Keeping Yourself Motivated
Staying motivated isn’t easy – we often convince ourselves not to be. We often give ourselves excuses, allow other people to put us down, or look at the success of others and think, “That’ll never be me.”
There are two basic types of motivation: intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation comes from the feeling of self-achievement inherent in the task or project achieved, i.e. solving a puzzle, completing a school assignment, or finally publishing that website you were working on for a client.
Extrinsic motivation is the reward you get from others – or outside “forces”. This includes money and other financial or tangible rewards, such as a free vacation for achieving your sales targets, a trophy for winning first place at the Olympics, or even the crowd cheering as you overtake car #2 in the last stretch of the race. This explains the “home team advantage” methodology.
Extrinsic motivation (namely money) is often the primary basis for our motivation. Everyone needs money, and wants as much of it as possible. That’s no secret. However, I believe the feeling of self achievement is equally important when it comes to staying motivated.
When you’ve finished the design work for a client, what feels better? Getting paid or seeing your client smile, succeed, and receive brand recognition partly due to your efforts? If you picked getting paid, try thinking about it this way:
A small, startup company seeks your help in setting up their identity (logo, business card, website, etc.). The company is completely unknown but happens to take off. All of a sudden the company is everywhere – the NY Times, TechCrunch, CNN, a trending topic on Twitter, you name it.
Do you still feel the same? Okay, that might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but hopefully my point was made.
But what about the money?
There are many ways that you can use money and your personal financial status to keep yourself motivated. Here are a few ideas:
- Reward yourself: decide on an amount (that doesn’t cut into your bill paying or savings) and reward yourself after a job well done. Of course you don’t want to spend every hard penny you’ve earned on your favourite hobby, but if it’s all work and no play you’ll get burnt out. Reward yourself as a reminder of what you’re working towards.
- Financial status: do you want to put a down payment on your own place in 2 years? Pay off the house in 7? Have children and send them to private school? Remind yourself how much money you need to earn each month in order to support your desired lifestyle. If you’re not quite there yet figure out the steps needed to get there and write them down.
- It takes money to make money: do you have any business plans that require startup capital you don’t currently have? Do you plan to buy and rent properties? Invest? These are other good ways to remind yourself to keep at it.
What else?
Networking. It’s easy to meet other people in your industry on the internet these days (especially if you’re a designer). If you don’t already have a blog, consider starting one. Sign up for Twitter and get out there! Meeting other people in your line of work helps you to learn the language and communication styles that are effective in your industry.
If you know a lot of designers, for instance, they can refer clients to you when they’re overbooked, or when a client requires something beyond their expertise.
It’s also a good idea to try to network in person. It’s refreshing to get out of your home or office and meet people face to face. People will often share more in person than they will on their blog or via Twitter. Escaping your workstation every once in a while will give you that added fuel you need to move forward when you return from your mid-day vacation.
When all else fails, I tend to go on a “success story” binge. Take an hour to watch a few TED Talks, read a few articles about people on the Forbes 400 list, or poke around the Small Business Success Stories page on BusinessWeek.
Stay motivated – and if you can’t, try something new.
Leave a Comment
good post
although for me personally Intrinsic motivation is the main motivation i’m striving for. After all money doesn’t make you happy, LIVING your life (where intrinsic motivation usually comes from) does !
Really nice, I liked the tips to continue motivated ! Thanks !
It’s funny how hard it can be to find motivation sometimes – I’d found myself falling into a pit where it was a struggle to get myself to do anything at all, let alone the work it’d take to really get my career off the ground.
Something as simple as setting my desktop background to this helped:
http://xkcd.com/137/
…because sometimes, what dampens motivation the most can be fear, whether we acknowledge it or not. Or, well, I can’t speak for anybody but me, I suppose. But I guess what I’m saying is, just finding the right words of inspiration can be the kick you need, at times. Intrinsic motivation does seem to be the most important component, because that’s what keeps you going whether the money’s flowing or not…
Nice views . Motivation is one of the secret ingredient to success.
Great post, an inspiring way to look at motivation to constantly find your goals from your heavy working lifestyle.
Nice post – I’m very unmotivated these days and I need motivation; Intrinsic and Extrinsic.
S
There is no greater motiation for me, other than loving what I do. However, money come the second as you need to make a living and nobody works for free.
Actually, money just makes anyone happy for one day: the day you get it. The next day you’re moving back to your “default mood”.
For every project I finish, I buy myself a present. It has some rules: it has to be something I don’t need and it must not be related to work. That is, something I need for the kitchen is NOT a present, because it’s something I need. A new mousepad, no matter how cool it is, is not a valid present either, because i’d use it at work.
HBO’s Rome First season special edition IS a valid present. And it’s a good one, BTW.
Kim — that comic was AWESOME, haha. Bookmarked.
That’s some great motivation in there.
These are all things I’m going to be keeping in mind when I make the leap from traditional employee to freelancer. I figure if I build in a tiny rewards system for myself, I’ll have at least something to look at and say, “This is what I’m working for right now.” That should help as a last resort, but a fairly good one for me.
Good post. I go through stages where I’m super motivated for a few weeks, then it fizzles out…. There are some good tips here for keeping the fire burning.
While I definitely agree that the most helpful long-term motivation comes from within, I don’t agree that the most effective (or even most common) extrinsic one is money. I think companies use money, because that’s the easiest thing for them to do: it’s something that is easy to use as a standard. But if you look at any employee engagement study, it clearly shows that recognition and appreciation are much bigger factors. Most people who leave a job do it because they are unhappy with their boss, not their paycheck.
Well its easy to keep yourself motivated in the beginning but if you can’t get any job in first 2 weeks your motivation and psychology will collapse
I am constantly battling self-doubt and fear in my quest to become a freelance developer.
I find if I think back to past successes, and remember I had many of the same doubts and fears I do now it is a great motivator.
I tell myself I’ve done it before, I can do it again.
And I will.
Thanks for a great post!
Great post. Never really thought about the two types of motivation. I really love when a client sends a certified thank you letter with an actual penned signature. And the ‘rewarding yourself’ part is great motivation too. I finally bought the vinyl cutter I’ve been saving for. Now it’s time to start the multiple streams of income…
Another great way to motivate yourself is creating a ‘visualization board’ um.. or something like that. A collage of different things to represent what you want to achieve in the short/long like a Mercedes Benz logo, Adobe Certification forms, etc. Learned that from the movie/book The Secret <—– Great stuff for motivation
Some great tips! Motivation and drive to keep going are the biggest components of being successful at anything.
Sometimes I have problems staying motivated, especially during the slow times.
I’ve found that reading blogs (like this one) often helps. It’s motivating to hear success stories and tips and it often keeps me going.
Very nice. I like the part about leaving the workstation and meeting with people face to face. I think am going to try it =)
really, it’s good article, i’m recommended to my friends
I just created this site yesterday as a way to keep myself motivated – http://www.minimotivation.com
It is very simple – it just displays one motivational quote, phrase, video, poem, or image every time it is loaded. I now use it as my homepage and get a little motivational reminder whenever I open a new tab in my browser.
I hope other people will find this as useful as I do!
Keeping yourself motivated – thanks for the help. But I really want to go home
I love such a helpful post on !love your work guy.