Today I am going to talk about will-power and motivation. This is something, what every productive person should be working on. But before I will get to the right topic, I will tell you what will-power and motivation mean according to me.
Will-power is a level of determination in the process of achieving something. It might be your goal, getting rid of bad habit, increasing performance at work… As stronger your will power is, as more likely you are going to overcome difficulties on your way. I have heard opinion, that will-power and motivation is the same thing, however I believe, that motivation is some kind of picture showing result of your work. For example, you might be working 16 hours a day, because you want to be reach. And in this case being reach will be your motivation. On the other hand, if so long work hours will make you extremely tired, but any way you are going to push yourself; or everyone tells you that this way you are not going to become reach, but even if you believe it sometimes, you still keep going – this is a will-power in my eyes.
So these is the difference. In this post I would like to tell you, why improving will-power might help you and why motivation can work against you sometimes.
Let’s start from this second one. Having some reason to work toward your goal is very important. It can help you beat procrastination (when you’ll be asking yourself, why should you do this particular activity, you can just picture this brand new car, you have always dreamed about). But sometimes it can make you lost. Imagine situation, when you have decided to save money for a new car. But instead of thinking how to earn more money, or where possibly could you cut your costs, you keep thinking about this car instead. How nice you would feel driving it, which places would you be able to visit, etc. And because of it, you are not getting closer to your goal.
On the other hand, when you are determined and you use your will-power to picture your motivation and quickly come back to following your goals, you are more likely to achieve it. Just because you are taking some actions to get there. And even, if one thing you kept doing didn’t work, you will quickly imagine this car and right away start thinking about other option to save enough money for it.
I used example with the car, but it could be anything. You might dream to become a doctor. But if you don’t have enough will-power to spend some time on preparing to your exams, your chances are very low (at least I hope so, because who would like to be checked by doctor without a basic knowledge 😉 ).
But in that case, why do you need motivation at all? It seems to be quite harmful, doesn’t it? Well, as I mentioned before, you would like to make sure that you know where you are going. You need something to remind yourself, why this hard work now is worth it. You might also consider that your journey will not always be as easy. And having this motivation will be life-saving in that moments.
And this is it for today’s post. I hope it is helpful for you and as always, I will be happy to read your opinion in the comment section.
For now, I wish you a very productive day and I’ll see you in my next post.