December 31, 2025 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Finding Motivation
December 31, 2025 at 9:26 am
Great article Steve. I've come to realise that for me life is all about contrast, and that wanting the good things all the time never leads to "good things". Alan Watts talked about this a lot, that you can't appreciate the good without the bad, the summer without the winter, the yin and the yang etc.
So I find motivation in simply doing what needs to be done, the hard work, the graft, because I know that the pay off on the other side will be worth it. I suppose this is also tied into the idea of delayed gratification.
Happy New Year all!
December 31, 2025 at 2:45 pm
WOW Steve, that tweet (yeah, I don't know what to call posts to Twitter/X either) is startling. It appears to me to be nihilistic from someone who is young. Very depressing.
What things motivated me in the past? Good question. When I was working on my BS in Mathematics, I did what I call "crammed 4 years into 5.5". Meaning I wasted a year and a half taking courses unrelated to my degree. It wasn't until I encountered the woman who became my wife, that I suddenly thought I'd got to get my life in order and do something! So, I finished my degree and got my first real job.
I look forward to what you will write here in 2026 on improving oneself, as I feel stuck. At work there's no real challenge. There's pressure, and a lot of it. But its pressure to get ordinary things done in less time than it should take. As a consequence, I'm always concerned over how I get ordinary things done, as safely as possible, but adds nothing to my skillset. I'm tired of thinking only of trivia, rather than advancing something for people. So, when you can, please bring it on. These discussions help me think beyond myself.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
December 31, 2025 at 4:51 pm
Great article Steve. I've come to realise that for me life is all about contrast, and that wanting the good things all the time never leads to "good things". Alan Watts talked about this a lot, that you can't appreciate the good without the bad, the summer without the winter, the yin and the yang etc.
So I find motivation in simply doing what needs to be done, the hard work, the graft, because I know that the pay off on the other side will be worth it. I suppose this is also tied into the idea of delayed gratification.
Happy New Year all!
Well said and Happy New Year
December 31, 2025 at 4:52 pm
...
I look forward to what you will write here in 2026 on improving oneself, as I feel stuck. At work there's no real challenge. There's pressure, and a lot of it. But its pressure to get ordinary things done in less time than it should take. As a consequence, I'm always concerned over how I get ordinary things done, as safely as possible, but adds nothing to my skillset. I'm tired of thinking only of trivia, rather than advancing something for people. So, when you can, please bring it on. These discussions help me think beyond myself.
Rod, you've been there a long time and it doesn't seem like a great fit. Might be time to make a plan and move on.
Best of luck and enjoy the rest of the holidays
December 31, 2025 at 6:01 pm
My next-door neighbour and his wife are both in their late 80s and have very little financially. They are always doing something or have something planned. They have an ancient VW camper van, not the one you see in nostalgic adverts; it's what an American would think of as an RV. They take their classic motorbikes to shows because entry for exhibitors is free. By necessity, everything is done on a shoestring budget. They are known on the classic motorbike circuit, and their bikes are immaculate 1950s classics. They always have people they are looking forward to seeing again or an event they are looking forward to.
Chuck Norris still does his martial arts and has the opinion that "The body that moves keeps moving. The body that stops, stops."
My late Uncle used to say that the secret is always to have a plan for something to do that will take you through tomorrow and into the next day. Not so far ahead that you keep putting it off. Not so close that you can complete it and be left wondering what to do next.
I've always been a self-motivated person, but before COVID, I had a brush with depression requiring medication and counselling. Counselling gave me the perspective that my neighbours and Uncle subscribe to. The hardest step is the 1st one. One of the tools that counselling suggested was keeping a mood diary. Take stock at various times in the day to record how you are feeling and what you are doing at the time. Patterns begin to emerge. Try to do more of the things that make you feel good and fewer of the things that make you feel bad. It is not a cure, it's a strategy for managing your well-being.
I rediscovered that learning new things (tech or otherwise) gives me a sense of well-being. So does being asked for help by junior colleagues. Helping them to solve problems and being a sounding board all help keep me engaged and motivated. Teach once, learn twice! I've discovered that just working from home isn't good for me. I need a mixture of office and home work.
I have also discovered that colleagues in other disciplines like to talk about their work, how we impact them, what would make their life easier etc. My company does Friday morning sessions where someone from a discipline will do a demonstration of their work, their challenges, things that have gone well, and things with which they need feedback or help. This is genuinely interesting. It does break down the "them and us". We have one or two clients where we set up a reciprocal equivalent. They teach us about their industry, their challenges, their hopes and ambitions. We show how we solve problems and why we chose one approach over another. This has been productive on both sides and has fostered a closer business relationship. I get a sense of connectedness out of this, which helps motivation.
I also deleted Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X and minimised LinkedIn. For me, these ceased to be a source of pleasure and had become a source of anxiety. Anxiety is exhausting and detracts from motivation.
December 31, 2025 at 6:07 pm
Sounds like a good place to be, David.
January 5, 2026 at 4:16 pm
I find the perceived relationship between motivation and discipline very interesting. On the tweet, point number ten was: "Keep waiting for motivation instead of building discipline." This article was titled "Finding Motivation", and after the tweet it proceeded to provide ways people can motivate themselves.
I think the way most see motivation vs discipline is as "the carrot or the stick." Motivations are the positive things that happen if I follow a certain path. It starts with a goal, says "what do I need to do to attain that goal." Discipline is instead about having the freedom to do what I don't want to do or is difficult. Rather than give up when things get tough, you have the will to keep going, knowing that is good for you.
Take running as an example: I could use the goal of running a marathon as motivation to go out and run each day, trying to go a bit further and/or faster, until I'm able to go a full 26. Or, if I have the discipline I can choose to run each day, knowing that I don't have any grand accomplishment from it other than knowing it's good for me. Both are good reasons to run, in their own ways, and they should build off each other. If I use the motivation of a marathon to run further each day, I'm building discipline. If I build discipline by running, hopefully that motivates me to want to use that discipline to do something good (maybe enter a race, but maybe something else that has nothing to do with running).
I do worry that our culture has fallen into an environment that is quite hostile to both motivation and discipline. It has become very comfortable to have neither - to coast through life streaming or scrolling without any thoughts toward building anything good, true, or beautiful. Then if we do have ideas about such things, we find them difficult to pursue and just give up and go back to the comfort of the screens. Our social safety nets have taken away the motivation of working to earn what we need to survive, and our leisure is so satisfying, that many have no reason to look up. It's getting very close to Brave New World.
Not to say that is the case for everyone, but I think the percent of total population that it holds true for is growing. I also strongly agree with point #10 that I noted above - discipline needs to come first, before motivation. It used to be much more common for religious folks to fast regularly - to give up eating or certain types of food or other comforts for an extended period of time. This was a great teacher of discipline, and as the general population has become less religious, its loss is sorely missed.
Be still, and know that I am God - Psalm 46:10
January 5, 2026 at 5:21 pm
Mostly agree on discipline and motivation, but discipline is forcing yourself to make choices and do something. It could be to keep going, it could be to stop because it's not a good effort for you. We have chores here on the ranch, and most of the time they aren't things I need to do, but I know I need to tackle maintenance and improvements at times. I have leaned the discipline to get to them at times and also to let them go to rest or recharge myself.
Mostly, though, it's feeling some pressure to keep moving, which could be discipline or motivation, that helps me succeed.
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