Motivational Information

I spent almost all day unmotivated to do anything. I moped around, slowly fed the dogs, slowly shoveled eggs into my mouth, avoided any productive task. Then I remembered that I could motivate myself. I busted out my Motivation Toolkit and dug up that energy reservoir that was waiting to be tapped.

It seems like twice a year theres a scientist that comes out with the new secret to motivation that will forever keep us motivated to do the things we want to do. You buy their books every time and read the motivational message about the secret to motivation. Damn theyre motivating! Youre excited all the way through the book! HELLO WORLD! I AM MOTIVATED!

Then you wake up the next morning extremely unmotivated........

You dont want to get out of bed. You dont see the point in moving on. You eat too much sugar and crash into immobility. You stop caring about your passion.Sometimes being unmotivated is just ‘meh and sometimes its the deepest, darkest corner of hell. Either way, nothing is being built. Were builders! If we go too long without constructing something we die.At a certain point you get motivated enough to go read something motivating. That works for a minute. You soak in every single one of the greatest motivational ideas in the world.

Then you exit the Window of Motivation and realize nothing happened. You read everything about motivation–you know all there is about the thing, why isnt it hitting you!?Because you didnt DO anything. Without ACTION knowledge only leads to frustration.....

Now lets talk about ACTION

Ingratitude Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. – Melody Beattie

GO-GO ACTION TIME!!!!

Make a list of things youre grateful for. Lets get the standard out of the way. It works. If you sit and write all the things youre grateful for right now then youll see that feeling of gratitude begin to deepen. Youll feel better about what you have right here and right now. Youll begin to see that your situation isnt so dire. Its important to break past the point of being obvious. Make a list of 50 things youre grateful for and youll find appreciation for things you never would have noticed before.

The things surrounding you right now that youre grateful for. We are constantly surrounded by things that are making our life possible, comfortable, or better in some way. Right now I see an amazing machine that I can type thoughts into a spread to thousands of people on 7cups constructed on the internet. Theres my phone sitting right next to me thats speaking to a satellite in space right now.There are an assortment of pens and paper that I can use when I want to stop looking at a computer monitor. My fingers are healthy enough to type these words out to you. My brain is functioning enough to make them worth reading. Whats around your screen? Your eyes seem to be working well. Maybe youre in an office paying you what you need as you plan your great escape. Maybe youre at home in a couch designed by someone to be comfortable to you.

Make a list of lists of things to be grateful for. Create a list of categories of things to be grateful for. What relationships are you grateful for? What people in your life? What are the best moments of your life? What skills are you happy you have? What books are you happy you read? What habits are you happy you have? Make your own list – then dig in and expand them!

Make a list of the worst happening to you right now. Then find the good in them. I know, this doesnt make any sense at all. Arent we trying to starve Ingratitude? Wouldnt this be feeding it? If we stopped at the first part we would be, but the second part brings us back into gratitude. What are the worst things that have happened to you recently? Did your partner cheat on you? Did you lose a bunch of money? Did you get food poisoning? Did you fall into depression? Did you forget to sign up for the StartupBros newsletter? Did somebody flake on you? Did you get rejected? Find one miniscule things about each that ended up being a good thing. If you need to go back farther to get more perspective then do so. Its hard to say, Im grateful that I lost money in my business. Its easier to say, Im grateful I learned X about my customers, in the long run it will be worth having lost X because of it.

Write a thank you note. It doesnt even need to officially be a thank you note. Just write a letter (or email) to somebody with a sense of gratitude. Maybe its writing to them about a recent meeting you had while holding the idea of gratitude.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. – JFK

Saying Thank You to nothing. All of these things are designed to do one thing: make you feel grateful. Its not always necessary to target your gratitude though. You can just feel grateful for no reason. This is the end-goal anyway. When you can feel grateful for no reason then you have found amor fati. Your default state is a love for your fate. Thats a place worth getting to.

Pick your weapon and slay Ingratitude before it drowns you in an unproductive, stress-inducing swamp of suckery.