# How do you motivate yourself?



## fictionz (Nov 18, 2006)

I am in need of motivation and really clueless of what to do right now. I want to be more motivated, because if I simply give in to what I feel right now, I am simply going to sink in deeper. So despite all the negativity in my head, there's this POSITIVITY STUFF area only that the negative stuff cannot touch! It's waiting for good stuff to fill it in :b I am so confused with so many things in my head! If you ever felt like this, what did you do to "tune yourself up" again?

It doesn't matter how simple or complicated it is. I will listen to any suggestions.


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## robtyl (Sep 2, 2010)

I always like to imagine what my ''perfect" life would be. What do I want out of life, and what will it take to get there - no matter how difficult or long a journey?

Then chip away at the old block. And watch movies where there's a character that you identify with that can inspire you, or watch motivational videos. I used to think they were feelgood rubbish - but not all are! Watch this: 




And I dare you to tell me you weren't changed in even a slight way.

I think life is simple. It's us that make it complicated. Some of us are lucky, some of us are not. It's what we do with what we have that counts. We're too eager to compare ourselves to others and wonder why we aren't as fortunate as them, or have things come so easily to us - and I'm not going to tell you 'everyone has problems' (even though they do - but perhaps those problems are only small haha).

What would it take to make you happy? Seriously? For me, I want to graduate well, get a job with a great law firm and do super well. And I want to be an intellectual and be someone important. And interesting. Sounds far-fetched for someone with SA, but I've been chipping away at this and slowly it's happening. Maybe I won't change the world, but I can change things in my community... or on some other small level. I want to do all that I can with the talents I have. If I'm capable of doing something, I want to do it. I do have anxiety, but I'm working on getting rid of that so that I can pursue all that I want.

It's simple at the end of the day. What do you want, and what do you need to do to get it? The first step is usually overcoming SA, since that pretty much inhibits a lot of us from anything we want. OK, so how do you tackle that? Therapy? Medication? Both? Exposure? Do whatever it takes. Don't be too proud to get help. I was, not wanting to get therapy - and I wasted about four years of my life. I'm getting help now - I'm not too proud, I'm determined and I'm resolute.

I either live life, or end up a f#cking loser. And I really don't want to be a loser. I want to live life, and ENJOY it. And sometimes, very rarely, I'll wake up and spend a day where I'm in an amazingly bright mood, optimistic, not overwhelmed, not scared and happy to meet and talk to people. I hold on to the memories of those feelings and use that as a benchmark. I want to feel like that all that time. Life CAN be great - seriously, it can - you just have to remember not to forget that. I saw my pdoc for the first time yesterday (after some my psych recommended I get proper anti-anxiety meds) and he was good. Blunt, but good. This guy has testicles, which scared me - but it will definitely help me in the end. I came home and felt horrible with a feeling of dread and panic. He made he realise (without saying it) that I'm wasting my life. I already knew it, but it was just driven home to me. And I felt like crap. But this is where you break down the feelings of the head and the heart. In my heart I felt hopeless - in my head I KNOW I should expect to feel horrible, I KNOW that success doesn't come easily, and I KNOW that for every two steps I take forward there will always be one step back. Expect to feel crap sometimes. But remember LOGICALLY that this is necessary.

The only person you have to answer to is yourself. I'm sad to say it, but there are many people here with SA who will die with SA and amount to nothing in their lives. Because they just couldn't give a sh!t. Because at some stage you need to DECIDE. What do you want, and how are you going to go about getting it? Doesn't matter how long it takes, or how hard it is. How can you get what you want? And the only person capable of fixing things is yourself. And a lot of people here would rather complain, and/or read about other people's misery, than frequent the positive thinking forum and try to find ways to change.

I noticed you had 600-odd posts on here. Start off by not spending so much time on these forums. I've started to check this place regularly... but for what? When I read other people's posts about negative things, how does that help me? Spend your time putting yourself out there. Maybe join a club, volunteer, get out into the real world. I don't know, but do SOMETHING. Don't 'normalise' a community of sick people as part of what is real. It's not.

But grow some testicles. That's the most important thing. I'm in the process of developing mine. It's a slow journey, but I can't look everyone in the face and say that I'M MAKING THE EFFORT. And not just one day. Every day. And week in, week out. I'm joining clubs, putting myself out there, expecting setbacks, getting therapy and taking meds. Whatever it takes to get where I want. Because otherwise, what is the point of living? Seriously. And I'm not willing to commit suicide, so I might as well try to enjoy myself on Earth while waiting to die in old age.

/end rant


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## eek a mouse (Apr 14, 2010)

I have a very simple suggestion. 

Go throughout your day monitoring your thoughts. Whenever you feel yourself having negative and bad thoughts make an effort to stop them or just let go and dont engage them. Thats how I truly started my recovery. You will notice after some time since you are blocking/not engaging negative thoughts more positive thoughts will start emerging. 

Also being proactive and being productive throughout the day. If you sit at home doing nothing it shouldnt be a surprise that you will feel negative.


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## fictionz (Nov 18, 2006)

You all made a lot of sense there. Thanks for the response. I did watch the video before and I think it's great and true at the same time, which is what makes me likes Will Smith compared to some other well-known people. 

And I do come to the forum partly because I think in some sense I have bettered myself in SA and maybe there's something I could say that would help someone else out on the forum. And someone else may be able to help me out to even better myself more.

I guess the problem with me is that I know a lot of reasonings, I think a lot of why this is like this and how things became like this so and so, but knowing all of it and not doing much about it in the end just makes me not move anywhere from my currently lame position. Like how I wanna achieve something more and I know if I want that to happen, I need to make a move and any small move may lead to a bigger one and I may actually get there, but in the end I didn't make that move at all because I got stuck from the very beginning. Like how right now, I will graduate soon so I am doing nothing much so I have to start looking for a job. But my job search is being sort of stuck as I am worried in the process: how to get to the place, whether I fit in all requirements, whether I can do the job etc. At the same time I don't get out of the house as much as there isn't much to do outside within walking area, and I also have become afraid of driving. I want to start driving again, but the fear sets me in. From there it's conclusive that it's always the fear that stops me, and if I don't face the fear, then I won't be getting anywhere.

Indeed, that's where I should start being proactive throughout the day, or else negative thoughts will go over me and those dreams that I have will become even further away from my reach.


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## Bl00no (Feb 11, 2011)

I think of the people I love and the things I want to achieve in the future. (;
And how I'm not going to achieve them if I sit around moping like a bum! Lol~


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## eek a mouse (Apr 14, 2010)

Well fictionz, we are both on the same boat. We live inside our heads and we gotta train ourselves to live inside the world. I know that as long as I live through my head I will always have this problem, I have started training to live outside and let me tell you, when I focus on the outside I get into a zone (which I know is normal, this is how most people feel), where there is no social anxiety. As soon as I realize how good I feel (thus going back into my head) I lose that feeling. 

At this rate I give my SA about 2-3 months to live.....hehe.


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## fictionz (Nov 18, 2006)

> And how I'm not going to achieve them if I sit around moping like a bum!


Hehe. Very true indeed. I have so many things I wanna achieve too!



> We live inside our heads and we gotta train ourselves to live inside the world. I know that as long as I live through my head I will always have this problem, I have started training to live outside and let me tell you, when I focus on the outside I get into a zone (which I know is normal, this is how most people feel), where there is no social anxiety. As soon as I realize how good I feel (thus going back into my head) I lose that feeling.
> 
> At this rate I give my SA about 2-3 months to live.....hehe.


Now that I think back about it, I already know these SA-related facts but in the end I just pretty much never tried hard enough to get out of those troubling negative thoughts that have crippled us all. It's the only thing that has stopped us from moving on.. and if I truly focus on my aim, my anxiety can actually be managed and I won't even remember it was there.


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## eek a mouse (Apr 14, 2010)

Same thing happens to me too, I forget the right way to deal with things and revert back to my old self. You just have to keep pushing forward and as you move from positive track to the negative back to the positive you will get to the point where you will say "enough" and you will spend a lot more time on the positive road. 

Also I believe until you are 100% cured you need to keep working on it. One example is reading on a daily basis. I rotate between self-help books and biographies (of ppl that inspire me) so even though I might be reading the story of a great historical figure I am also in a way fighting my anxiety. Meditation is another example. You cant get rid of anxiety by wanting to get rid of anxiety, you have to purse other things that when you accomplish will reduce your anxiety as a side effect of the accomplishment. 

I know that one thing that I read and changes my life wont necessarily do the same for other people. But I am just so happy that i have found this book and this is really my way out that I cant help but want to share it so that maybe you can give it a try and have the same impact that it had on me, so if you are out of ideas or want to try something new, read "The Will to Meaning" by Viktor Frankl.


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## Zil (Feb 5, 2011)

Music motivates me. At least good music that has a deep meaning to myself. Then I know I can relate to these people who do things I love too.


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## Hadron92 (Apr 17, 2009)

I personally didn't achieve what I've achieved because I was motivated, but because I was always terrified of the consequences of not being good enough.:no


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## Colhad75 (Dec 14, 2009)

By reading "The Secret", it's helped with my anxiety amongst other things.


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## robtyl (Sep 2, 2010)

flawed said:


> _My_ Motivation?
> I want everyone I love to be proud of me


Don't value your life according to what others think of you. Your life should matter enough to _yourself_ to be content with what _you_ think, and how _you_ feel.

x


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## etruscansunset (Oct 31, 2010)

I see a lot of people out in the world who seem "naturally" motivated. My theory on them is that their motivation comes from a healthy childhood (learned) or high levels of dopamine (and other things in the brain which give motivation) because they biologically (through their DNA) produce high levels of it. These people make life seem effortless. And these are the type of people who, whenever I ask them for advice on motivation, tell me things like: "Just have confidence and you will be happy," or "just remind yourself to be strong everyday and never give up!"

That advice may be valid to others, but it means absolutely nothing to me. Because of my upbringing, motivational-hormone/chemical levels in my brain, I have an extremely low level of "natural" motivation. Sometimes, I lack the motivation to even get out of bed, or to even open my eyes. A million dollars could be waiting for me out there, or the perfect life, but that still wouldn't motivate me to wake up, even if I truly, with all my heart, believed I would get those things if I just got out of bed. So to be quite honest and direct, all those giving advice that has to do with thinking certain positive thoughts, or forcing myself to think about life from a new perspective or in a new way, that may help for a minute, but the effects won't last for someone like me. (Obviously I have SA PLUS major depression.)

With that said, there is still hope, even for people like me. But there's no easy way out. Nobody can tell someone like me THE ANSWER and Bam, I'm cured! It takes hard work, every single day. So far, for me, finding motivation all starts with being aware of my current thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I especially pay attention to recurring thoughts of myself, things like "I'm not normal." Then I track whenever the thought comes up in my mind. That helps me in a way remove myself from the thought, and gives me some space.

After practicing "awareness" for many months, I am starting to notice that some thoughts are anti-motivational, that is, they take away my motivation, while some thoughts help motivate me. Unfortunately, there is no one thought that is like my "savior thought" that I can use at any time to motivate myself. No, whether thoughts are helpful or not depend on my mood, the situation, thoughts that preceded it, and other factors. And sometimes the thoughts don't relate directly to what I want to accomplish.

For instance, to force myself out of the house today to drive to a restaurant to pick up some food (to go), I grabbed on to a helpful thought that I found among dozens of thoughts screaming for me not to go out. The thought was that when I drive around this one curved part of the street, I always feel like a race driver, and it feels fun. Silly, right? But very useful. So I grabbed onto this thought and the feeling it gave me and went with it... and it was (barely) enough to get me into the car and start driving. (And BTW, it feels great when I "manipulate" / motivate myself to do stuff.)

But for the above to work, you first need to start with awareness, so that you can spot your bad thoughts easily. Before grabbing onto that stupid but useful racing thought, I had to identify and be aware of all the thoughts telling me I couldn't do it, or shouldn't do it, or thoughts telling me not to even think about going (denial thoughts). It took half a year for me to get this far, but thus far it seems to be slowly working for me.

It works way better that focusing on who I want to be in the future, or some goal I want to achieve in the future, because during depressed times those concepts seem almost laughable. Hope this helps, or at least gives you some hope.


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## NoodleLover (Feb 19, 2011)

By the will to change.
Setting goals and go for the 100% for it.
Listening to good music.


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## suddenstorm (Feb 2, 2011)

Right now:
Keeping a good sleep/workout schedule
Staying on top of my work even when I don't feel like it
Planning something to look forward to every few months to keep me excited about the future


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## coldmorning (Jul 4, 2007)

I think motivation comes from self-love. That being said, I don't have much of either so I'm not sure how to get there.


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## suddenstorm (Feb 2, 2011)

^yeah, thats a really good point. Self-love is key.


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## daniel1989 (Feb 14, 2011)

My motivation usually stems from selfish desires.


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## JamieHasAnxiety (Feb 15, 2011)

My motivation for anything is knowing I'll be on my *** on the streets if I don't keep it steady! LOL

That aside, my girlfriend and making her happy. I'm happy working on my SA, I love seeing improvement in my life.


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## fictionz (Nov 18, 2006)

> until you are 100% cured you need to keep working on it


although I don't think there's a 100% cure probability... you can never get rid of your anxiety completely, I think. Just that to minimise it and cope with it.



> Don't value your life according to what others think of you. Your life should matter enough to yourself to be content with what you think, and how you feel.


When we do things for other people as a priority, it will put a burden upon us. It can be part of the things we should be concerned about i.e. caring about parents but to let the thought of what other people think about you as your reason to keep going, may be putting pressure on you some time later.



> you first need to start with awareness, so that you can spot your bad thoughts easily.


True. It has become quite natural for me to become very critical of myself, and when I realise that happening, I need to give myself a mental spank.


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## masterboss (Aug 15, 2013)

The motivation is always an emotional matter related to what is good and bad for you. I ordered an analysis here: http://www.revealmyself.com. The advised me how I could change myself and the procrastination habit. They answered my additional questions. Since then I was able to work, stay motivated, and spare enough money to attend college courses.


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