I was recently asked who motivates me when I am having a tough time putting one foot in front of the other, or have an overwhelming about of choices on my to do list. The short answer, is that I think it’s largely still me. But I’ll elaborate.

I’ve been accused of being highly productive, overachieving, and even ‘intense’ before. I’m not going to argue with any of those things, I’m sure to some people, that’s accurate. Some of it does have to do with setting your own goals and deadlines, some of it has to do with your natural motivation style, and some of it has to do with simply knowing very clearly what you want.

So: Figure out how you work best and what motivates you.

My husband’s last job was flexible. He could go into work whenever he wanted, but if he wanted to work from home for whatever reason, he pretty much could. For a while he had standard work from home days of Mondays and Wednesdays. However, when work got intense, he would go into the office five days a week. He felt he focused better at the office than at home.

This is never been a problem for me. If I’m working on something, I’m going to work on it where ever I am. Aside from minor distractions—perhaps I have more interruptions from cats at home—I’m going to get the same amount done from home as I would at work. Potentially more because there are less people around to distract me.

When I was in college, I did a year abroad in England. Before I left, we had several interviews and aptitude tests to determine if we would be the best fit for the universities that we’d applied for. I remember that a big concern was that test taking was different and I was encouraged to do my classes pass/fail in order to keep my grade point average.

Grading was different, but it didn’t bother me. Rather than several short quizzes and test throughout the year, we were given papers and due dates at the beginning and told when to turn them in. That was it. No reminders, no nothing. I’m sure we were able to ask questions if we wanted, but I remember seeing the due date and plotting out a timeline in my head of when I’d need to have certain things done. I just did it a little at a time over the course of the semester. When I handed it my paper, I had one of the highest grades in the class.

I could see how that would have created a problem for many people though. I think a large majority of people, at least who went through a US school system, are like my husband. They expect outside deadlines, checks, and reminders for any work/school things they need to get done. This is how we’re trained and, I think, how a lot of people work.

My natural motivation style is intrinsic. Most of the things that I decide I want to do, I do because they are personally rewarding to me. (If these terms are new to you, the opposite is extrinsic motivation, in which you are motivated by an outside force, such as getting a reward or avoiding a punishment.) For example, I stay in shape because I enjoy being able to do certain physical things and I like to look a certain way. I don’t stay in shape because my husband will criticize me otherwise or because I’m going to win any beauty contests. (For the record, I don’t think Dean has ever said anything negative about the way I look.) I run because I enjoy the act of running. Oh the flip side, I do physical therapy because it makes it possible for me to run. I don’t actually enjoy the PT itself.

I write because I enjoy writing. I started letting other people read my work because I wanted to take the next step, which is when I discovered that I actually enjoy having other people read my stuff! (At first it was terrifying, don’t get me wrong.) So the next step was submitting to agents and publishers. Now that I’m prepping Ghost Tamer, I find I’m really enjoying the publishing process! I think I want to do this again sometime.

All of these are intrinsic examples. I take these actions because I want to. My parents will still be proud of me if I never become a published author. I will still have the same amount of friends. No one is going to love me more, and I’m certainly not going to be raking in a shit ton of extra cash.

Next: figure out exactly what you want. (And recognize that this can change over time.)

My current wants are very clear. I want to get a book published, therefore certain preliminary steps must be accomplished. Knowing what you want is step one. I didn’t realize this until pretty recently, but there are a lot of people out there who don’t really know what they want. They know what they don’t want, or they may have nebulous, generic, or pie-in-the-ski wants—i.e. I would like to win the lottery and not have to work anymore—but they don’t have a clear, attainable want.

Once the want is defined: research what it takes to obtain it, and see if that sounds fun.

My personal belief is that if the steps don’t seem enjoyable, perhaps the want isn’t really for you. For instance, let’s take the ‘want’ of ‘becoming a professional novelist.’ To start with, this is like saying someone wants to become a Hollywood actor. Can it happen? Sure. But not only does it take a lot of luck and being in the right place at the right time, it also requires years of dedication, training, and not-Hollywood-acting. But for the sake of argument, let’s look at what it would take to be a professional novelist.

You definitely need to get picked up by a major publisher in order for your advance to become worthwhile, which means you’re going to need an agent. To get an agent, you’re going to have to have a fantastic, stand-out novel that they believe they can sell. Let’s start there.

You’ll need to write every day. You’ll need to solicit and accept criticism from your peers. This means you will have to give critiques in return. So you’ll have to read other people’s stuff too. You’ll have to be well read and current in your genre of choice, so you’ll have to read a lot. You’ll have to develop a marketing platform for yourself. (Yes, you have to market yourself. It doesn’t end with just writing the book.) I have friends with major publishers who are still on Instagram every day plugging their book deals, people who are living the professional writing dream. You’ll need to network, which means attending writing conferences (which are expensive). And once all that is done and you have your rockin’ manuscript, you’ll need to get together a good synopsis, pitches of various lengths, a cover letter, and then research the agents that might be interested in your work and pitch it to them.

Here’s the fun part, if you get an agent, they then have to pitch your book to publishers. So let’s say it takes you a year to write the book, a year to get the agent, then another year to get the publisher, who schedules your book for two years out because that’s when they have a slot on their list. That’s five years of writing, networking, et cetera, et cetera, before you even have book one published. Which is not going to be anything you can live off of unless you are win-the-lottery lucky. And that’s the best case scenario.

My point? If you don’t enjoy the journey, you’ve just made yourself miserable for five years.

To recap; my first two steps are figuring out what you really want, then taking a look at what it takes to achieve it.

The last step is just putting it all on a calendar and making sure you show up.

For me the biggest pitfalls are the overwhelm I experience when I’m not sure if I’m tackling a step correctly or effectively (social media is a great example) and the frustration I am subject to when outside forces derail my plans. (Like getting a monster cold and COVID back to back.) These are times I might need some outside perspective to either calm me down or give me a nudge in a different direction. It’s taken me a while to learn this about myself, but learning and embracing your own flaws is one of the best things you can do for your goals.

When I was heavy into martial arts, there was a guy named Ron who was infallibly cheerful. Inevitably he would find a way to meet my eyes when we were panting after a particularly grueling sparring session and say, “We must be having fun, right? I mean, you gotta be having fun or getting paid.” And I realized that’s not really a bad way to boil things down.

Setting and Meeting your Goals