Richard>> It's called Mind Warriors and you can find it on the warriorforums frontpage.

Here are two sites I would like to share with you...neither are mine but I think they're good resources full of stuff you can use to get more productive. Remember saving 4 minute per day is like getting a bit over 1 whole day of extra time per year...productivity is in small chunks like that.

200 Ways to be More Productive in Life? in Business | Main

Need A FREE Monitor? | Lance Tamashiro

Both are chock full of productivity stuff.

Cheers,

Brad

I just remembered... The warrior I was talking about in the initial post Is Steven Wagenheim...

I have been suffering from the same illness especially procatination backlog. I know exactly how you feel. I can guarantee that if we start follow the action plan of doing specific task a day or number of hours we will be back to the target. I am doing the same stuff now..

I hope this helps

You have to be doing something you love and than once the money starts to follow your passion will deepen....

Try finding a routine that suits you,start setting yourself goals that are achievable and the rest should fall into place.

Motivation...
only one thing to me,. stay focus and relax while on job,.
to much pressure will kill you,. just keep on going on,.

Hi

Your problem stems from a lack of focus. Basically you are being distracted internally by pursuing the need to avoid failure rather than pursuing success due to the pain pleasure principle.

If your outcome is to make money online and you have the necessary determination and focus to pursue this goal then you must learn to take action. Years ago in corporate world we analysed our organisation's activities and classed them into direct revenue generating and cost incurring. This allowed us to focus our time on what made money and what didn't. All the other activities were for busy fools as we called them and this is what you are in danger of.

Set the outcome, become determined to achieve, put into place your online strategy and introduce tactics that break that strategy down into smaller components.

Hope that helps

Geoff

I defintely know what you mean. When you have a new plan you feel so motivated and work at it but generally after a couple days you start focusing more on time wasting events.

I had a definite plan but I got sidetrack and spread myself too thin. Being too unfocus and too stress that I didn't fell like focusing on im for a couple weeks.

At least now I know my issue. I'm the type that doesn't like offering services which was what I did at one point to raise a bit more capital thinking it was great margins.

What motivates me is the thought of never offering another service again and working for myself lol.

But I guess we should all take some time each day and week to reflect.

When it gets difficult to say, "No," to the things that will hinder our progress and productivity, remember:
The best way to say, "No," to something is to concentrate on the burning "Yes" inside. Moods come and go. Ultimate goals remain, until they are achieved.

I believe in following your passion, so you want to do it and succeed. I also make a timeline, from 8-8:30 check emails, from 8:30-9:30 link building....

Some really good thoughts went into the posts - thank you all for all the insights

Here's one of my favourite quotes on this subject:
"Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful."

Hope that helps, for what it's worth

Yeah I understand..Its normal to feel down when you have problems to deal with

But losing interest is not the solution to it..it will only arouse more problems than you have now

What I am instructing you to do is first try to solve your problems,since it is more easy to work with a free mind

If it is impossible, without wasting time on thinking start work ...after sometime you will forget your problems and you will be ok with your career again.Probably your problems will also fade out.

The best thing that I use on myself is reverse psychology.

In front of my desk on the wall is a little piece of paper, it's the only thing there for me to look at, and it says "I'm okay with Not getting my business up and running."

Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed by the amount of things I need to do to get started, I look at that paper, I sit back in my chair, I read it, and I sit there until I feel it. Once I feel ok with not doing anything, the motivation to work returns.

I just need to remove the pressure I put on myself to get things done but it works because I'm really not ok with not getting my business up and running.

Try it. It's easy and takes about 1-2 minutes of concentration.

Hope this helps,

~S

Motivation is cultivated. I found out that one of the best ways to help you stay motivated is to stay on a single project until it is completed without distraction.