Getting motivated

On the weekends I am so excited and filled with ambition to write. I have lots of story ideas I want to work on. I love doing the research. I love what I learn about each topic I'm writing about. I just have a love of learning anyway. I love to share what I learn, to spread information, to teach and help others. I just love it.

Monday mornings I wake up to the sound of the alarm clock knowing I have to go to my real job (to support my writing habit). I really, really don't want to move. The cat doesn't want me to move and nature doesn't want me to move. OK, I don't know about nature, but the cat definitely doesn't want me to move and I'm happy to oblige her.

But, of course, I need to. I need to go to my regular job in order to pay the bills (until this writing thing starts supporting me). My only motivation is that sense of responsibility.

I apologize to the cat for disturbing her and I get out of bed.

Getting kids motivated
We all face this challenge of having to motivate ourselves to do something we don't really want to do, whether it's going to a job that seems to be stealing our free time to taking out the garbage or doing dishes. We somehow convince ourselves it must be done and even if it's unpleasant, we do it.

Our kids face this challenge too. They have to get their schoolwork and chores done. But we, the parents, are the ones stuck with providing the motivational tactics to try to get them to get the work done.

A change of thought
We have a lot of options to motivate our kids to get their work done. We can try to instill them with that sense of responsibility like we do to ourselves. We can motivate them with allowance or other incentives, much like we do for ourselves.

But what if we started thinking differently about how to get motivated? A sense of responsibility or incentive doesn't make the tasks we need to get done seem any better. They are still unpleasant tasks. But what if we changed our attitudes about them? What if we changed the tasks themselves so they are more fun?

On a positive note
To make a task seem less unpleasant, the first thing to do is consider all the positive things about it and stop letting the negatives crowd them out.

If you want your child to take schoolwork more seriously, take the time to brainstorm with your child the good things he or she will be able to take away from it. Let him or her imagine a job at Disneyland, or being able to fly through space, or solving the mysteries of the universe.

Even if the ideas your child comes up with seem unattainable, go with it. You never know what will happen if you let your child imagine the seemingly impossible. Where would we be right now if Albert Einstein's mother told him to get his head out of the clouds? All of the advances in science and technology are due to dreamers and those who dared to imagine the seemingly impossible.

You can use this positivity tactic with the household chores too, but sometimes a little more imagination is needed.

Make chores or other jobs fun
Sometimes, considering the positives or coming up with distant goals isn't enough when it comes right down to completing a task. Household chores can seem downright boring, and knowing that you'll have clean dishes to eat off of later doesn't really help when they are all sticky and sitting in a tub of dirty water now. This is where that great imagination our kids have comes in handy.

There are lots of possibilities when it comes to making chores fun if you really put your mind to it. You can have your child pretend he's SpongeBob (who loves his job) and have him or her sing while working. You can pretend your are assembly-line robots and move in jerky robot-like motions to pick clothes or dishes up and move them into their proper locations. You can play the sport of curling while sweeping or mopping. You can race each other to get windows clean.

The best way to make chores fun is to do them together. Allow your child to come up with the games after discussing a few ideas. When it is your child's ideas, he or she is more likely to cooperate.

Coming up with a playful way to get chores done helps make the time go faster and tasks get done before you know it. However, some tasks do take a long time and may seem overwhelming when you consider all that must be done in order to complete it. That's when you need to mix things up a bit.

Break big jobs up into smaller, easier to reach goals
Sometimes all you need to get motivated to do something is to know there's not much to do. So, when a task seems overwhelming or like it will take a long time to accomplish, we tend to procrastinate.

In order to get out of this rut and get a big job done, we need to break it up into smaller jobs. As you and your kids accomplish each smaller task, you'll be more motivated to move on to the next. You don't always have to do them in a specific order and you can always take snack breaks or take a stroll or whatever to keep from getting burned out on work.

Before you know it, the whole big job will be done and you and your kids can celebrate. Maybe that celebration will be an incentive to motivate your family to get to work.