Motivating yourself

[jackflashdrive]

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I know this is kind of unrelated but if you are lifting weights three times a day that is almost surly counterproductive (unless you are on roids). You will be breaking down muscle tissue faster then your body can repair it. You will have much better results lifting 4-5 times a week.

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In boot camp all the guys who came in ripped were pissed because we were doing pushups and whatnot so much that they were actually losing muscle. Their whining only got us more pushups.

[daryn]

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Sponger,
Did he have any idea how much money you were making? 50 bucks a week as a ceiling for pay just wouldn't be worth it to run errands for me at least.

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how does it matter if sponger was making $1000 an hour or $50 an hour?

[turnipmonster]

one interesting thing to try doing is not force yourself to do anything, but keep an accurate log of what you do on a daily basis.

this was recommended to me a while ago for music stuff and was quite interesting to do, although I wasn't motivated enough to keep it up after a while, lol.

basically, as it relates to music, it amounts to practicing what you want to right then and there, as opposed to trying to fit your practicing time into a preconceived idea. an easier way to say it is you should practice what you want to work on as opposed to what you think you should work on.

probably wouldn't do much for going to the gym, but could be interesting for any discipline that requires you to work on multiple things (like boxing).

[ImsaKidd]

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Sponger,
Did he have any idea how much money you were making? 50 bucks a week as a ceiling for pay just wouldn't be worth it to run errands for me at least.

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how does it matter if sponger was making $1000 an hour or $50 an hour?

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His friend might feel like he deserves more/sponger can pay more if his hourly was like 1k.

[EverettKings]

If you're an ambitious or competitive person, then you can pretty much talk yourself into doing anything.

Basically, anytime that I feel a pull to skip the gym, eat a ridiculously unhealthy meal, cut my workout short, etc, I tell myself two things:

1) "WTF dude, just do it."
This usually works. I know it's good for me and that I just need to stop thinking about how much I want to slack off.

2) "Come on, prove to yourself that you can stick it out."
This works the rest of the time. I've just challenged myself to prove that I have the willpower to resist. To give up now would be to admit that I lack the capacity to keep going, and I'm a stronger person than that, damnit.

2 will really only work for some people. Others aren't really bothered by admitting a lack of willpower so it's not much of a motivator. Those people need stricter routines and more outside pressure to keep them going.

Works for me though.

[CPFB]

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one interesting thing to try doing is not force yourself to do anything, but keep an accurate log of what you do on a daily basis.

this was recommended to me a while ago for music stuff and was quite interesting to do, although I wasn't motivated enough to keep it up after a while, lol.

basically, as it relates to music, it amounts to practicing what you want to right then and there, as opposed to trying to fit your practicing time into a preconceived idea. an easier way to say it is you should practice what you want to work on as opposed to what you think you should work on.

probably wouldn't do much for going to the gym, but could be interesting for any discipline that requires you to work on multiple things (like boxing).

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I disagree with this post.

If you're not doing something because you're lazy (like working out), why is keeping a journal going to help you. If it serves as a reminder of "Hey, I should be working out" then fine.


(Let me preface the next paragraphs by saying that I'm a professional musician.)

As far as your music practice habits, I think practicing what you "want to work on" is a really, really, REALLY bad idea.

The whole point of practicing is to make yourself better. Generally stuff you want to work on is not going to make yourself a better musician. Working on stuff you "should work on" will make you a better musician.

I personally hate playing long tones, but I play better after I've worked on them. If I practiced what I wanted to, I guarantee I'd never work on long tones. And I wouldn't perform as well either.


I think the above would also apply to something like boxing as well. Just because you feel like jumping rope all the time doesn't mean that it's going to help you when you jump in the ring and haven't put in the time on the punching bag. (I don't really know what's involved with boxing training, just so you know.)

Hmmm. This post did make me think and I look forward to continuing to discuss.

[JaBlue]

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As far as your music practice habits, I think practicing what you "want to work on" is a really, really, REALLY bad idea.

The whole point of practicing is to make yourself better. Generally stuff you want to work on is not going to make yourself a better musician. Working on stuff you "should work on" will make you a better musician.


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1. doing any practicing at all is going to make you better.

2. A LOT of the time, what I want to work on is what I should work on.

When I practice, some of the most fun stuff to do is learn new pieces. If I challenge myself with the pieces I select to learn, I'll stumble upon blocks in my playing. Its quickly clear that there are certain things I should work on, maybe its feeling certain subdivisions or playing arpeggios. But if I want to learn that piece I'll have to practice what I SHOULD practice.

I always practice what I want to practice and this is almost always the same as what I should practice.

[kyleb]

RE: How to stay motivated.

I never was motivated to do much until I surrounded myself with people who were better than me at a lot of things. When I lived in Cleveland, most of the people I hung out with were unmotivated college slackers who liked to dick around all day and do nothing.

In Seattle, the people I hang out with are all relatively wealthy, most are in pretty damn good shape, and the baseball teams I joined all have players much better than me on them. I don't want to be the loser of the group, so I work hard to rise up. This, in turn, causes the others to do the same thing, so it's a good competitive situation for all of us.

However, baseball is really hard - I have to work so hard just to be average at the level of play I'm at. I think I'm finally there, so I'm moving up to the next division of play where it'll be a lot harder. To prepare for this, I have been lifting/running often and taking pitching/hitting lessons from accomplished ex-pros and instructors.

I'll be damned if I look like the underachiever in any group.

EDIT: Keeping a log of what you do every day is also good. It really highlights how much time you waste.

[Kirkrrr]

To me and it seems like to most others in this thread competition and outside pressure are the keys to remain on track. It's easy to get excited about something for a month or two, but after the initial excitement fades we get distracted and at that point it seems like most people need something extra.

Solution: find a group of people that do what you're trying to do. We are very forgiving of our own faults, so it's easy to tell yourself "Man, I've had a tough day at work, I'll just do it tomorrow." It's not nearly as easy if you picture yourself trying to make the same excuse with 6 sets of eyes looking back at you and you just know they're all thinking "wtf!?"

Kirk

[turnipmonster]

the guy that recommended this was Kenny Werner, in a workshop I saw him give. oddly enough, later I read "the listening book" by W.A. Mathieu and he recommends the same thing.

although I think it applies to all levels of musicians, to be fair in his workshop kenny was addressing people like you and I, i.e. professional players who are already very serious and putting in long hours in the practice room.

but, try it for a week and see what you think. I have a hard time believing you would never practice long tones. maybe you wouldn't in the first few sessions, but maybe after that you'd decide you wanted to hear the sound of yourself playing a long tone, perfectly in tune. it can be a beautifl sound. you never really know how the water is until you jump in, right? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]