At the University of Practical Psychology, we analyze practical cases and answer customer questions.
Question
Hello Dmitry!
How to increase your motivation to sort through a pile of papers on the table, for example. They have been lying dead for a very long time and I have no time to disassemble them, or most likely just laziness.
Response
Thank you for the question, indeed motivation is one of the most common questions in consultations. There are many ways to be motivated. Of course, each person has his own ways, and some of them are more reliable, some less. But there are methods that work exactly and have been accurately tested. I’ll tell you two of them.
First: negative motivation
If you understand that you need to do something, but something is beyond understanding, then negative motivation works great. Need declare one’s obligationsthat you will do this thing.
A proven way is to choose a respected person — for example, your friend, loved one, work colleague or any other person whose opinion is important to you. Come up to him and say: “You know, I really need to sort out the documents, but I can’t organize myself. Come on, if I don’t call you back in three days and don’t say that all the documents have been completely sorted out, then I’ll have five thousand USD. Is it coming?»
The person agrees with pleasure (well, who would refuse?!) You go to sort through the documents with a clear conscience and a great desire. Rest assured, work will be done on time.
As for the amount — feel free to put a larger amount. I myself used this method often and was not afraid to bet twenty or thirty thousand, simply because I knew for sure that I would not have to pay a penny. I just I will do what I agreed with this person.
The second way: positive motivation
There is an assumption that once a person understands WHY to do what he plans to do, the question of motivation immediately becomes resolved. It’s just that it can be quite difficult to understand, it seems like you just need to and that’s it.
There is an easy way to understand why you need to parse documents. You just need to ask yourself the question:What will I get from this?» When the answer is, for example, “I will more convenient to work“- you need to ask yourself the same question again: “What will I get from this?”. And so on ad infinitum.
Well, more precisely, not to infinity, but until the moment when the answer to you want to do it. The final answer may be “then I will earn money for a new ATV” or “then my family and I can go on vacation to Greece in a month” or “then I will be promoted soon”. It is important to get to the bottom of this question to such an answer that will evoke an inner feeling «Yes-yes-yes, I will! ” The answer will be your own, many other people looking at it will probably say «So what?» It does not matter that the answer may seem somehow strange, the main thing is that this answer charges you.
By the way, one more observation. It happens that after ten questions, people still do not find the answer. In this case, you can safely throw this thing out of your head, you don’t need it, it’s something from the imposed patterns. A great way to check the goal for adequacy!
So, two simple ways to increase motivation.
Try it works.