Overcoming dry spells with fresh motivation – 7Mind Impuls (KW 37)

Variety is the soul of life

(E.L. Fürst von Bismarck)

I’ve always been good at motivating myself. However, I am an absolute seasonal worker: I rarely complete something before time and usually only start when it becomes necessary. That’s why dry spells are not my topic. 

How to maintain my motivation?

The knowledge of being able to achieve my goal motivates me and the anticipation of achieving it. Do you know this when you already have your goal in mind? Of course it will never be the same, but there is the knowledge that it is attainable.

Also the fact to have one point less on my to-do-list is motivating for me. “First the work, then the pleasure” is such an adopted pattern, which is stressful for me, but also motivating. Here it depends on the correct dosage of the activity and that is a difficult point for me. Often I charge myself too much, also interesting and beautiful things, and then it becomes a bit too much for me in sum. 

Of course, there are also dry spells, such as in the preparation for this trip, when nothing wanted to work out right away. I had the feeling that I had to devote myself to each topic twice intensively. Here it was helpful to be able to see my self-imposed goal and to exchange ideas with Manfred.  
Not being alone also motivates me tremendously – even though I can work on projects on my own responsibility and alone and even enjoy doing so. It is probably more the support of others and the common big whole, in which I work, which drives me to continue. 
I have found out for myself that it can be helpful if I let an activity rest for some time (hours or even days) and turn to something completely different. Frequently it goes then with new verve and my fresh, other view of the things again better. 

Conditions

Last week, when I was busy with the motivation and the dry spells, I realized once again that I had good conditions to be able to work motivated, for example. Maybe I helped myself to create them. In any case, I am very grateful that I was able to study subjects and work in fields in which I found conditions that motivated me to work. No matter whether this was in youth exchange, during my time in the youth welfare office or ministry, for dandelion educational assistance, at Enzian or achtsam.ruhr.

In my everyday professional life, for example, I enjoyed the mix of many years of support for my childcare centres and the temporary assignments from youth welfare offices and courts – perhaps that’s the variety that Fürst von Bismarck means.
And now? What is my motivation to write this blog right now? There will certainly also be dry spells here. When the time comes, I will tell you how I dealt with it.

How do you motivate yourself? And how do you deal with lean periods? 

Saradevi  

Kejimkujik National Park, 19.09.2019