Motivation, Real or Myth?
- Dhrushil Zaveri
- May 16, 2022
- 4 min read
Motivation is a quick-burning fuel for completing a task, in this newsletter I will share my views on motivation and how to get things done.

Let me explain why I feel motivation is a myth. Did you watch any productivity video of Ali Abdaal about studying and got motivated and started studying that day? what happened the next day? you again found yourself with a lack of motivation?
Motivation doesn’t last long, maybe for a day, a month but after a certain period, your motivation will be exhausted.
Why do you want motivation? because you think you can’t do things without motivation?
If that is the case, let me ask you one simple question, suppose you had an assignment given a month ago because of your lack of motivation you didn’t complete your work, you were parting, busy in socializing, now your deadline arrive. You start working and complete your project just before the deadline.
Now my question is, how do you complete your project when you reached your deadline?
Your answer might be, “I was scared as if my work wouldn’t be completed on time my teacher/boss will scold me and maybe give me punishment and a bad impression in front of my teacher/boss”
If you think it was the fear that made you do your work (in that case I can say fear was your motivation).
But I believe, when you reached the deadline, you prioritize your work before anything else.
You need motivation because you think the work is not that important.
As in the above case, when the deadline arrived, you realized it is important to complete your work than doing something else.
Now it doesn’t mean you need to have a close call with a deadline to complete your work.
It’s just when you receive your work prioritized it as; low, medium, or high.
Try to complete first the high priority task, then medium, and then low.
Now it doesn’t mean you can’t start with low priority task, but if the deadline is far, then start with high priority as low and medium can wait but high priority is very important.
Now the question comes, how to set priorities?
I believe it depends on you but essentially, there are 3 components for setting priority i.e.; deadline, the time needed to complete the project, the importance of work i.e. consequences if the work is not done on time in your work or personal life.
For example, if the task is to paint your garage, it may take time but it’s not that important and doesn’t have any consequences if you are not able to paint your garage, so you can keep it on low or medium priority according to how much important is painting the garage is for you.
But if the task is to mail a file to your boss (which you have already prepared) is a high-priority task though it is a less time-consuming task, it has a deadline and the consequences of not mailing on time are high.
It is not that you are not motivated, it is that you don’t want to prioritize it
Lastly, if you think motivation is the happiness of completing a task, I believe it’s just the satisfaction and not motivation.
And you need to complete the task in the first place.
So to sum up
“Motivation is Myth.” I believe it’s the Priority that helps you to complete tasks and not the Motivation.
But if you still feel that even after prioritizing your task you are still not able to complete your task, you can use Ten Minute Rule or Parkinson’s Law.
The next Newsletter is very special and personal to me. It’s a must-read for all my co-founder readers, Subscribe to my Newsletter if you haven’t already!
My favorites
Movies 🎥
My Spy
I don’t usually recommend comedy movies, but My Spy is one of my favorite movies in the comedy genre. It’s an Action-Comedy movie.
I won’t be telling you the story of the movie because I might give you a spoiler but I am sure you would love it.
Here is the trailer.
Podcast🎙️
This podcast episode is must listen!
The above podcast is from The Ranveer Show. If you are someone who doesn’t understand metaverse, Web 3, NFT’s and all those heavy technical words, like me, you should listen to this episode.
Also as an entrepreneur, you should definitely give it a listen, as you will be fascinated by the opportunities metaverse has for businesses.
Videos
Second Brain
I recently came across the concept of “Second Brain”, if you are someone like me who consumes lots of content and also creates content, you should definitely have Second Brain.
The main idea residence from “Getting Things Done” Book by David Allen that “Our mind is for having ideas, not for holding them” the reason been we tend to forget things after some time.
It’s actually an online course which is very costly, but there are many YouTube videos explaining the concept.
This video of Ali Abdaal will help you to understand the concept of the Second Brain properly.
Quote
The expression one wears on one’s face is far more important than the clothes on wears on one’s back.
The following quote shows the importance of having a genuine smile, from the book How to win friends and influence people.
I hope you found something interesting in this newsletter, don’t forget to do the exercise. I will meet you next Thursday exactly at 9:30 am with another interesting article.
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