One of the worst pitfalls of productivity is to decide that you’re going to execute on something, work on it for some period of time, lose interest, and ultimately quit before you get meaningful results. This happens in obvious cases like writing a book or coding a project, but can also apply to things like learning a new skill or building a new habit.
The danger of this particular pitfall is that besides spending time on something that yields no, or little, results, you’ve also incurred a huge opportunity cost. The time, focus, and effort spent on that particular campaign could have been spent on something which you would have completed.
There are a lot of possible causes of this, but the biggest might be motivation. Achieving any serious goal requires pushing through some steep challenges, and raw motivation is often the force that can get you through those challenges.
Of particular importance is specific motivation. Some people are generally motivated, eager to grab life by the horns and succeed, but without specific motivation for individual projects, they are doomed to be enthusiastic dabblers. I know, because I’ve spent lots of time in this category.
Specific motivation is understanding exactly why you’re undertaking a project. It’s the frank acknowledgment of the challenges that lie ahead, both known and unknown, and deciding beforehand that the goal is worth the challenge.
People with only general motivation will tend to gloss over the hard parts ahead and jump into the project with gusto, only to give up when the going gets tough.
How do you build specific motivation? You have to really understand why you want a goal, and to honestly evaluate if that reason is legitimate or not. If you want to build a business to impress your friends and prove that you’re capable, that motivation will probably not stick. However, if you want to build a business to create good for the world and to support your family, that’s more likely to hold you on track.
When you decide what your honest motivation is, it’s important to remember it. During the tougher times, your brain will try to convince you that your real motivation was something far less important. It’s easier to quit on goals that don’t feel important than those that do.
A precaution against this is to actually enumerate on paper the pros and cons of pursuing the goal as well as skipping it. I do this all the time and will refer back to it not only when I feel like quitting, but when I’m not putting in an appropriate amount of effort. Writing out your reasoning when you have clear perspective is very powerful. I also do that after breaking up with a girl, because I know that my brain will start trying to convince me to get back together shortly after.
Reaching big goals is almost never easy, but there’s a big difference between difficult and impossible. Without specific motivation, many otherwise difficult goals can become nearly or completely impossible. So think not just about what you’re doing, or how you’re doing it, but about why you’re doing it. The answer to that question is often the most important.
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Photo is my favorite Van Gogh in the Met. Speaking of which… check out my friend Nick’s AWESOME tours of the Met, called Museum Hack. If you are in NY, you have to go do it.
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