You know what my worst habit is ? It is thinking of so many great things and not doing 99% of them. Its really disappointing when I think how I would have become if I did most of these things.
And when I thought to myself why these 99% are left undone the only answer came to my mind was that I wasn’t enthusiastic enough, that I lost the mood of doing them, even when I write them down and keep reminding myself with them I’m still not excited to take any action.
That’s why I need a “cheerleader” (not exactly a woman that dances for me but why not anyway? :D)
I need something that puts me back in the mood and not just reminding myself with it and I need it for everything, from the biggest to the smallest thing, even having my breakfast or watching TV.
I believe I’m not the only one who’s facing this problem but now I’m in the mood of solving it, may be if I had postponed writing this post it would have been in the 99% (a lot of posts are)
So I’m asking everybody reading this post, what would be that cheerleader that can enthuse you enough to do something that you want to do but not excited enough ? Can it be a daily habit? a software program? a friend? a wife or a girlfriend?
I’m waiting for your answers.
Ashraf Hamdy 
You penetrated my mind Ashraf & hit a nerve, I felt as if you are talking about me & I am sure there are many others who has the same problem.From observing myself, I found that there are some stuff that motivates me to do the thing:1- Small success: If I have an idea of something, did it or started it & it worked, this makes me more enthusiastic about doing more stuff and more ideas on my mind. For example I once wrote a post (Why you didn't get a job?) I was intended to write long time ago but a conversation with a friend triggered me to write it, it turned out to be the second most read article on my blog and it was shared over 100+ times on FB and twitter! This made me more enthusiastic about learning about employment and writing other articles about it like CV writing.2- Competition & Challenge: If it is challenging (but not too high) I will be more keen to try and do it & the desire to do it increases if it is something in my area of knowledge where I will utilize something I know to solve a problem or pass a challenge. The higher the risk also the more keen I am to do it.3- If it is related to people: Helping someone, Selling something to someone, meeting a new person, researching about someone. All these stuff I never delay and do them immediately :-)These are the top 3 that came to my mind. otherwise I just write it, put it somewhere in the back of my head, and never do it :-)
First: I really appreciate your comment because I don't have many over here :DSecond: these are amazing points specially the small success one but still wont exceed 10% done actions (at least for me). I believe we need more "cheerleaders" :D
:-)Look I think this is normal because no one can do most of what he/she thinks of because of several factors (focus is key to success, humans can't multitask, scarce of resources either financial or mental or others…etc)… And I don't think that any of the people we consider as "Successful" did even half of what they thought of or could do.I believe there is no problem as long as you are utilizing your time to either learn something you don't know, or build/do something. Otherwise you are in trouble & wasting your time & even a belly dancer won't push you to do something :D
Oh my god. While reading, I kept remembering all the things I gave up on, or forgot, or whatever.There is one thing that helped me just a few weeks ago. Could work for you, dunno…When I was little, when there were no computers, I used to love reading. A LOT. Then the computer came along and gradually I started to use the pc more and read less and less… About 3 weeks ago, I joined a book club. And it lit up the flame inside me. I've started reading again.So my point is: Find a group of people that share the same passion or goal or whatever you wanna call it, and it may help that flame inside you to light up again.Great post mate ;)
First: I really appreciate your comment because I don't have many over here :D (yeah I copied it :D)Second: thats another great solution! :D but it'll be hard when you want to do unrelated things like business, travelling and learning music for example, you'll have to focus on 1 or 2 categories at most also because we're bad at multitasking like what Mostafa Nageeb said, too bad for us :D
Marion Cotillard or Scarlett Johanson
great post :D , i'd say from my personal lazy experience try to focus on a group of related ideas, like ideas about programming or business or any particular subject. Then find an online community or even see if your friends are interested in the subject. i guess doing multiple unrelated activities might be hard at first because we're lazy humans :Pi think the "cheerleader" effect your talking about comes most from having someone to share your progress with and interest. so whether it's a gf that'll listen to you babbling about your new hobby or a group of people sharing it with you , it'll keep wanting to go further in my opinion. :D
yeah you are absolutely right Ashraf , I think to know how to motivate your self is a hard task but the first thing is to know if you are "towards" or "away from" motivator.first towards means that you put on your mind that you want to do that to get towards it,second away from means to get away of something you do not want to happen so you get away from it.I suggest for you a book named "100 ways to motivate yourself" It's a great one
Lol, I wouldn't mind that at all :D
Thanks Mohamed :D and I hope the book isn't more than 200 pages or I'll need a motivator to finish it :D
Me neither :D
Lets me quote Paul Graham "Y Combinator founder":"One of the most interesting things we've discovered from working on Y Combinator is that founders are more motivated by the fear of looking bad than by the hope of getting millions of dollars. So if you want to get millions of dollars, put yourself in a position where failure will be public and humiliating." [1]But be warned: too much reliance on outside feedback can be bad. Internal feedback should be more important to you. If you feel you did your best, you shouldn't care what anyone else thinks.[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html
you mean that our actions are most driven by fear not by excitement and passion, so if I want to make something happen I should make myself afraid of the result of not doing it. Interesting :D
Whenever I insert an item in my todo list I like to associate it with a floating point value that represents the length (in cm) of the criminal's penis who I'll consider have raped me if I didn't go through with the item.So working out would be mapped to ~5.5replying to important emails would be ~9studying for final exams would be ~9studying for final exams ON THE NIGHT of the exam would be a painful 13and so onBut for it to work you have to mentally simulate at least parts of the rape and cry a little after.Though this tends to make me angry and I think it may cause more repressed negative emotions but I'll deal with that when it comes.
No, thanks :D keep this horrible idea to yourself
Is it not better than doing nothing and end up failing in life ?
There's a bunch of less violent techniques :D
Its in our genes. Why is the biggest fear people have is stage fear? When we get a task, why do we leave it till the very end, and then we start working extra hard in the last moment? It's the fear of humiliation that kicks in and gives you the extra power.One can be driven by passion, but passion fades. Think of startups, they are driven by passion, but when times get hard, passion surrenders. All whats left is fear of letting your friends down, family down, yourself down. Fear of humiliation keeps your startup alive at these times.So if you are passionate about something, tell everyone about it. This way, you have passion + fear of humiliation driving you forward.
nearly perfect answer :D Thanks a lot Amr
It's a great book and occasionally you don't have to complete it..just do one or two of the tips and you will notice the improvement
People are not the same.From that perspective there are people who are fear driven and success hungry driven, but u agree that the first category is the most common
hehehehe nice but for you because i think no one can do it to me lol
That's absurd Metwaly; even if we assume that you are too strong that the probability that you'll meet someone stronger than you is negligible, you can easily be outnumbered and raped.
i can smell Saif from here xD
I love the way of writing this post, It is like you just draw a virtual path in everyone's mind and anyone who reads that article you just make him feel like u are directly talking to him and that you as an a writer understands his problem and u simply face him with itso keep going :D