How To Motivate Yourself & Stop Procrastination

My friend and I have decided to put a bit more effort into writing and get a bit more material out there, but of course sometimes finding the motivation is tough.

I had to find a solution and I have come up with something that has helped me get some motivation.

I thought about the way I motivate myself in my day to day life. When at work or home I have tasks that I don't really want to do, such as tidying the house, cleaning the car or van etc.

This is life, everyone has things they don't really want to do. The way I normally get through it is to think of a little treat for afterwards and then think about how nice that treat will be while I'm doing whatever it is I don't want to be doing.

These won't be massive things, just little things to keep me motivated, for example I'll have a cup of tea or something as a little treat after a task and won't let myself have that until I've done whatever it is that I started doing.

A great way I have found to motivate myself is to write to do lists and make sure that every day I check off at least one thing from the list. As long as you achieve something every day, then you're moving forward.

I find that little rewards are a good way of keeping motivated, so I don't start sitting around playing computer games, or pass out and have a snooze when I need to get work done.

If you are naturally quite lazy and find it hard to motivate yourself in your day to day life, like I do, then this is a pretty good tactic to try, break your jobs into small pieces and reward yourself after you've completed each piece.

Anyway this is the tactic that my friend and I have decided to employ with our article writing. I am at the time of writing sitting with approximately 45 hubs. I want to get several hundred out there at least, as does my friend. So we have come up with the idea for a competition!

I thought that a race to 100 hubs would be a good idea, but as my friend has fewer hubs than I have at the moment then it's not fair for him to race to 100, so he has to get to 66. We both love whisky and cognac, so we have now started our hubbing challenge, with the prize of a bottle of Hennessy cognac for the winner, bought (reluctantly) by the other.

I had the idea for this article at work, knowing that apart from you reading this right now, my friend will also read this article and realise that this not only gets me one step closer to winning , but I'm getting closer by writing about the competition itself!

I am interested in the ways other writers motivate themselves to keep on writing, even when they're not in the mood.

I have read that Stephen King locks himself in his office in the morning and doesnt come out til he's written 2000 words. I imagine that once you get into a routine of doing that, it becomes quite natural. But how does he motivate himself to do that? Well maybe it's his living, he knows he has to do it and the habit makes it natural after so many years of doing it.

How do you motivate yourself? Please comment below so we can share some motivational tips. Thanks for reading and wish me luck for winning that delicious bottle of cognac!