The second part of the title is a joke.

I live a pretty comfortable life, but my mind tends to put me in quite a depressing state from time to time. And I burn out easily.

You could probably read a bit about that in my previous post on concentration. If not, do it now — it's a great waterfall of words with very little actual meaning.

But to the point.

This post seems to be about motivation, but honestly, it’s about the lack of it. About the times when your mind wanders to the land of excuses and greener grass. When you slowly start to build resentment and aversion toward whatever you have committed to.

We’ve all been there. At least, I hope it’s not just me.

How I Dealt with It in the Past

To answer the section title — I gave up.

Actually, I'm still doing that. It’s not like it happens instantly, but given enough time, there’s a 98% chance I’ll give up.

Frankly, there aren't many things I've stuck with without being forced to. I completed my degree — but if not for deadlines, exams and judgmental eyes of my mates I probably would have dropped it.

Same for English. I reached a pretty decent level that allows me to waste my life in an evil international corporation, but I got there out of fear and necessity, not passion.

Other things?

Gym — failed multiple times.

German — I'm ashamed to even think about it.

Book writing — Come on, so many wasted notebooks.

Blog — it’s my 4th attempt.

But during the last few months I’ve come to a few conclusions. I’ve realized some things that helped me get a little better.

My Super Effective Tips

Let’s start with a bit of theory.

It’s common knowledge that motivation is the strongest at the beginning. The longer you go, the more it fades. And at the end? You're only motivated to forget that you were supposed to do something in the first place.

In school, they tell you to hijack that by replacing motivation with discipline. But in my experience, you need both.

Discipline alone can lead to burnout. With only motivation you will never succeed.

So how to keep motivation high?

Setting the Bar Low

What usually precedes action? Expectations.

The vision of greatness lurks in your mind and promises you more than you deserve.

You sit down for your first lesson in a new language and already picture yourself charming strangers with your polyglot magic.

You start learning programming and instantly envision all that sweet money in the mythical Eldorado of the IT world.

Then reality hits. Progress is slower than you hoped. You keep getting stuck on simple things. There is no more fun, and the thought Do I really need to learn this? pops in your mind more and more often.

So what’s the fix?

For me, it’s two things.

First is to lower expectations from the start.

Don’t aim for the dream job in IT — aim for finishing a small project in a few days. Forget the vision of chatting like a native. Set a goal to read one short story in a foreign language.

Focus on what’s achievable. When you complete those, your range of achievable things will grow.

And the second step? Don’t overdo it at the beginning.

Seriously. Don’t spend five hours grinding on day one.

Your motivation is like mana in a video game — and there’s only so much of it. Stop in the middle when it’s still fun. That way, you’ll want to come back tomorrow.

Checkpoints — Because Isn’t Life Just a Game?

In the previous point, we briefly touched on the importance of having an achievable goal, but let’s go deeper.

Milestones matter.

Every story starts for a reason — something that needs to be done for a greater good (or evil, in my case). It’s helpful to approach life the same way.

When you start something, you enter an unfamiliar world. You don’t know the rules. You’re clumsy. You’re prey. So ensure you have a reason to be there.

I’ve already said that expectations should be low.

So set an easy goal that you can achieve. It can even be one more repetition on the same weight at your next gym session. One paragraph of your book.

That’s enough to give some meaning to your work.

Ensure the goals are achievable and increase them along the way. When you feel more confident in this new world try something bigger, but remove the need for success from your mind.

Apply for that job interview, but treat it more like a learning experience than an actual goal. Maybe you’ve trained with weight for some time — sign yourself up for a powerlifting meeting. Train for that, but don’t plan on winning yet.

It will give you a few cortisol spikes. That's good.

That’s how you make it real.

You Are Not Almighty

When I’m doing great at the gym, I’m usually failing at writing and language learning.

When I’m doing great at writing and language learning, I’m skipping the gym.

Just like parents always secretly love one kid a little more, you’ll always prioritize something at the expense of something else.

The trick is to make sure you’re prioritizing the right thing.

That doesn’t mean you can do only one thing at a time.

But if you are super focused on finishing a book, maybe scale down your workouts during the week. If you’ve got a trip to France in three weeks and want to polish your French, maybe write just three days a week instead of every day.

If you do too much, there’s a chance you won’t just fail at one thing — you’ll fail at all of them.

Choose wisely what your heart wants most.

Finishing Touch

Those are a few things I’ve figured out over the years.

None of them will magically lift your motivation to god-tier status. They’re just tweaks, but they are making a difference.

Try them out and see what works for you. If it helps — great. If not — we all are different.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you will check out the next one.