Motivation has been on my mind a lot in recent weeks.  I know I recently wrote about whether motivation is born within us or learned.  (I hope you’ll take a few minutes to review that article).  As an avid Vancouver Canucks fan, I watched the Boston game this past Saturday where the Canucks were on their game, followed by Monday’s game against the Florida Panthers, where the game was slow and unexciting.  The rivalry for the Bruins game was high, especially after the Stanley Cup Finals in June 2011.  On the other hand, getting that same motivation for a team that most likely isn’t a play-off contender, and they only play once a year is a lot more difficult.

This got me thinking about we, as humans, ebb and flow in our motivation for different situations.  When there is a lot at stake or when you are highly passionate about a particular task or project, your level of engagement also increases.  The opposite happens when it is a task you dislike or have little passion for.

In his book, Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, Brian Tracy suggests we ‘eat the frog’ first thing each day before doing anything else.  The ‘frog’ is that task or project that you are least motivated to do, yet when accomplished will have a large pay-off and free your mind to be more productive and innovative.  This approach takes practice and discipline.  Like you, I frequently procrastinate on these ‘less than ideal’ tasks but they are never far from my mind.  Once accomplished, I feel the relief and freedom to move forward.

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