Why Are You Where You Are? What Motivates You?

This past weekend, I had nothing scheduled and about a million things to do. It felt like a great time to prioritize some things and get a few todo items done.

One task on my list has to do with a big revision of my current book. It’s a fun one. Here’s the current PITCH:

High school senior Eliza has spent her life perfecting the art of scheming people into doing what she wants, so when she manipulates her school’s royalty, the Laurens, into sharing a secret island paradise, they all begin to commune in a tentative alliance with many other clicks. Then they experience something unexplainable and otherworldly just before a storm traps all 40 teens on the island. Eliza and the Laurens are then forced to survive together while they study their strange island world and the mysteries it possesses.

Getting this book published is my main professional goal (Other than learning to juggle while riding an elephant in the circus).

(Oh, and teaching and grading essays! Both the Book and the Grading goals are important as they represent two halves of my professional persona.)

And yet, I put the book LAST in my list of things to do and didn’t work on it much at all.

WHY?? No really, I’m asking. Why do I do that?? (Mostly kidding).

I talk a lot in my classes about motivation.

What might make you WANT to come to class, or turn in that essay, or come to your Humanities class even if that’s not your major?

A variety of kinds of motivations are like fuel. It starts our engine, gets us out of bed, and gets us focused. And some days we have fewer or more distractions. (Oh the distractions….)

For me, I think I keep seeing the elephant and not the small tasks/bites. (It’s from that expression: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” But in general, don’t eat elephants.) I keep seeing the big picture, and it stops me from jumping right in.

I’ve already broken my 515 page book revision down into a variety of smaller tasks, but maybe some of those tasks felt too big also. Maybe that got in my way this weekend. SO I’m going to go back to a clarifying step – breaking my tasks down into smaller and clearer components, and then scheduling some of them into my calendar.

SIDE NOTE of a SUCCESS: I actually wrote most of this on Monday of Week 5, and thought about it a lot. So WEDNESDAY, I scheduled an entire day of bliss at the island. And 8 hours of revision work went great! It made me feel more connected to my goals.

Wherever you are, don’t beat yourself up. Pick yourself up and keep going.

What about you? When you struggle with motivation or direction, what happens?

How do some of you get past your struggles?

Seriously, feel free to share here or just reflect on your own experience and grow.