How to Motivate Yourself to Actually Start This Passionate Project
You have a brilliant idea for a project. You talked about it, planned it to death, analyzed your options – but nothing came of it. It’s time to stop talking about this project and tackle it. Here’s how.
We’ll assume you know how to find time in your schedule , but you’re still stuck. Maybe you have analytical paralysis. You may be great at doing things for others, but terribly bad at launching your own projects. This could be a book you want to write, a website you want to start, or a side business you want to start. Here are a few steps you can take to stop planning this project and finally get it up and running.
Find out what motivates you
First of all, it helps you understand what motivates you and what doesn’t. We talked about four types of motivational personalities . To summarize:
- Q : They need to fully understand expectations in order to follow them.
- Officials: they do an excellent job with the expectations of other people, but do not cope with their own.
- Rebels : They resist all expectations.
- Supporters : They are great at meeting all expectations.
When you understand how motivated you are, you can better manage your project because you know where to focus. For example, if you are asking a question , then perhaps analysis is very important to you. In this case, instead of analyzing the project as a whole, break it down into smaller parts, analyze one piece at a time, and get to work. This way, you still analyze your expectations enough to follow them, but you are not paralyzed by too much information.
If you are committed , you may need to involve other people in your project. Thus, you have an external expectation that you feel obligated to satisfy, even if it’s just friends who force you to respond .
Knowing your type of motivation gives you an idea of which of these methods will work best.
Get some external deadlines
Deadlines set your project in motion. But if you don’t know how to meet your own deadlines, use someone else’s. Sign up for an event, seminar, or class that forces you to prepare something. It could be a writing group; it could be a beginner training course. If your project requires you to travel, book your plane ticket.
For example, I wanted to start writing a story that had been in my head for a while. I set myself deadlines, but they were always pushed because of work, commitments to friends, chores, and so on. So I joined a writing group that required me to turn in something from time to time. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t have a group. This sense of duty made me find the time to complete the project within the group’s deadline.
The idea here is to impose a time frame on ourselves based on external commitments. The internal deadline you give yourself can always be pushed back. But when outside forces are involved – whether it’s the people in your writing group or the money you paid for the workshop – it’s harder to miss.
Find a partner
There is a reason why NanoWriMo has become so popular. He does a great job of harnessing the power of accountability. With a large group of writers, you work to write a novel in a month. This is a good example of using external deadlines, but there is also a strong community of people who are accountable to each other.
We’ve written about accountability partners before , and here’s how to get started:
… collaborate with a colleague or peer group – people who are committed to helping each other do what they say they are going to do – and plan to test each other at least once a week. Whenever you meet (online or in person), measure your progress, share your upcoming goals, and share your feedback and support. You will have a much better chance of ending your blog if you have a friend who reviews you: “I haven’t seen any updates on your blog today – when are you going to post them?”
I followed this advice and created an “accountability group” with two friends. We each have different projects in different areas, and so far, each of us has made good progress. Here’s how we do it:
- Meet and discuss what we want to achieve and what is holding us back.
- Have 3-5 sensible SMART goals to be achieved over the next 30 days.
- Check each other periodically throughout the month.
- Meet in a month and try to achieve these goals. Repetition.
You can of course customize this according to your schedule and preference. It also helps to ensure that you have the same work ethic and that you and your partner (s) strive to be accountable to each other.
Accept failure
Much of not getting started is fear of failure. If this fear is holding you back, keep these points in mind:
- You learn by completing something . If you don’t start, you cannot finish.
- Failure is an opportunity. But with every failure, you learn something valuable. When you don’t do anything at all, you don’t learn anything. Failure is how you get better .
- You can make mistakes in your project, but you can figure things out on the fly. You learn by completing something, and you also learn something along the way.
We’ve also put together a few questions to help you understand and relieve your fear of failure. For instance:
- What if I lose – how will I get well?
- What if I don’t do anything?
- What is really worth doing if you fail or succeed?
Learn to accept failure. Much easier said than done, but a little introspection can help change your perspective.
Strategic use of rewards
Rewards can be a powerful motivator to get started. You can think of a few small indulgences to achieve certain milestones in your project. But rewards can backfire, too.
Sometimes rewards can turn your fun project into a chore that you need to take a break from. To combat this, come up with a reward that matches your overall goal. If you are starting a business, this could be a new book on the topic. If you’re starting out as an artist, you may be buying yourself some fancy painting tools. You can come up with a reward yourself. The point is, let it complement your goal, not contradict it.
And completing a task can be a reward too. Make a to-do list for the project, and then sort it according to the degree of emotional satisfaction . What tasks will give you moderate satisfaction ? Relieved ? Triumphant ? Sorting the list in this way can remind you of how enjoyable it is to complete certain tasks.
Getting started is often the hardest part of a fun project. Once you find your rhythm, it will be much easier for you to keep moving on the impulse. But first, just focus on work to get past the initial block and get this project off the ground.