Aim for small wins

I had problems with motivation for a big part of my life. There were some exceptions, weeks or even months in which I was excited about working on personal projects and learning new things, but most of the time it wasn’t like that. Doing anything was, quite often, a struggle.

I tried all kind of things to motivate myself, from new projects, to motivational videos, books, reddit posts, and so on. Nothing really worked, and if something did, it was temporary.

As time went by I realized that one big factor that led to me losing all my motivation to work on anything was my constant focus on very big and complicated projects, especially when I had very little experience in a certain field.

When I began learning graphic design I kept thinking about complex photomanipulation projects with all kind of elements, great lighting and a lot of nature. When I began learning how to do 3D modelling in Blender I kept thinking about big environments filled with details that I wanted to make and even entire projects involving redesigns of levels from older games that I liked. When I started to learn how to code I immediately started thinking about creating programs that could do all kind of crazy things that I couldn’t even name properly, because I didn’t even know the jargon.

I didn’t always start to work on any of these things, but just thinking about them frustrated me, because although I knew I was just a beginner, I was frustrated that I didn’t get faster at the level where I would be good enough to work on whatever I wanted. Not only that, but my lack of speed when it came to progress and work in general also frustrated me. I thought that the more I worked on something the better I would become at that thing, and I would be able to finish my projects faster, but it never really happened, at least not quickly enough.

All that often led to me quitting whatever it was that I was trying to do and giving up on the skill itself. I always ended up losing my motivation and not wanting to put extra effort into anything because I couldn’t see the point.

It was only later that I became more aware of this and how much it affected both my ability to learn new things and grow as a person but also my overall mood. I was always annoyed, always frustrated creatively, always looking for something but never being able to find anything.

There were a few things that helped me, but the main one was switching my focus from big and complex projects to small works that I could finish within days. I wanted to see results as quickly as possible, so I started to focus on small wins.

That’s exactly how I approached writing, and unsurprisingly, I’ve been doing it for years. Focusing mostly on small wins allows you to take on projects that can be finished within a realistic amount of time, while also giving you the satisfaction of seeing the results of your work and growth. The more you experience such wins, the more you’ll want to do the activity that led to them, and that will lead to even more growth, better projects, more wins, more rewards, and so on.

I’ve been doing this with writing for a very long time and it has always worked. Sure, there are ups and downs, periods of time in which I don’t really want to do anything at all, and I just want to work on big things, despite never actually getting any satisfaction out of it, but that’s normal. Nothing’s perfect.

I even began applying the same concept to drawing, something I started doing recently, that I wanted to do since I was young. I never managed to properly learn this skill because whenever I began working on anything simple and managed to actually create something decent, I began thinking about big illustrations, comics, stories, and so on. And when I realized that I wasn’t good enough for any of those things, I lost all my motivation and eventually quit.

But focusing on small wins, on drawing small sketches and keeping my expectations low helped me keep myself motivated enough to continue to draw fairly regularly. I still don’t do it as easily and excitedly as writing, but I’m heading in the right direction.

So, if you’re having similar issues, finding it hard to keep yourself motivated because you can’t bear the frustration of not being able to work on all the projects you dream about, try to consciously switch your focus from those ideas to something simpler and more manageable. Do this for long enough, and you’ll notice both a change in mood but also in the amount of work you are able to do.

In time you’ll get better and better, to the point where those big projects that you were thinking about before become something you could, realistically, work on and complete.