How to Get Motivated: No Bullshit Guide to True Motivation

I’ve recently seen a string of new motivational videos on youtube. Most of them contain some kind of awesome clips of people rock climbing and doing awesome stuff with scores from movies.

I have also seen numerous blogs wherein the authors will write a bunch of articles putting you down for being a schlub, and then bringing you back up with strong words of motivation. They’ll tell you what’s possible and tell you to go out and get it.

These two examples are useful in the short term in that it will give your brain a little spike in motivational fuel.

This is a very simple guide to give you long lasting motivation. You won’t have to keep going back to the well for another fix after doing this.

Using actual experience

A lot of what motivational material touches on is statements based on vague ideas of who or what you are. The idea is to use the fear of what you think of yourself to get your attention. After they have your attention, they can then build you back up which hopefully will give you some motivation to get moving with whatever you need to do.

My method is one of direct experience.

I used to work in an office job. I worked remote most days and was very comfortable. The more uncomfortable it got the more motivated I was to change. At some point I said screw it and just changed. I put a plan in place to get rid of my paid time off and gave in my two weeks.

The motivating factor: being uncomfortable.

I think this is why a lot of people don’t take any action. They are comfortable just enough so that they don’t change, but uncomfortable enough so that they bitch about their situation.

Believe me, I was that guy. I used to complain about my job all the time. All it ever took was to quit. When I actually did quit, it was rather anti climatic.

The most interesting insight was that my job wasn’t drastically different the day I left from day one. The only slight difference was being slightly more uncomfortable with different changes in company policy. It was enough discomfort to take action.

Feeling Unmotivated

After quitting I was making money doing SEO writing and Copywriting on a freelance basis. This made my comfort levels rise a lot. I was on my own schedule and could do as little or as much as I pleased.

No one was telling me what to do. It felt great.

I started to forget the hell I was in just months before. As a result, I started losing motivation to do anything. Perhaps my previous work situation wasn’t as hellish as I thought.

I have business goals beyond just SEO and Copywriting, however I’ve been feeling less and less motivated to achieve those goals, so I decided to do something about it.

I became uncomfortable.

Want to get motivated? Become uncomfortable.

One thing about Copywriting and SEO writing is that it affords you a lot of free time. I noticed that my friend was asking for help for the detail business he works for, so I decided to fill my extra time with detailing cars.

I had no idea the motivating value this would give to me.

I quickly learned that prepping cars and doing full details is an extremely tedious and annoying job. Immediately I thought to myself, “the hell with this”. You get paid for every detail job you do, so the incentive is to go as fast as you can. However, if you go as fast as you can you end up missing stuff and not doing a good job.

This job also doesn’t pay exceptionally well or have any benefits to speak of. Anyone can do this job.

I’m now extremely motivated to get my other business ideas going. The thought I keep coming back to is what if I had to rely on this job to make money.

Lacking motivation? Do this.

If you ever find yourself unmotivated to take steps to make your life better, do this one thing to set yourself right.

Go out and do some manual labor job. I don’t mean to have your own business doing that (unless that’s your goal), I mean to work for someone else’s business doing manual labor.

Often times you’ll be on your feet all day. You will be extremely tired. You will unquestionably feel as though your time should be worth more money.

Here’s the kicker, whoever you are working for is getting a lot more money than you, and isn’t doing the actual job. Their job is running the actual business. He’s obviously getting enough money to hire you to work the actual job. Use this.

If you do a manual labor job for someone else, I guarantee within two weeks you will be super motivated.

How to find manual labor jobs

Some fields to get into for this are as follows:
-Painting
-Masonry
-Carrying Dry Wall
-Roofing
-Valet
-Landscaping

Be on the lookout for postings about needing workers. Sometimes contractors won’t even advertise because they know there’s enough people willing to do work that they won’t have to, they just ask around.

How do you solve this then? Call up various contractors or detail shops and ask if they need any extra help. Usually you’ll be able to find someone willing to pay you to work.

Another way would be to go on Craigslist and look under general labor, or do a search for manual labor.

If this isn’t getting any results, go down to Home Depot and wait for some contractors to show up. Look to see if they need any help on their job for the day.

Give a good effort

If you are going to do this, give the job at least two weeks of honest effort. Don’t just half ass because you aren’t serious about it. Pretend as though it’s your only option for money.

You will come to a point in which you start questioning the point of it all, this is the point.

After the two weeks feel free to quit if you want. Don’t worry too much about the reaction, in these jobs there’s usually a good amount of turnover anyway. They should be used to it.

After doing manual labor for someone else for a while, you will start to hate life. This should get your motivated.

This will not be an easy task. However, consider having enough motivation for the rest of your life to accomplish any task you set your mind to. Whenever you are feeling unmotivated, you could always think back to when you did this job.

If you have ever felt unmotivated, it’s worth it to go through with this.

Go forth, get motivated!