Goals involve pressure

The 3 elements required for intrinsic motivation:

• Autonomy: it's about choice - when you believe you have a choice, you're more motivated.
• Mastery: it's about wanting to get better at something that matters.
• Purpose: it comes from believing you're working on something that's bigger than yourself.

When we know that our work will make a difference to someone else, it makes us work harder. 

Try to reach out to the people who directly benefit from your work. This could boost your motivation to work hard.

Motivation is often the result of action, not the cause of it. Getting started, even in very small ways, is a form of active inspiration that naturally produces momentum.

Newton’s First Law applied to habit formation: Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. 

Once a task has begun, it is easier to continue moving it forward. In other words, it is often easier to finish a task than it was to start it in the first place.

In the 70s, creativity was thought of as a trait, something a few geniuses have, and the rest of us do not.

New studies show that ‘extrinsic’ motivators, factors outside ourselves, can influence our creativity. Competition, evaluation, level of strictness along with rewards and punishment play a huge factor in a person’s overall creative levels.

Knowledge that someone will check, evaluate and grade one’s work, surveillance, a promise of a reward, threat of a punishment, creative constraints, competition and motivating factors like power, money and fame can kill creativity.

Rewards generally provide the individual with a feeling of being controlled, but can also enhance creativity in some cases.

If we really want to be motivated, having a goal is not enough. We need to feel something. When we feel that what we do has meaning, we will feel motivated.

Workers who fail to live up to their potential have lost sight of the importance and meaningfulness of their own jobs. If you could remind employees of the importance of their jobs, they might become highly motivated and productive.

We can find meaning when we tell ourselves stories. Reflecting on ourselves and how we see ourselves creates an almost instant change in behavior. Self-awareness involves comparing the self to the ideas of what we should or could be.

When people are told that their actions are being filmed, they consistently change their behavior. They work harder and are more consistent in their actions and values.

Have you ever had a looming deadline on a big project only to spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning out your refrigerator or detailing your car?

If you struggle to get started on a project until it’s crunch time, you might have an unhealthy relationship with stress. Research shows that people can be just as addicted to stress as they are to likes on their social media posts.

You can accomplish quite a bit in just 15 minutes, and yet most of us fritter away that time on our phones in between meetings or during a commute. 

Commit to working on a put-off task for 15 minutes without interruption. Stop at 15 minutes. Don’t allow yourself to work any longer. Do this every day for a week and mark your progress.

Working well is not about maximizing every waking moment of the day, in order to get more done. And the focus on maximizing time may actually diminish our creativity.

Instead, try identifying and focusing on the few hours of the day you are most productive.

To achieve sustainable productivity habits, it’s best to build up with easily achievable tasks.

Small chunks of accomplishment will amount to something big eventually.

Life isn’t what you enjoy when you get somewhere. It's about the journey, the highs and the lows, the victories, and defeats. Resilience keeps you going through all your good and bad times.

Don’t train yourself to stay motivated. Instead, train yourself to become resilient. You cannot master resilience after doing it once. It’s a lifelong process.

People find it difficult to predict the results today's actions will yield a few months from now. So, give them up. Do something because you enjoy it, not for what it will get you.

Exercise to become fit, not because you have a goal of losing 25 pounds in 4 months. If you do what you love, results will inevitably follow.

Successful dieters usually declare certain foods to be completely out of bounds, or allowed only during occasional designated cheat meals, rather than expecting themselves to eat everything in moderation.

Neurologically speaking, motivation is the desire to escape psychological discomfort or a life situation that is not giving us any kind of ‘pleasure’.

Most behaviors are prompted by discomfort. If we are hungry, we eat. If we are lonely, we call up a friend. If we are bored, we turn on the TV.

If we are procrastinating instead of doing a certain task, telling ourselves that we would it later, it is a sure sign that the task isn’t a habit which can be done on autopilot but is, in fact, a routine.

Anything that requires effort is easy to forget or postpone.

Consider these questions: 

• "What kind of work would you and consider satisfactory if you had to do it until you're 80?"
• "What would make you feel excited to wake up every day for the next 45 years that could also earn you enough money to cover your expenses?"

• Extrinsic motivators: This is what you do because you have to pay the bills or want to buy a new car. This type of motivation doesn't last. When you hit your goal, you might feel good for a week, but then it wears off quickly.
• Intrinsic motivators: This is what drives you to do things when there isn't a carrot or stick. For instance, hobbies are driven by this. This kind of motivator does no wear off.