Get Motivated!

(Reed’s playlist for the occasion: Imagine Dragons does T-Swift)

I am feeling pretty great right now.

I’m writing this in my apartment, having just eaten a smoothie bowl (chocolate banana, homemade granola) and done *most* of the dishes that have accumulated over the past few days from myself and my roommates. Earlier today, I wrote a little bit – just 1500 words, but since I hadn’t written in the past week and a half, it feels like a victory – as well as finishing Summerland, the subject of my last book review.

This is a lot more productive than I usually am.

And yesterday went just as well, with even more things on my plate. For some reason, after a long summer of up and down, I’ve gotten back into that efficacious mentality. And maybe it’s because I can see the end of things – I’ll be employed again for the fall in about two to three more weeks – or maybe it’s the post-vacation laziness leaving me.

But it could also be this post I read on Reddit the other day, which (at the risk of sounding overdramatic) I want to say changed a lot for me in terms of perspective. If you have a spare few minutes, I’d recommend you read the post, as well as the top comment directly below it.

If you don’t have the time, here’s the tl;dr:

User maxstolfe talks about how they can’t seem to find the motivation to do well. They’re in college and their grades are in that perfectly mediocre C range; they have things they want to do but they can’t seem to summon up the energy to do them; and although they feel guilty about not doing anything, it’s never enough guilt to actually do something about it.

The top comment, by user ryans01, is full of positivity and strategies for making the most out of each day. It got 83 Reddit gold (if you’re not familiar, Reddit gold costs real money, so multiple people spent their money to upvote this comment). In his comment, ryans01 outlined four good strategies:

1. No zero days. Try your hardest to do a tiny bit, every day, to move yourself towards your goals. If you can’t run a mile, run a few hundred meters. If you can’t write an entire chapter, write a few hundred words. Just do a little bit every single day to propel yourself, to keep that momentum going.
2. Be thankful to the three you’s. Past you is responsible for everything good in your life right now; be sure to thank past you every single time something goes right for you. Present you is going to help future you have an even better existence – so try your utmost to keep holding up the tradition and do things today that will benefit you in the future.
3. Forgive yourself. If you slip up one day, or a week, or a month, forgive yourself for not doing the most you can. You can’t move forward to having a non-zero day if you don’t forgive yourself for all the previous zero days. Nobody is superhuman, and sometimes you’ll fall by the wayside, but if you’re able to let that go, you can start making progress again.
4. Exercise and books. Exercise your body, exercise your mind. It makes you feel better overall, keeps you learning, and can be the inspiration for even better changes to come. Plus it’s just a healthy habit to be in. (To be honest, the exercise is the part that’s the hardest for me, but hey, maybe I’ll go for a run today. Like I said, I’m feeling good.)

It’s hard to keep motivated, and I know this better than anyone. I don’t consider myself the absolute laziest piece of shit, but there are areas in my life that need improvement, and I’m going to do everything I can to make each day a non-zero day.

It seems like most of what I’ve been posting recently has been motivation materials for other struggling writers. I know it’s because I’ve been going through so much of that myself. So do yourself a favor and check out that post (it’s much more eloquently written than my summary) and also check out some of my other motivational posts. Here, I’ll even put them a click away. Here, here, here, here, here.

And then get to it, dude. Get straight to writing, because today is gonna be the first non-zero day of the rest of your life.

Yours, stoked as hell,

-R.R. Buck