Be it work, school, or a hobby. How do you stay focused? I'm feeling really scared that I myself am too lazy of a person to be successful later in life. So I wanted to ask how everyone else stays focused and maybe get inspired.
I never stop thinking about the story I want to write. It's always on my mind ... I guess it's that thought that "this will never happen unless I make it happen."
Everything you do gives you experience and helps you refine your skills, expand your knowledge and develop your personality. It's probably best not to isolate individual activities; it might be more successful to engage in all work with the thought that work, be it professional, for leisure or for education, shapes your life and helps defines who and what you are. The gravity attached to that is an encouragement in itself. If you don't put sufficient effort in, you're wasting your time and getting none of that self-improvement. Procrastinating or doing a poor job is more or less deciding that you're not bothered about improving the substance of your life. Activity becomes its own reward when done well. Idleness, especially when there is work to be done, deprives you of direction and hinders your ability to form a sense of meaning in life. The future doesn't passively wait for you; it has to be created moment by moment. What you do now will contribute to your future successes and failures. To me, motivation is easy to summon with the reminder that time can never be reclaimed, so I might as well use it in the best way I can.
There was this animator who worked for a company I adore. He was a genius. His animation won him awards, he started his own series, a seriously talented guy. He spent his every waking moment working. He once talked about how he lived across the street from work and still drove there, because walking was too slow. He didn't take vacations, he didn't stop when he was sick. He threw himself completely into what he was doing, because he loved it. He died a year ago. He was in his early thirties, and was halfway through the second season of the show he created. He was truly an inspiration, his drive, his passion for what he was doing. If I can accomplish even a fraction of that, I'll rule the damn world. Anyway. He talked about his drive once. And how he wanted everyone to have that drive, to be passionate for something, and work on it non-stop. So, in every notebook I get, at the beginning of every project I undertake, I write the words he said. "Keep moving forward."
I am a natural born procrastinator and have to use every tool at my disposal to keep my wandering brain on task, haha! These might not all be useful for you, but here's some of the methods I use to stop myself from just laying around and getting nothing done for weeks. - Timers: Sometimes it's easier for me to go 'I will work on this non-stop for an hour and then I can do whatever for another hour'. - The StayFocusd extension (because if I can sink hours of my day into idly browsing the internet, I will.) - Incentive-based motivators are good, for me! There's a trick to setting up rewards for yourself, though. Make the rewards either complete luxuries or small but nice things - if you hold yourself hostage by denying yourself things you love and usually have, it often doesn't take long to break and take your 'reward' without doing the work. (For example: My big hard-work rewards are things I wouldn't usually have - a whole small cake to myself, or a pyjama day where I can just chill and do literally nothing of consequence guilt-free. My small, more common rewards are little extras - allowing myself a slice of cheese on my burgers instead of eating them plain, getting a fancy caramel latte rather than a cup of tea when I'm next in town - things I won't miss terribly, but will miss enough to want to work to get them.) - Scheduling: Sometimes it's handy to go 'Okay, on X date at X time, I will sit down and do this thing for X amount of time,' rather than the nebulous and indefinite 'I'll get to it later'. - Doing It Right Now: With smaller tasks, I'm super inclined to go 'Well, that'll only take fifteen minutes, I could do that whenever' and then leave it forever. I've been making an effort to call myself out on that and go 'Yeah, but you have time to do it right now, do it now!'. If I don't have time to do it now, I try to schedule. Also, the website Habitica (formerly HabitRPG) has been a live-saver for me. I've used it for maybe two years now, and it's the easiest way for me to keep track of things I want to get done, easily organise my incentives, and generally remind myself to do things. It might not be for you, but I'd recommend checking it out!
Every paragraph here can be extended into a full psychology thesis, I think u basically explained all the ways to accomplish stuff which is awesome and u might want to start a blog ! Just recently i found this : How to Focus: 5 Research-Backed Secrets to Concentration
Yeah, it's probably Monty Oum. I try to think of things in the long term rather than the short term. Like, maybe I really don't feel like studying or doing my homework, but I remind myself that I won't be successful and will regret it later on.
I stay focused by not forcing myself to do something when I don't want to. If I don't want to work on a piece of art or a short story right now, I won't, but I know I'll want to sooner rather than later, so I just wait. My work turns out better that way when it just comes naturally instead of forcing it. Obviously this only applies to my hobbies and I'm not sure it makes sense to anyone else, but there you go.
I would go around immediate family members because more than likely, everything that comes out of their mouths is negative. Especially if its something positive or good on my behalf. Initially, when I first took notice of this, I would leave very upset and emotional because I could not believe that I was a member of a family that did not have my best interest at heart. Eventually, I developed really tough skin and then I also learned how to take those negative comments and make them positive encouragement for me. You see, if I was up for a promotion or I was the lead presenter for an important business client presentation and was nervous about it. I would go over to my mom's house because this is where they all would meet up at on weekends and I would mention one of the above, especially the promotions. It never failed where one of them would lash out in a very negative way to lower my self esteem. However, the negativity did quite the opposite, it actually gave me the drive and focus to achieve everything positive that came way and with much success. You see, if I had mentioned something that I may had not been sure of or puzzled about, if their response was positive, then I knew not to make forward moves. If their responses were negative and crude, then I knew to put all of my best efforts forth and every time, I would succeed where they thought I would lose or be subjected to embarrassment.
I just utter the words 'It's for the sake of becoming an astronaut'. As it is my dream to one day become an astronaut, everything I do is for that dream. If I really can't be bothered to do something like studying I tell myself 'Which one will make you an astronaut: studying or watching anime?' And with the clear winner being the studying I just crack in (of course with a bit of grumbling). This is how I got through last year where I studied practically everyday (8 hours on Saturday and 8 hours Sunday and then 3 hours after school) for exams.
