When power fails, you need systems and habits.
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Editor’s note: Motivation is your desire to do something. Some people always feel that they lack motivation and motivation, but in fact, to succeed, motivation is not a necessary condition, and cultivating their own rules, habits and systems is the key to success. It is a false proposition to have the motivation to succeed. When there is a lack of motivation, there are times when entrepreneurs with passion may have a feeling of grief. At this time, the system and habits can still be “trained” when you are tired. You complete the goal. This article was translated from Medium, author Aytekin Tank, originally titled “Forget About Motivation. Here’s What You Need to Succeed”, I hope to inspire you.
My enthusiasm is not high.
I don’t have strong willpower and self-control.
I won’t get up at 6 in the morning to go to school, meditate, drink a green milkshake and run 10,000 meters.
That’s because I don’t believe in motivation.
Instead, the systems and habits I built removed my inner drive from the elements of success. Therefore, whether I feel “motivated” or not, I can maintain high efficiency. I know that talking about the system and habits is not an attractive topic, but to be honest, they are really useful.
In the past 13 years, the system and habits have been helping me start a business. The early JotForm was just a simple idea, and now the company is a team of more than 140 employees and 5 million users.
Habits and institutions make this possible. If you build a reliable system and continually improve these systems (rather than your willpower), you don’t even need to think about motivation.
Let us break this down.
What is power?
Simply, motivation is your desire to do something. It is a will that exists within a range – never interested in having a strong desire to act. When your desire is strong, motivation is natural, but when you have no desireAt the time, anything sounds better than starting the task, making this tough phone call, or going to the gym.
As Steven Pressfield wrote in The War of Art,
“Sometimes, the pain of not doing it will be more painful than doing it.”
I like this sentence very much because I think we have all experienced this painful moment. In this case, sitting on the sofa is more difficult than wearing sneakers and walking outside.
There are two kinds of motivation in life
In the book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, published in 2011, author Daniel Pink divides motivation into two types: external and inner.
External power is external. Either money, or praise, or try not to be so clumsy on the tennis court.
Intrinsic motivation comes from the heart. It is the desire to act, even if the only reward is the action itself (or completing a task).
Intrinsic motivation means that your behavior is real, The reason for respect. For example, you are starting a business to help others or solve problems, not because you are stunned by fame and fortune.
When we rely too much on motivation, intrinsic motivation becomes an obstacle.
No matter how much you love your career, there will always be times when you don’t want to take action. Maybe it’s because something makes you feel scared, or makes you feel impossible, or the task at hand is very boring.
This situation is when the system works, it can help you do heavy work. Here are some strategies to help me build a sustainable system. With a sustainable system, I don’t have to rely on motivation.
1. Select the area you care about and ignore other areas
Focus and motivation seem to be two different themes, but they are closely intertwined.
Take me as an example. This year, I have three main points of work:
• Hire to a really good person
•Create high quality content
•Let our users work more efficiently
These themes go through everything I do. If a project or opportunity does not meet these three aspects, I will say no. Distracting things will always pass, and I can make real progress by giving up.
For example, I will meet in the first two hours of each working day. Write down my thoughts. It may be a problem I want to solve, or a new idea. During this time I will not schedule a meeting and will not reply to any emails.
However, if I feel inspiration when I get to the office, then I will allow myself to do other things as long as it matches the three areas I have previously proposed. I can read articles or books on these topics, meet with product teams, or watch lectures instead of writing or solving problems.
These thoughts and explorations will quickly make me feel more involved. Slowly I will come up with a better idea, and good ideas motivate me to take action.
This process is not accidental. This is a simple feedback loop, and when my brain feels stagnant, I use this mechanism to get myself moving.
2. Remember, power is just an option
In an article in 2016, author Melissa Dahl shared,
“The only inspirational advice everyone needs is that you don’t have to worry about completing something and actually do it.”
Small things. This sentence is very reasonable. Your feelings don’t have to match your actions—especially when you really want to move forward.
You may feel tired, but still wear goggles to swim. You may feel that you would rather put yourself Nailed in the chair, not willing to do another PPT, but you can still complete this PPT.
Dal also quoted Oliver Burkeman, author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, He wrote:
“Who said you need to wait until you ‘want’ to do something?”
From this perspective, the problem is not that you have no motivation; rather, you always imagine that you need motivation.
This is where “regular” can defeat “feeling”. Of course, you may want to watch the cat video, but every morning, you will still sit in front of the computer and open a blank file. You wrote a two-hour article and you don’t need to measure your emotional temperature. Push forward, then repeat, repeat, and repeat.
3. Delegate tasks as much as possible
One day, I thought of a good idea during morning exercises.
Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the three focus areas I mentioned above. So, I made a note on my mobile phone and let our COO continue to do further research following my ideas.
In fact, I really want to follow up on this idea, but I know I have to stay focused.
I know that it is not always feasible to delegate tasks to others, especially if you are just getting started or when your money is tight. JotForm is a startup company.
We have never raised money from outside, so I know what each piece of money means. But if the authorization can bring huge rewards, then you can delegate the task, such as the following:
•You can putValuable time, energy or concentration is used for things that really help you.
•Others can do better. As far as I am concerned, there are almost always people on our team who are more professional than me. They will create better results in a shorter period of time, and I will not be distracted from my goals.
The importance of the enjoyment process
We have already talked a lot about the power. But how can you stay motivated?
This is a very important issue. The answer varies from person to person, but in the end we are all inspired by happiness and sense of meaning.
When the Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman first took me to see the Buddhist teacher Susan Piver, Pifu said that he was tired of forcing himself to become ” Excellent, and do a to-do list every day, so she decided to focus on the fun of work:
“I think that my motivation comes from sincere curiosity. The tasks I have done are exactly the same as “who am I, what kind of person I want to be”. My office is suddenly like a play. Field, not labor camp.”
She asked to ask herself what to do first and then to focus on what she likes. In the end, her day looks just like “trained”, but it’s almost effortless:
“Yes, discipline is important, as all teachers have said.
And there must be something “never have fun” that needs to be done, such as paying bills and cleaning up the cat box.
But my advice is that, rather than being trained to do painful work, it is better to be trained to do a happy job.
We have all experienced some difficult moments, doing jobs that we don’t like, and enduring unfair treatment. However, if you are trying to do something that you are very concerned about, you can live a little easier.
Summary: Build your systems and habits, focus on important things, delegate unnecessary work, and your motivation will naturally increase.
If you have done it, don’t you improve your motivation? It doesn’t matter, anyway, power is not a necessity.
Translator: Jane
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