Write it down and do it.

Stop referencing the past you. Your past childhood, your past hurts, your past lost loves, your past habits, your past career, your past struggles, attitude, identity limitations. No one is interested in that old weary story any more, least of all you.

Here's the story we're interested in— Stand up and declare this: "Starting today, I set a new standard: I am a fully resourced human being. I have zero tolerance for old stories of myself. From this moment, I point my mindset forward. I define myself by the vision of what I want in my life and who I am from here on out. That vision is beautiful and I think about it daily, and it drives the actions I do each day."

Logically, the gamble is beneficial.

0.5($150) - 0.5($100) = +$25

WOO HOO! Twenty-five imaginary fucking dollars guaranteed! FUCK YEAH! Math demands you flip the motha-fucking coin!

But if we were truly rational, we wouldn't have any trouble getting and staying motivated. In reality many people aren't interested in flipping this coin because the likely possibility of losing $100 is a TERRIBLE outcome. You would be pissed to lose $100. You imagine the worse outcome, and that dissuades you from taking the risk.

What does this mean?

We are LOSS AVERSE. Losing $20 is more emotionally powerful than finding $20. Getting dumped is way more emotionally burdensome than getting a boyfriend/girlfriend is exciting. The death of a loved one is way more emotionally crippling than the birth of a child is wonderful.

SUMMARY: We perceive losing something to be dramatically worse than gaining that same thing.

How can this information help you? When you want to motivate yourself to something, reframe the motivation in the form of avoiding loss.

Trying to go to the gym? Don't think, "I want to go to the gym to GAIN a good body".

Think, "I want to go to the gym so I don't LOSE the body I'm trying to build".

Afraid to talk to the cute girl/guy sitting next to you on the bus?

Don't motivate yourself by saying, "She's/He's so attractive, I'd love to meet/date/slam this person"

Motivate yourself by saying, "If I don't talk to her/him, I'm going to LOSE this once in a lifetime opportunity. We may never cross paths again!"

TL,DR: Humans perceive losing something to have greater emotional magnitude than gaining that identical thing. Use this to your advantage by framing your motivation as avoiding a loss rather than seeking a gain.

For More Info: Read chapter 4 of Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

I sucked at remembering to call my mom during college.

Not that I didn't want to or didn't care, I just plainly forgot. Calendar events didn't work, because sometimes I did contact her that day, and was notified to call her anyway. And what about all my other friends? How was I supposed to remember to keep in touch with them? I needed something easy, automatic, and scalable.

So, I made Call Your Mother. It intelligently and automatically reminds you to get in touch with the people you care about. Never go stretches of time without calling or texting your family and friends again.

Note: I know this may come across as self-promotion, but it's free, has no ads, and has legitimately helped me be better about contacting people. Just wanted to share the tool. :)

*Edit: Lots of great feedback! A few people have requested an iOS version and a WhatsApp integration. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't allow you to access call or sms data, so I can't make a direct port just yet. WhatsApp integration is a great idea though, and would allow global users to take advantage. I'm going to look into this!

Dear /r/GetMotivated,

Last year you liked it ( http://redd.it/1u6skc ), so here we are again:

if you just want to get a year planning booklet, you can download it here, it's absolutely free: http://www.yearcompass.com/en/

If you want to know a bit more about this booklet, read along :)

Planning your year is a good habit. It helps you identify your successes, sorrows and will help you realize how much can happen just in a year. By learning from the past you can plan your future so, that you don’t repeat the same patterns and can feel in control of your own life.

People just don't plan and don't get closure. This is why we made a movement for spreading the idea of year planning. Also we made a booklet for it, too.

You can read about the YearCompass movement and download the booklet here: http://www.yearcompass.com/en/

If you like this, share it. If you have advice, criticism we are happy to read and discuss it.

Plan your year, help us get out the word and have a great 2015! :)

Dear /r/GetMotivated,

A couple years ago I launched the Everest app here and you guys liked it, so I'm back to share something new (full-disclosure: I AM sharing a product but also have a useful hack you can use regardless):

One day, I realized that despite having 3 reminders set on my phone to “do pushups & take vitamins,” I STILL WASN’T DOING IT. So I did a little brainstorming and came up with a simple idea:

• 1. I chose a goal I could do every day (e.g. push-ups, vitamins, gratitude, meditation, floss, etc...)
• 2. I wore a rubber band on my right wrist to remind myself to do your goal (makes it impossible to forget since you see it all day)

This gives you a daily goal to get the rubber band from your right wrist to your left wrist and the only time you're allowed to switch it is AFTER YOU DO YOUR DAILY GOAL (pushups, meditation, etc...)

This ended up being very effective for me (I've done morning push-ups for 235 days in a row, I track it in a notebook) that I became tired of wearing a rubber band every day and decided to create a nicer version of the same concept. I called it a FLIP BAND and just launched my first kickstarter for it today.

Here's a link if you're interested (the video is pretty fun I think): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/682782635/flip-band-the-simplest-way-to-stick-to-your-goals

If you're not interested in a product, that's fine, just try doing this with a rubber band -- I'm telling you, it sounds silly but it works. It serves as a trigger for your habit and gives you positive reinforcement which will strengthen the likeliness of sticking to your goal.

I originally had no intention of turning this into a product but after seeing how effective it was for a few of my friends (close to 20 now), I thought "heck, why not?" So here I am, launching a Kickstarter, and sharing it with you reddit folks!

If you like it, share it. If you have feedback or criticism, leave a comment and we can have a discussion.

Have an awesome 2015 :) And remember... a year from now, you'll wish you had started today.

EDIT: There was a typo in first sentence it said "hew" instead of "new" so I fixedit.

The best time to start was 6 months ago. The second best time to start is today.

6 months ago I graduated from veterinary medical school and came to a sobering realization: after 11 years of busting my ass to improve myself from the neck up and follow my dream, I was profoundly unhappy with the person that I saw looking back at me in the mirror. After doing some research on reddit and elsewhere I decided to start a journey to make my outer appearance a better reflection of who I felt my inner self was. Here's what I figured out along the way that I wanted to share and hopefully help others make the same journey.

Fitness:
1) Three acronyms cover 90% of what you need to know here as a beginner: PPL, CICO, and HIIT. My workout plan involved PPL 6 days per week and HIIT cardio on my "off" day, and my CICO calculated out for weight maintenance.
2) Don't neglect your shoulders, chest, and back. These are the muscles that control your posture, and posture is a major factor in the first impression that you make! My posture for most of my life has been, for a lack of a better word, absolute shit. Weight lifting was able to dramatically change that in just 6 months. Shoulder shrugs, bent over rows, flat bench press, incline bench press, overhead press, and push-ups are some simple exercises to make sure are in your routine if you're looking to improve your posture.
3) Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition. Set macro goals that match the look you're aiming for. If you want to gain muscle, or maintain muscle in the face of weight loss you're going to want at least 0.75 to 1 gram of protein per day in your diet for each pound of lean body weight. Avoid simple sugars like they're poison. Don't drink your calories (unless they're helping your macro goals, like protein shakes). If you're eating a high quality diet you shouldn't feel hungry between meals even if you're in CICO deficit. If you're wasting your calories on shitty food, that's how you end up counting the hours until the next meal.

Time management:
1) If there's one thing that four years of 60-100 hour work weeks in veterinary medical school taught me, it's that there's a shit-ton of hours in the week to get things done and still have time left over for fun as long as you're managing your time well. Most people don't have a "too busy" problem, they have an efficiency problem.
2) Manage your sleep: too much or too little is bad. I shoot for 6-8 hours per night. Sleeping more than you need wastes hours and leaves you feeling more sluggish and tired than you would be on regular sleep. Sleeping too little leaves you exhausted and unable to make the most of the hours that you're awake, and undermines the work that you're doing on your fitness. Wake up at a normal "work" time on your days off - keeping a steady sleep schedule will help you stay more rested and those morning hours on the weekend are a great time to get shit done so that you can enjoy the rest of the weekend guilt-free.
3) Trim your priorities. Most people respond to feeling unhappy about their lives by trying to add things to it. This is the opposite of what you should be doing. Having fewer, more meaningful commitments will leave you happier than having many, less meaningful commitments all competing for your finite free time. Identify the people, hobbies, and things that make you happiest and direct more of your time and energy in those directions. Simple is happy.
4) Have a schedule for the day, even if you don't have anywhere to be. Splitting your time up into "work" and "play" blocks helps keep those lines from blurring. That means you get more during your work time, and enjoy your play time more because you don't have the guilt of neglecting your work since it has its own time set aside.

Outer appearance:
1) Basic men's fashion is pretty damn easy if you're willing to add an extra 10 minutes to your day. A button down shirt, a pair of slacks, a belt, and some basic dress shoes will make you look pretty sharp as long as you buy clothes that fit and/or get your clothes adjusted so that they do fit. Make sure your pants fit at the waist and hips, you can always get the length hemmed.
2) Treat yourself to a haircut that isn't a $15 Supercuts hack job. This is one of the centerpieces of your outer appearance. Your hair makes a statement about how you want to present yourself. Don't make that statement "I spent more on the delivery pizza I ordered last night than I did on this haircut".
3) Grooming and hygiene: This one explains itself. No matter how well you dress or how much work you do in the gym/kitchen, if you smell bad or otherwise aren't keeping up with your grooming and hygiene you've completely undone all your work. Brush and floss your teeth. Shower every day. Shave or keep your facial hair groomed.
4) Do not underestimate how much of your outer appearance is within your control. The fraction of people who are truly so physically unattractive that they can't make meaningful improvements to their outer appearance is extremely small. Don't fall victim to apathy because you underestimated what your ceiling was. Put the work in to try and find the best possible version of yourself. You'll probably be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

My progress so far after 6 months.

Hey, I just finished working on my pride and joy for the last 2 months and I think GetMotivated will love it. Here's the idea:

Sometimes, weekends just go by in a blur of watching TV and playing video games, and you get to the end and you're thinking 'where did the last 2 days go?' - this is my solution to that problem. The app will generate random activities for you to do based on where you are, weather conditions, etc. You earn points for completing each task, and the challenge is to complete as many as you can in a row without skipping. It can become a competition between you and friends to get the highest score. You'll find your weekend unfold in a kind of 'Wario Ware' fashion, darting from different activities to the next but experiencing a whole lot of cool new things if you stick with it!

Some features:

• 250+ tasks, more on the way
• Filter by your time and budget, plus categories
• Hide tasks you don't want to see again
• Google Play Games integration
• Free! :)

EDIT: I added a Donate option! Feel free to, to support development of all the cool new features you're requesting! It'll be live on the play store in a couple hours :)

EDIT 2: Crashing a lot? I pushed a couple of updates - up to 1.6 now. Check your version number - the updates should roll out soon!

EDIT 3: RIP inbox. Thank you all SO MUCH for your support! You've given some awesome feedback and now I can take that and run with it. Expect loads of fun updates over the coming weeks!

Play Store Link

For the next 21 days, look in the mirror and say, "Any problem big or small is just a minor inconvenience to be happy. Happiness is within myself and I am more than capable of achieving it."

Helo. I'm searching for an Accountability partner to better yours and mine productivitiy, if you're interested, feel free to send me a private messege.

EDIT: Thanks for all the responses everybody.

Pretty overwhelmed as I put upwards of an hour into each response to make sure it really is the best - I'm going to try to research and provide at least one recommendation a day.

I appreciate those of you who are contributing suggestions to others, and would definitely be grateful for more help from more of you.

Thanks!

People say "he's easily entertained" as if they pity the person in question. I've found that being easily entertained can make you the happiest person in the room at any moment. Don't just sit and wait to be entertained, make the extra mental effort to enjoy what you're doing. If you're getting rekt in a video game, be a try hard on the next game: for this one, act like a fool, joke around, and try to make everyone laugh. If you're outside on a hot day, bless the breeze or curse the sun: but do it out loud, and ham it up. "Curse you, foul star! Why must you scorch me with thine rays!"

Hey everyone,

A few weeks ago I finished working on my pride and joy (for the better part of 4 years) and I think GetMotivated will love it. I posted here with a brief overview, and I'm back with a metric ton of updates for you all, as requested! Here's the idea, for those who weren't around for the original thread:

Sometimes, weekends just go by in a blur of watching TV and playing video games, and you get to the end and you're thinking 'where did the last 2 days go?' - this is my solution to that problem. The app will generate random activities for you to do based on where you are, weather conditions, etc. You earn points for completing each task, and the challenge is to complete as many as you can in a row without skipping. It can become a competition between you and friends to get the highest score. You'll find your weekend unfold in a kind of 'Wario Ware' fashion, darting from different activities to the next but experiencing a whole lot of cool new things if you stick with it!

The app's available for Android right now over here.

For those of you in the original thread, boy, do I have some updates for you!

• Firstly, I'm just now starting work on learning iOS (Swift), so I can bring you all a version for iPhone as soon as I can, and as soon as it's ready.
• Secondly, I've just launched a new feature (Group Tasks), for Tasks with friends and family. That's in addition to 120+ new Tasks, loads of stability improvements and bug fixes, and lots more.
• Thirdly, I've revamped the scoring system in the app, so that it's based on exactly what you do and the time and effort put into each task, rather than just playing for longer than other people (that's unfair and no fun).
• Most importantly, I've realised that this is very quickly morphing from a mere side project into something which could really help change people's lives. I believe in this project to my very core, and I want to see people find new relationships, have more awesome days, create a ton of new opportunities in their lives and generally just get more out of life. Some people say it's too short, but only if you let it be.

Shuffle on! :)

This book is absolutely phenomenal. It opened my eyes on many concepts that I was no where near aware of. What's more important is not reading, but actually unbiased application of what's in it with no preconceived notion about what will work and what won't. I not only read the book but applied its concepts, day in, and day out. I used the strategies that worked, and ditched the strategies that didn't. I programmed my mind to believe the ideas that were convincing, and ditched ideas I didn't like. At the end, I had a list of strategies and ideas that were proven to work through my own experience not through the book. I am able to tackle any challenge in my life and achieve any goal I wish to achieve.

The book is "The Will Power Instinct by Kelly McGonigal."

Rated 4.08/5 on "goodreads." Rated 4.5/5 from customer reviews on amazon.

I am a medical student. I do boxing accompanied with a 6 day a week strength training and exercise program. If you have a lot on your hands like me, this book is definitely for you. Highly recommended.

I have started working systematically with my own goals and I would like to share some of my techniques with others. I am blogging on www.krgpth.com and is on the way to achieving all my own goals - one of them is to help others achieve theirs. If you are interested or have any questions feel free to inquire :)

This is a technique I made myself to get over the writer's block I inevitably have whenever I try to write something. Here are the steps!

• Write the first 3 words for your assignment. Don't force yourself to write more than three. Exactly 3 words.

• Take a break for exactly one minute, checking your computer's clock. During this break, do not tab away and go to the internet. Do not leave your chair, just sit there and think about those three words and the rest of the assignment. Think about where you're going to go with it.

• Now after your break, write 12 words. Exactly. You should have 15 words total.

• Take another 1 minute break. Think about where you want your writing to go.

• Finish that first paragraph.

And that's all! Here's why it works.

By taking short 1 minute breaks between your initial writing, you get words on the page, and that directs your starting thoughts. By the time you take your second break, your brain will be brustling with activity. Your brain started that first paragraph, and it wants to finish it. Your brain doesn't like leaving things unfinished, and by the time you're done with your 1 minute break, your brain will be eager to write and finish what it started!

Good luck! And don't become Spongebob!

It was written for new year's resolutions so there are the most common things like going to gym or learning new things. I am not a fan of new year's resolutions but this is a good road map for any time of the year.
Link to the PDF taken from an article.

What quote/sentence/idea always puts you back on tracks when you've lost motivation?