“He who has a Why, can bear any How.”
So said Viktor Frankl, who knew more about enduring hardships than anyone should have to learn.
And it’s true. If you’re unmotivated, then you probably lack a big enough goal.
Providing an amazing life for your family – that’s an incredible and enlightened purpose to live for. It’s also the smallest one that works.
“I want to write a novel because, um, I think it would be neat if people read it and, um, wrote me fan mail…”
No.
Write because you have a burning need to.
Write because it’ll either save your family or save the world.
Stop making excuses and stop making things hard for yourself.
Having said that…
Occasionally having a goal like that isn’t enough.
You can want to save the world – fine. But it’s possible to have that overwhelm you. It’s possible to want to rescue humanity from the bowels of hell and still have off days.
When you know you need to hustle and thinking big isn’t cutting it, then think small.
I cover Big Motivation and Little Motivation in I Wrote This On A Monday. Big Motivation is everything I covered here. It’s why you want to write and what that’ll do for you.
Little Motivation is what you do to get you to your keyboard, close all the tabs, but your phone away and just write.
It shatters procrastination and writer’s block, filling you with an urge – not an ability, an urge – to write.
This is how I enter the writing flow state when it doesn’t come naturally to me.
It’s quick, it’s simple, but you probably haven’t learned to use your brain like this.
So learn to use it here: