Hard To Get Motivated and Focused

Finding It Hard to Get Motivated and Focused

Q: I got 3 and a half GCSE’s [1] and I know I’m more intelligent than that but now I’m finding it hard to get motivated and focused.

A: There are a number of possible reasons for your lack of motivation and focus. I won’t go into all of them but here are a couple that immediately came to mind.

In order for motivation to last, the performed behavior has to push at least one of your hot buttons.

For you or anyone to be motivated to do something, the outcome produced by your behavior has to bring you closer to attaining one of your values or basic desires- your hot buttons. Food, water, power, security, sex, family, and ego are good examples of hot buttons.

What is keeping you focused and motivated to read this article? What are you hoping to learn? As you learn it, what will having this knowledge empower you to do?

The answers to these questions will point you in the direction of finding some of your hot buttons.

Once you have an idea of what your hot buttons are, you simply build a bridge between whatever you’re not motivated to do and your values.

In other words, you have to prove to yourself that performing a certain behavior will help you and not performing it will be extremely disappointing.

How do you create this bridge? There are two steps.

1. Take a few moments to think about a few things that are important to you. How can being motivated and focused on the task at hand help you to get what’s important? Write down the answer.

2. Vividly picture yourself performing the behavior and getting what you desire. Also, envision how terrible it would be NOT to get what you desire. Do this at least three times.

The goal is to imbed this image into your unconscious mind. Some people only have to go through this process once. For others it may take a few times before it begins to affect their motivation.

Now you know, consciously and unconsciously, that the pain of not performing the behavior is worse than performing it because performing it leads to your hot buttons. This makes staying focused easier.

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