Making Molehills out of Mountains: From Procrastination to Motivation

How’s that paper coming along? Start on your part of the presentation yet? Hey, graduations closer than you think; how many job applications did you put in? More likely than not, those three things actually line right up with what we want to do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure no-one’s jumping for joy when it’s syllabus week and their professor talks about that 30 page research paper due at the end of the semester. But, we’re probably in college for a reason and have some goal in mind - and that is why we want to do the things.

So, we know why we want to do the things - why can’t we do them? Well most of the time one of two things (or both) might be happening. We’re looking at the whole of the project and psyching ourselves out or we’re waiting for motivation to come find us.

Let’s say you need to read a book for class this week. If it’s 14 chapters and it takes us about 20 minutes to read each chapter, that’s 280 minutes. I like reading - but if you tell me my grade depended on me spending 280 minutes reading this week, I’d start to sweat a little bit. If you told me my grade depended on me reading 40 minutes a day, I’d sweat a little less. If you told me my grade depended on me reading 20 minutes a day in the morning and 20 minutes a day in the afternoon, I’m way less sweaty.

I have bad news about motivation, it isn’t coming to find you. It’s not seeking you out, nor is it interested in helping you out. Why? Because that’s not how it works! Motivation comes from doing and succeeding. Think about it, if I win most games of basketball I play, I’m going to want to play more. If I get stomped on in Tennis and lose all the time, I’m packing up my racket. We feel good when we accomplish things and that good feeling motivates us!

So how do we put this into practice? We break our goals down! We sit down and decide what we want to achieve (like writing a paper). Next, we break down our goal into different steps (look over the instructions and figure out requirements, choose a topic, find 5 sources on the topic, etc.) Next, we schedule a time to do these different steps (after class on Monday look over the instructions, Monday night choose a topic, Tuesday afternoon find 5 sources, etc.) This makes it feel like we’re making progress, helps us feel accomplished, and keeps the motivation going. Again, what sounds easier to you? Work on this research paper tonight or figure out a topic tonight?

Struggling with motivation? You don’t have to always wait until the last minute or let things fall by the wayside. Schedule a free consultation call today to learn how to overcome procrastination and build motivation!