I’m constantly in search for motivation because I’m lazy. For example, I know I should be lifting weights or doing core conditioning on the days I do not play tennis but I slack off all the time by just taking naps in the afternoon while no one is looking. My top opponents are all extremely fit and skilled. The pacifist in me sometimes thinks, If they beat me, it’s no big deal since it’s only tennis. This is exactly the attitude of losers.
Mr. Miyagi said it best when Daniel-san was undecided on whether to learn karate. He said, “Either you karate do “yes,” or karate do “no.” You karate do “guess so”, and get squished like grape.” There’s no point doing anything if we don’t give it our best. If we go half way, we’ll just end up being bitter about our failures and complain about other people’s successes.
I’ve noticed there’s a correlation in motivation levels between the offline world and the online world. If you tend to be a highly enthusiastic person offline, your online energy will show. You’ll probably post more often and have funnier, more uplifting types of posts.
If you tend to be lazy offline like me, then you will probably post a little less than you should. You can kind of hide your laziness by writing ahead so you’ve always got a post in the pipeline that reflects previous high energy. The problem is your laziness eventually catches up.
ONLINE CHIP FOR MOTIVATION
Anybody who’s been blogging for more than a year will experience burnout at some point. My burnout seems to occur when I suffer from the occasional allergy attack or cold. All I want to do when I’m sneezing my head off is sleep. Computer be damned.
Before attending Fincon 12 in Denver last fall, I was beginning to get the lazy bug online given I had just finished writing my book. All I wanted to do was relax for a month and let people find my writing instead of actively going out and marketing my product.
Even though I had a couple posts in the queue I could publish, I didn’t feel like publishing any of them because that would mean I’d have to spend some moderating and responding to comments. When you are no longer thrilled to get comments on a post, you know you’re suffering from online apathy.
When I got to Fincon, I was immediately energized by all my fellow bloggers who were doing great on their respective sites. But what really got me going wasn’t so much other people’s successes since I’m just happy for those who are able to achieve their desires. Instead, a single sentence by a freelance writer fired me up for the next several months.
We got to talking about how his freelance writing business was going and his going rate. At the time, I was considering hiring a freelance writer to help contribute while I took an online vacation. What he said gave me a little shock. He replied, “You probably can’t afford me.”
Did he just say that? Dayuuum! I didn’t realize I was talking to such a big baller freelance writer. I told him, “You’re probably right given my blog is still relatively small.”
“Yeah, probably,” the freelancer went on.
After a little more conversation he finally said that he charges $100 and up on average for a fully researched post that’s over 1,000 words long. Not cheap. But perhaps totally worth it if the post can bring in a recurring stream of affiliate income for years.
We parted ways and I was excited to check out his $100+ freelance posts examples for myself. Not bad, but not spectacular either. I would have strongly considered hiring him if it wasn’t for his off commentary. Instead, I snapped out of my lazy malaise and started publishing 5,000+ words a month on Financial Samurai for the next 10 weeks in a row. 5,000 words a week was literally 40-50% more production than the average of the last 150 weeks.
It’s been six months since our encounter and only now is my energy starting to fade again. No matter, the effort I put in for the previous six months should help bring a wave of future readers thanks to search.
THE MAGIC ELIXIR
We should generally approach goals by trying to prove to ourselves we can do it. That said, it’s just so enjoyable to prove a naysayer wrong. If you watch any sporting event such as the NCAA tournament, you’ll hear over and over again how doubters motivated the players to succeed. It’s in an athlete’s DNA to train so hard that we have no choice but to vanquish our opponents or die trying.
Success in life is pretty straight forward. Work hard, get along well with others, produce something of value and persevere. Sometimes, however, we just don’t have any fire left to carry on. Even if you are the least competitive person on the planet, I encourage you to seek the soul crushers. What they say might be inadvertent or small, but try pretending you just received the most tremendous insult if you want to get fired up!
The magic elixir of motivation is out there. Don’t let the good life of first world living wrap you in its web of complacency.
Once you make enough money online, I’d use a free financial tool like Personal Capital to manage your finances. It’s all about protecting your wealth in 2015 and beyond!
Regards,
Sam
Squashed like a sardine on my commute right now I am reminded there are so many people out there who woke up earlier than me who enjoyed a quiet commute to work. With blogging I’m constantly reminded of others who post twice as much as me. Although I don’t treat my blogging friends as competitors they motivate me to keep going and that it is possible to do more. I’ve found technical problems bum me out the most and kill my motivation because I get so frustrated not understanding how to fix things. I try to just do things a little bit at a time now so I don’t give up.
Ah yes…. why, oh WHY can’t technology just work? Why do WordPress updates have to cause trouble on our sites due to incompatibility issues? Why do our computers just stop working one day? I wish technology would just get it together :)
I hated going into work and leaving when everybody else did. It drove me nuts to miss the bus b/c it was full.
I used to get motivated by other bloggers to write more, but the motivation has really begun to fade. Perhaps it’s b/c search engines have taken over the world. Or perhaps it’s tiring to always be on and interact.
I’m looking for more insults to get me motivated in 2013. I don’t want to suffer from a sophomore slump.
I had sustained a major shoulder injury and was having trouble getting back to my peak performance of military athlete workouts. So I contacted Rob Shaul (the coach) with a long drawn out email about my situation inquiring if I should be as fatigued as I was because I didn’t remember being so tired before. His response was one sentence, I’ll never forget it, “Perhaps you aren’t cut out for these workouts anymore.”
Man did that get my blood boiling, who the hell was this guy to tell me what I was or wasn’t cut out for. It took me 4 weeks but I eventually got back to my former self but now reflecting back on the situation I would have probably stopped the workouts and given some lame excuse about my shoulder.
Awesome you got back to full strength Marvin! Send the coach a thank you letter for the face slap!
Motivation seems to follow something I am interested in. If I am interested, the motivation just happens. Is it the goal or task that motivates me or the other way around? maybe I was motivated to begin with and just needed something to work on? It is probably different for everyone.
I had to take classes to increase my salary as a teacher. I wasn’t motivated to take the classes, but I want to earn more or just get it out of the way. I took some classes with other teachers (friends) and it made it a lot easier. The highlight was having dinner together before class. You have to find your motivation and it may not be where you expect it!
I’m still very new at blogging, so my initial motivation hasn’t waned. Joining the Yakezie Challenge is the best thing I have done so far because I am very motivated to break 200k in Alexa. I was also motivated by your 1,000+ word post challenge and my posts went from being 400-500 words to 1,000+ words during the last month. The results have been great.
It’s a 5,000+ word a week challenge :)
The beginning is always so exciting. The key is to push through the bumps.
People that naysay drive me. Tell me it can’t be done or you can’t add anything, I show them, don’t just tell them. The proof is in the pudding!
I always found that I was way more inspired to train for a marathon when I heard a friend tell me she didn’t think I could do it. That’s all I needed to spend 5 days a week out in the snow running and running and running. Proving someone wrong is powerful!
Just being able to run a marathon is kudos to you. Someone could make fun of me all day long and I would probably never run one. If you offered me $100,000… that’s a different story!
I was energized by FinCon as well. I came away with a huge todo list and met a ton of great folks. I’m starting to feel the burnout bug now though. The nice weather over the last few days made me super lazy. I think we need to take a little time off once in a while to recharge. It’s hard though because I feel guilty.
Don’t ever move to San Francisco, Southern California, Hawaii or the tropics. You will find it impossibly hard to get motivated when the weather and the environment is so good. Portland winters are perfect for an online business!
Perfect timing on this subject Sam as I am struggling to stay motivated right now. Family, work and other projects are taking up most of my time and it is a challenge to post regularly. I need to find a way to make each day longer!
Find someone to slap you in the face! Then all will be good again.
There’s always an excuse not to right, but when it’s a topic where I have a genuine passion the content simply flows. When it’s “I have to write”, instead of, “I want to write” it’s a waste. In the UK at present there are millions of people being affected by new taxes introduced on Monday (and throughout April). I want to write because I care about the post.
The trick for me is to find something I care about. It won’t appeal to the masses, but I’ll enjoy writing it, stay motivated and hopefully somebody will enjoy the content.
What’s the new tax about? I hear there’s a 75% French Football player tax which sounds awesome.
I hear you on have to write vs want to write. I try to keep those have to, to a minimum. I could write about real estate all day long, but then that gets boring to readers.
My motivation was great this winter. I suspect it will wane during summer as it will finally be nice enough outside to start enjoying myself. But I’ve made a commitment to write three articles per week. And every week that I haven’t been traveling, I’ve hit that goal.
I think it helps to have my blogging tied together with my investing. Every month I get fresh capital , so I’d better keep on doing those stock analyses and learning as much as I can.
Tying your investments to your writing is great. A no brainer really that keeps us on our toes. I’m rolling over my 401k to an IRA and will have a new series soon as well.
I’m currently experiencing a mini-burnout. It’s kind if odd that I’m excited for what the future will bring but I just can’t seem to find the will to work towards that future right now. But I think you are right about the cause. I’ve been fighting a head cold for the last week which is when this started.
Hang in there. The worst really is when our physical energy fades due to a cold or allergy. It’s temporary.
Sam, I’m struck with how time off energizes me. I need to step away from an activity for awhile to re-energize. I tend to be a workaholic and our brains need some down time to boost our creativity.
I hear yah Barbs. The problem with the online world is that it’s easy to be always on with our devices. I turned off all social media push notifications on my phone so that I check when I remember checking not b/c someone has mentioned or pinged me. This has helped a lot. Maybe I should turn off e-mail notifications on comments as well. In fact, I should do that and re-energize!
I have been feeling a bit off course lately as well; funny thing is that all seems to be going well. TMP is growing (I am convinced that to a large degree this is because of the 5000+ challenge I did with Sam) and my academic career is on the up as well. I am still feeling restless and with me this usually means I am being bored. This in turn can make me coast for a bit till the next thing. I suppose I am really tired and paying off the debt, wonderful as it feels, did mean that a large anchor in my life is gone. Need a new challenge!
Everything seems to get a little boring after a while. We need an academic work routine like P90X or Crossfit to keep us interested!
[…] writing a post? Don’t you remember your past? Stop complaining!” I tend to get lazy and need all the motivation I can get to carry on.I encourage everyone to work a minimum wage job growing up or find a job you might feel […]
I play soccer and I recently broke my leg and was unable to play for two months. When I came back to practice, I played as if I had a chip on my shoulder, staying after practice to run to get back into shape as soon as possible. Playing with this encouraged me to get to where I am now, back on the starting line-up.