Advice on motivation

[Triple Zero]

Oooh another tip, I did that years ago and it kinda worked, made me feel better at least, keep a list of things that DO motivate you. Even small things. Whenever you find something has motivated you, add it. Then read it back when you need it.

Actually, I just realized why this works. It's not so much that you build a list of "tricks" or "sources of motivation", rather you're building a collection of situations and mental states in which you've felt motivated. When you read them back, you'll revisit that memory, and our brains are wired so they bring back the mental state of your memory. That's no hippie clap-your-hands-if-you-believe bull, it's an actual scientifically proven repeatable push-button-click-whirr effect. You can count on it working like you can count on your knee-reflex-response thing working.
By which I don't mean it's a sure-fire way to solve your problem, because the strength of the effect may vary, but it'll make you feel better (in which sense it's at least as good as the hippie bull, with the added benefit that you won't wonder "wtf am I doing??" as much).

BTW you don't even need apply the memory to your current situation, don't even try, just need to revisit it.

It also tells me I've been doin it wrong back then, I dug up my old list (was going to post it here) and found I had mixed up my own experiences with other motivational bits I read or heard here and there. Maybe those are also good (they never worked for me), but the above mental recall concept works much better if you're recalling an actual memory, your own experience. It also had a separate list of "traps", which you don't want to read about at all if you're trying to recall the positive emotion of motivation [yet I saw those too, every time, at the bottom of the page hehehe]

So I'm not going to post that list because it wouldn't do you much good. It needs to be your own experiences. The few bits of general advice in my old list have already been posted here (exercise, accomplishment, nutrition/personal care). One maybe: working together with other people. But that's also not very relevant to your situation as a writer

One thing you have an advantage, if you're going to try this, since you're already a writer, you're probably quite skilled at capturing these emotions and mental states with words in very vivid imagery. Do that. In fact, go crazy and take it over the top and rave about the glorious hours that you spent that one summer afternoon when the words just gushed from your pen, like a high pressure firehose, nearly dislocating your arm from the sheer force, and when every period at the end of a paragraph burned a smouldering crater in the desk below.

[Penumbral]

One thing you have an advantage, if you're going to try this, since you're already a writer, you're probably quite skilled at capturing these emotions and mental states with words in very vivid imagery. Do that. In fact, go crazy and take it over the top and rave about the glorious hours that you spent that one summer afternoon when the words just gushed from your pen, like a high pressure firehose, nearly dislocating your arm from the sheer force, and when every period at the end of a paragraph burned a smouldering crater in the desk below.

lol, I would have a hard time doing this without the added introspection of all the things I didn't do correct. In fact, when I was thinking about the most motivated I have been, as a writer, it usually comes from failure. If I were going to write a list of experiences that motivated me it wouldn't look like a list of accomplishments so much as a list of failures. Its not that I lack the accomplishments its just that once people start liking something I stop being motivated to make it better even thought I might know it needs to be.

Solution: Make stuff you can show others. The Internet is good (but treacherous) for this. Maybe not. Sometimes I can get by on making stuff that is so damn pretty and ingenious that the bare thought of "fuck yeah people are gonna love this" is what propels me, even when I don't end up showing it to anyone (or maybe months later).

This has always been a big part of my process, but I always feel annoying being the guy saying look at me look at what I did.


Thanks Trip Zero. I think I need to focus on getting out more than I wanted to admit. Before I moved to LA I was a bartender and talked to people all the time, I partied, and had a lot of sex. I haven't done almost any of that here, and it might be fucking with my rhythm.

[Verbal Mike]

Thanks for this thread. I have no advice to offer since I'm struggling with (vaguely) similar motivation issues, but I'm glad I bumped into this.

[Cramulus]

Break the rut

Tap into the True Source

that thing which makes you grin so hard your cheeks hurt?

dive into it full force, go have an extreme experience

That's one of the things that motivates me --- go experience the Hyper Real. Then when I get back to my desk I feel like I have to communicate some of what just took place.

[Luna]

The real bitch, once you're in that rut, is FINDING that thing that makes you grin.

[Triple Zero]

Break the rut

Tap into the True Source

that thing which makes you grin so hard your cheeks hurt?

dive into it full force, go have an extreme experience

That's one of the things that motivates me --- go experience the Hyper Real. Then when I get back to my desk I feel like I have to communicate some of what just took place.

Racking my brain ... the best surefire way is to go play D&D / tabletop RPG again , even if it's just Kobolds. Otherwise there's parties and dancing but that doesn't always do the trick. But roleplay is hardly hyperreal, quite the opposite, no?

Oh then there's mushrooms, they make me grin so hard my cheeks hurt and tears run from my eyes, and people laugh and cry at the same time, they get horny and holy at the same time, have you seen it? ... but I dunno, drugs might be cheating. At least shrooms experience is what I'd consider "hyperreal", buncha reality getting all turned up to 11, crashing into your senses, doesn't always make sense because it's all there at the same time being very loud and crazy, but it'll take you full force for sure.

edit: this is not advice for anyone to get motivated btw, just my own musings.

[Cramulus]

Racking my brain ... the best surefire way is to go play D&D / tabletop RPG again , even if it's just Kobolds. Otherwise there's parties and dancing but that doesn't always do the trick. But roleplay is hardly hyperreal, quite the opposite, no?

it's not "hyperreal" in the sense that the Cacophony Society uses the term - a system shock, a brush with death

but it's way more real than many of the things we do for entertainment

You're really hanging out with people, face to face, hamming it up. It's creative, it's constructive, it's pleasurable, and it's organic. It's not like you're paying anybody to experience anything, everybody is enjoying these delightful little aspects of each other's personality.

I think about primitive man telling stories around a campfire. Everybody sharing the mythology.

Then I think about everybody walking out of a theater, a bit bleary eyed, having just seen this summer's latest blockbuster. And it is clearly not the same cultural experience as we used to have huddled around a campfire.

Oh then there's mushrooms, they make me grin so hard my cheeks hurt and tears run from my eyes, and people laugh and cry at the same time, they get horny and holy at the same time, have you seen it? ... but I dunno, drugs might be cheating. At least shrooms experience is what I'd consider "hyperreal", buncha reality getting all turned up to 11, crashing into your senses, doesn't always make sense because it's all there at the same time being very loud and crazy, but it'll take you full force for sure.

you got it!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Or you could just, you know, go outside and see what happens.

[Doktor Howl]

Or you could just, you know, go outside and see what happens.

LET'S NOT GET ALL CRAZY, NOW!