When I posted my Creating Discipline Pt. 1 blog post I realized that I think about motivation in two different ways and that I needed to take a step back and talk about motivation. For me, there is motivation that comes just from starting a thing. And the second form of motivation for me is how I create expectations so I can meet them. The first form I find is ephemeral and dissipates after about a week, the second form is what sustains my discipline habits.
The Beginning
I am an overenthusiastic person. If you need something started, get me onboard, because I love to start things. I love the beginning, the excitement, the anticipation. I’m terrible though at follow through and finishing things. I know this, because I have two books that are only partially written, not including the one I’m currently working on. We also won’t talk about the numerous craft projects that are only partially completed. This has also been a struggle in my professional life. It was less of a problem there, which I’ll talk about why in a minute, I would get things done, but sometimes it would take me a bit to do the finishing action items.
Enter last year. During 2017 I was trying to figure out how to do the daily work. My wheels were spinning and I felt very defeated. I didn’t understand why I could write 50,000 during November for NaNoWriMo. But the rest of the year I struggled to write 1,000 words a month. In September or early October I read a book by Gretchen Rubin – The Four Tendencies – The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too). From her website:
During my multibook investigation into human nature, I realized that by asking the suspiciously simple question “How do I respond to expectations?” we gain explosive self-knowledge.
I discovered that people fit into Four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. Our Tendency shapes every aspect of our behavior, so understanding this framework lets us make better decisions, meet deadlines, suffer less stress and burnout, and engage more effectively. The Four Tendencies explain why we act and why we don’t act.
The framework holds practical answers if you’ve ever wondered . . .
People can rely on me, so why can’t I rely on myself?
Why do people tell me that I ask too many questions?
How do I work with someone who refuses to do what I ask—or one who keeps telling me what to do?
How do I stop my teenager from dropping out of school?
Why can’t I convince my patients to take their prescriptions?
How can my team become more effective, with less wasted time and conflict?
One of the big daily challenges of life is: “How do I get people—including myself—to do what I want?” Knowing the Four Tendencies make this task much, much easier.
-Gretch Rubin – From her website
Okay, so I read the book, I figured out that I’m an Obliger, which means I respond to external expectations. I create motivation by having something outside of myself hold the expectation that it will get done. This blew my mind. I stopped analyzing myself to figure out if there was some hidden fear keeping me from writing. I stopped trying to convince myself or use willpower to muscle through the process and just switched my perspective on how to create expectations for myself.
The first thing I did was create a word spring twitter account for myself. I would post what time I would be writing the day before, and I would show up, run word sprints, and write. It was like magic. I went from struggling to write 1,000 for the month, to writing 20,000 that month. The next month I wrote 50,000 (NaNoWriMo) and finished the first draft of my novel.
The Aftermath
Of course, it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, but I have found that most frequently when I am unable make headway, or do the thing it is because I don’t have or haven’t created external expectation for myself.
So, when looking at motivation, we want the kind that comes from creating expectations that work with our own personalities. Not the kind of motivation that disappears after a week.
If you are curious about your tendency go take the quiz here.
If you are interested in a writing accountability group, I will be running one for the month of August, either leave a comment, or email me: Rosanna.griffin@icloud.com
This is not a sponsored post. This book is a good tool, so I’m sharing.
