Staying motivated will keep you productive in achieving your goals. But, what if you lack the motivation and are simply not getting your tasks done and you cannot tell what is causing it? Here are some 10 habits killing your motivation which you need to watch out for.
Procrastination
Procrastination is the act of delaying or postponing a task. A quote by Charles Dickens says “Procrastination is the thief of time”. Delaying or postponing tasks can make you lose motivation.
Waiting to work will decrease the enthusiasm and creativity for your tasks.
If you keep making excuses such as “let me get started on it properly on Monday, or next week” you will be shocked that time has flown by and you are yet to start your project.
Comparisons
The quickest way to lose motivation is to compare yourself to other people. Comparisons can sap the joy out of your life and leave you demoralized.
Every individual has their journey that they are on, hence comparing oneself to another is pointless. Furthermore, people that are in the habit of comparing themselves do so with inadequate information about their so called “competitor”.
It is often that they are focusing on their chapter 1 and comparing themselves to someone else’s Chapter 20. This can lead to frustration and the general feeling that you are not good enough.
Rather than make comparisons, study your competitors or peers and see what you can learn from them.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism will destroy your motivation in the sense that you will find yourself spending so much time overthinking something and trying to make it perfect.
You then realize in the end that you are not making progress at all. When you set for yourself unrealistic standards, you waste a lot of time trying to make perfect only one thing while other things remain pending, thus delaying your own progress.
Imagine you are trying to start a website or blog and you get so obsessed with making your design so pretty with color schemes and fonts and other designs for so long that it takes away the time for you to focus on the other important stuff, like starting the website itself.
Just start, finish the project and change the small stuff afterwards.
Multi-tasking
Multi-tasking might sound like a good way to kill two birds with one stone but it can be a real motivation killer. When you are all over the place with your tasks your mind can’t focus.
Hence you are going to find yourself doing work that is of low quality. You might conclude that you are not good enough because of your low quality results and eventually lose your motivation.
It is better to concentrate fully on one task and once you are done with it, you can move on to the next.
You will find that you execute your tasks in less time and produce high quality results
Allowing distractions
Allowing distractions such as TV or music will contribute to your losing focus and ultimately your motivation. Though some people have said that they work well with some background music, this method can be challenging for most.
The brain needs a clear, quiet environment to function at its highest possible capacity. Therefore, get rid of all distractions in your room as you work or study and try by all means to minimize noises.
Indecisiveness
If you fail or delay to make decisions, you are likely to lose motivation on most of your projects.
For example, if you come up with an idea that you believe will be viable, you need to get to it and take action quickly rather than sit and overthink it.
Failing to make a decision quickly brings in other distractions and other things may come up that can lead to your plan not working out at all.
So, you need to be decisive and be quick about it as long as you are sure about your plan.
Lack of self-care
In as much as you want to execute your ideas and plans and achieve your goals early, you still need to make yourself a priority. Do not forget about your own self-care.
Find time for yourself and engage in self-care practices like getting enough sleep, exercising, eating at proper times and leisure activities.
If you neglect these basic necessities, you will find yourself constantly feeling tired hence losing motivation.
Overdoing it
Do not overdo it otherwise you will burn out. Being productive is important but sometimes you just need to take a break.
Your mind and body will demand it. You are not a machine. If you have been working too hard, take a break, perhaps a weekend off.
It helps your mind to refresh and declutter. When you get back to your work, you will find that you are more motivated.
As a suggestion, try to schedule your work in such a way that you have time for relaxing in between. For example, if you are writing a book, put in most of your work from Monday to Friday and take a break to relax on the weekend.
This will re-energize your body as you look forward to a new week of work.
Fear of Failure
The feeling that one gets after they have failed is not a good feeling. That is the reason why most people tend to fear failure. But, failure is not necessarily a bad thing.
It all depends on how you view it. I like to think of a failure as a lesson. It is feedback. It tells you what you did wrong so you can have an opportunity to fix it and do better next time.
So, instead of holding back from your opportunities due to fear of failure, just dive in so you can fail fast, fix it and get on your road to success.
Not saying no
In order to be productive, you need to learn how to say no to yourself and to other people. Say no to leisure before work and say no to time demanding friends.
Get in the habit of not feeling guilty about saying no to other people’s demands.
Even though its true that they might need your help, sometimes you just don’t have the time. Prioritize your own tasks first then use your left over time to help others.
