Quick Poll on Motivation

[smartile]

Just putting out a quick poll this week.

What is your biggest problem, concern or frustration when you buy books or products to help you overcome procrastination?

If you choose "Other Reason," please share your opinion in this thread.

Steve

[lespauldude]

i'd think that most will vote for the first one as any of the other choices inevitably make a book not work for you.

my personal belief is that a book can have all the strategies, tips, hints, stories, cases, etc...and the problem is that there is just too much information. if any book was really going to work, it would be 1 or 2 strategies that we could follow and continuously expound on that idea. there are many that do this but i think authors want to go for mass audience and present a wide spectrum of strategies to present the image of all encompassing and "filled with knowledge". however, this overload, anything more than 2 main ideas and handful of strategies is just going to confuse us as to what's really working and possibly take more time from our lives so that in the long run, the laborious process is simply unfeasible to carry on.

have you ever played a competitive sport? it often takes several practices of focusing on just 1 thing to build it into a solid habit. there are 10+ things that you have to do to become a good jump shooter in basketball and the trick is to focus on those individual things (bend in legs, follow through, etc...) in isolation until all of them become habits and you have to focus on less things. after they are all habits, you can free your mind to the other 100+ things that are going on in the game aside from shooting.

i believe the same strategy applies to motivating yourself in any other realm in life. you can maintain motivation by focusing on 1 or 2 things and seeing if they help you. you'll notice what actually helps because you can actually keep track of your implementations. furthermore, when you see that your efforts actually mean something, you'll be more motivated to work harder in the future.

[vMike]

I don't buy self help related books any more.. I've read so many already that I don't think another one would make any difference or have anything new.

The biggest concern? That it's just another one of those over promising and under committing hype marketing books. However there are a few great motivational books out there that you just have to have on your shelf

[Brutha]

The only concern is that the problem might not get solved.

The goal of someone buying a book on solving procrastination is neither "Does not solve your motivational problem.", "Doesn't teach you how to stop putting things off and just do it.", nor any of those things.
The only thing that count is whether the problem gets solved.

No other measuring stick matters.

[Plays With Life]

I posted other. My biggest problem with these kinds of books:

I never get around to reading them.

[funchy]

I don't buy books on this topic.

It must come from within me. I need to sit down and figure out why I kept putting off doing certain things. Usually the answer is something other than "laziness". Peoples' fear of failure, anxiety about an activity, or confusion about how to do the task all drive procrastination.

[aggie]

i usually don't buy any more...

for me, i already know that procrastination=avoiding.

i have to decide why i avoid (feeling lazy, it is boring, want to do something else first, afraid of messing up, insecurity about a situation, etc.) and then just get over it and make myself do it because in most cases avoiding won't make it go away or solve anything.

[smartile]

Originally Posted by Plays With Life

I posted other. My biggest problem with these kinds of books:

I never get around to reading them.

I sort of figured that :-)

[Plays With Life]

Originally Posted by smartile

I sort of figured that :-)

So which one should I buy to overcome that?