The Motivation Killer Everyone Talks About

and week 21/11/2024 review

A new week with The Ignorant, your Weekly Companion in the Pursuit of High Performance and Growth, one step at a time.

This week I’ll talk about how I overestimate my ability to remember things.

Intro

Some brief and general thoughts.

Let the talk do the doing

Have you ever noticed how good it feels to talk about your plans? Maybe you told a friend about that big goal or shared your exciting startup idea with someone, who shared your excitement.

For a moment, it feels amazing — like you’ve already accomplished something. That’s the tricky part. When we talk about our goals, our brain gives us a little dopamine boost, a taste of the reward before we’ve even started. And sometimes, that rush is enough to make us lose the drive to actually do it. It’s like the excitement fades before we even begin.

You’re not alone — it happens to everyone, and I put myself first here. I have so many projects on my bucket list that I’ve talked about as if they were already done while they were barely started.

So I learned that instead of sharing too soon, I keep it to myself channeling that energy into taking the first step. I noticed that the passion stays stronger when it’s just between you and the work. I’ve talked to so many people about this newsletter during my break period, but I only really started it again once I stopped.

So next time, try staying quiet and let the process fuel the excitement instead.

The Exception to the Rule

Of course, there are always exceptions. I’ll give you mine. When I was preparing for my marathon last year, I did what everyone training for a marathon does: I told everyone.

At first, it felt good, but then something changed. I stopped training and a few months in, someone casually asked how it was going, and I heard myself say, “I’m not running it.” That hit differently. I wasn’t a talker. That moment flipped a switch, and I channeled every gram of energy into preparing.

On race day in Copenhagen, I hurt my left knee just 1.5 km in and could barely walk since, but quitting wasn’t an option. I couldn’t come home and say I hadn’t finished. So I kept going and crossed the finish line. More about it here.

My knee is still paying that price but boy was it worth it.

The point? Sometimes, talking creates the accountability we need to deliver. But this only works with specific types of goals—the kind where the outcome is entirely in our hands. Next time, we’ll dig into the different types of goals and how our accountability shifts depending on what we’re chasing. Stay tuned.

That being said, let’s dive into what happened this week.

Performance Review

This is where I’ll be honest. I’ll analyze my goal-reaching performance each week and month and see where I made mistakes and why, and what challenges I faced.

Last week: Actual vs Planned

This has probably been the week where I felt the most unproductive so far. Some days passed by in a glance. I acknowledge I slacked and overfocused on things that didn’t deserve that much relevance, while disregarding the things I planned before hand.

Last week: Goals performance

My week ends each Thursday - the moment when I sit to write this newsletter.

Missed goal 1 - Why: I didn’t even invest a single moment in looking for one, because I prioritized the financial market activity to generate revenues. Mistake.

Missed goal 2 - Why: Different time zones and low effort.

Missed goal 3 - Why: Bottlenecks with referrers response rate, as expected.

Last week: The Challenges I faced

• Again, I invested too much time on low-importance tasks that made me feel days were passing in a second

• I won’t journal or meditate anymore so far.

Next Week: Goals

Each of these has a deadline being Thursday the 28th @ 20:00.

Next week I will assess what happened, the good things, and the challenges I faced.

Next Week: How it’ll look like

Very empty week because I’m planning on traveling over the weekend and prioritize studying as I’m approaching the exam period.

Next week, I will show how the week actually turned out to be and how much it differed from what I planned beforehand.

Mini Challenge

How did you go last week? Here’s my weekly average:

Want to participate? Post your most recent full weekly average - and run 3km if you spent more than a day using your phone. Add me on Strava to share our pain!

Thank you for reading this far, I hope I showed you interesting content for your personal productivity.

Whether you’re looking to improve your productivity, reach your own ambitious goals, or simply find inspiration in someone else’s journey, The Ignorant is here to offer something fresh, practical, and motivating every single week.

If you simply don’t care

If you are not interested in productivity-related subjects but still feel like reading a good story written in my native language, consider subscribing to my second newsletter, Tales of an Ignorant, where I talk about Myths, Legends, Heroes, and all the wild stuff that got us here — told like I’m just filling you in on last night’s story