Motivation is hard to find, and harder to keep hold of once you have it. Right now, I’m losing mine in relation to this blog. I no longer have the same desire to become “a blogger” that I had when I started this daily writing challenge. I’m on the verge of quitting the challenge, maybe even deleting this blog, and focusing my energy onto other parts of my life. But I haven’t.
What I’ve found is that it isn’t motivation that keeps my going. It’s disciple. I have a weekly planner pad that I keep on my desk, and I try to stick to the plan that I wrote out for that day. Sometimes I might do them out of order, but they always get done. I use it for more than just chores; for example, I allocate days of the week to go on a run, even if I don’t want to. And on every single day, I remind myself of the commitment I made to write a blog post every day. It’s an easy(ish) way to break down the things that you need to do, by forcing you to take it each day at a time. It’s much less daunting than motivating yourself to complete a huge weekly to-do list. It’s a tip that’s helped me to deal with my university work, as well. I look at my reading, divide the number of pages by the number of days I have to do it, and a 500 page novel becomes five 100 page novels. The same thing works for essays and word counts. Give yourself a minimum to complete, instead of only looking at the maximum.
This isn’t a lesson in how best to use a planner. It’s a lesson in how little you can rely on motivation to get us to do the things that we need to do. Take things one day at a time by giving yourself things to do on each of those days.
Hooks, Books, and Funny Looks 