Motivation

I found this post from a google search I did on motivation. I think I waste too much time browsing the internet and not getting junk done...


Today's lesson: if you never make an effort to do anything, you'll get bored out of your mind. A life of leisure is neither fun nor rewarding.

If you're bored and unmotivated at work, and you've been spending your time surfing the web looking desperately for something more interesting, you may be stuck in a vicious circle. If you're bored with work and try to avoid doing it, you will become even more bored. That sense of boredom will permeate the work you're not doing, making you feel like the work itself is boring, which makes you try even harder to avoid doing it. (There's a chicken and egg problem here -- does the boredom come first, or the avoidance?)

If you find yourself needing, desperately, to work on something more interesting, then you may be stuck in this trap. If you begin to feel like your skills are atrophying due to lack of challenge, then you may be stuck in this trap. If you resent every little difficulty you encounter while working, because it means you actually have to pay attention to what you're doing, then you are probably stuck in this trap.

The only way to get out of this is to realize two things:

1) that moods are largely self-reinforcing, and

2) that if you don't actually put effort into doing something -- anything -- then you will be bored. Follow the chain of cause and effect backwards, and realize that it's your own damn fault you're going crazy.

Paying attention to something boring is like doing exercise -- at first, you hate it and you'd really rather go back to sleep. But eventually the endorphin high will hit you, and maybe it'll get you high enough to get out of your funk. After all, there's a reason you decided to become a programmer in the first place, right? You like programming. The endorphins are there waiting for you -- all you have to do is put in enough energy to shake them loose.