How To Motivate Yourself... Using The "Martini Method"!

[Dien Rice]

This is a method of motivation I've been trying out myself lately...

My verdict is - it works!

It was a method used by the novelist Anthony Burgess. (His most famous book was "A Clockwork Orange", which was made into the famous movie of the same name by Stanley Kubrick.)

Anthony Burgess was a very prolific writer. Here's how he did it.

He set himself a goal of writing 1,000 words a day. Once he had written his 1,000 words, he'd relax, and have a martini. The martini was a "reward" for having done his work for the day!

Now, you can use it to motivate yourself to do anything. The main goal is to "reward" yourself along the way. The "reward" doesn't have to be a martini - I "reward" myself with a selection of different small "rewards".

I set up my "to do" list, and try to divide things so that they are of roughly equal "difficulty". (Sometimes I combine easy tasks to make them "worth" 1 reward. Other times, I break down more complex tasks into a series of simpler tasks, where each simpler task is worth 1 "reward".)

Then, I do the tasks. Each time I complete one of them, I "earn" 1 "reward". For me, that gives me the "right" to have a small piece of chocolate, or a half-glass of fizzy soft drink! (Since I'm not drinking any fizzy soft drinks right now, it's a nice reward for me...)

I also have a "cumulative" system... If I do 5 tasks in a day, I "earn" half-a-meal out (since I like eating out!). So, if I do 5 tasks one day, and 5 the next, I "earn" one meal out - or if I do 10 tasks in one day.

This is similar, by the way, to how some businesses motivate their salespeople. They may give their salespeople a base pay, or pay them per sale - but they give them "bonuses" if they hit certain targets. Instead of monetary bonuses, this method uses "rewards"....

Some internet marketers also use a similar system to motivate themselves, but on a larger scale. For example, let's say they're making $500 a week, and they want to make $700 a week. They set it up so that when they hit $700 a week, they allow themselves to buy some kind of "reward" for themselves (e.g. some sort of "gadget" they always wanted, for example). Then, they set the "reward" for the next target (which might be to make $1,000 a week, for example).

How this differs from many other motivational methods is that on the scale of the "carrot" or the "stick" - it's only the "carrot"!

Anyway, try it out, and see how it works for you!

- Dien

P.S. I didn't come up with it myself. I have to admit I discovered it somewhere else... Here's the blog post where I read all about it!
http://www.academicproductivity.com/...artini-method/

Dien,

Thanks for mentioning this Technique.

Of course, it Fails to underscore the primary reason you are... DOing the thing you are DOing. But nonetheless, I'd like to Paste a slightly edited version of something I wrote back in 1999 - published online on January 21 to be exact...

===
How to motivate yourself to overcome your fears and become a person who follows through regardless of some written business plan...

Okay... first thing I want you to do is write down something you really want to do or have, but for whatever reason you have not done or gotten for yourself. Keep it something small.

You should also write down the amount of money this thing is going to cost.

Now you know how much money you need you're well on the way. And whether or not you actually do or buy the item once you have the money doesn't really matter. What matters is that you know how much money you want.

IMPORTANT: While it's great to set high goals of wealth and the like, it becomes unproductive to do so at the start. The reason is that you don't really think you will achieve them. No-one really believes they will make one million dollars in six months time, so it's pointless to say that's how much you want (at the start). So what I want you to do is to set a goal of making no more than $500.

Next you have to realise that the only way to make money is to sell something! Whether or not you sell your time to an employer, or sell a product or service, you are still selling.

Moving on...

Knowing from the start that you will be selling something (whatever that something is) gets you in the right frame of mind. And you can now start to write down a checklist for success. You've already seen above the sort of format the checklist should take and we'll use that format again.

So using a modified checklist we end up with something like this...

1: Pick a market.
2: Pick a product.
3: If a book, create it or find a wholesale source for it.
4: Decide how you will sell it - two-step with classified ads and sales letters, direct sales from ads, direct mail, and so on.
5: Write your sales letter, ads, web pages, and any other selling instruments you want to use.
6: Continue on with your list. In fact try to make it as step-by-step and detailed as possible. This list we are using here is a very simple list. But it should get you started.

Okay... now lets see how all this goes together...

Now I want you to pick something to sell. A product or service. And to really make this work, you should pick something you do not already sell. That's right, you will be creating/purchasing and then selling something you do not currently sell. Take a few minutes right now and pick something.

I would recommend that the thing you pick be something you can sell to a niche market. It may take you a while to decide which market to sell to but the time will be worth it.

Something that can help you pick a market is to have a walk through your local newsagent and spend some time browsing the various magazines. I would also recommend you pick a market you are already interested in.

Once you have decided on a market I want you to reward yourself!!!!! Go out to dinner; buy yourself some really nice chocolate; treat yourself to some kind of treat you normally do not have. I want you to indulge yourself as a reward for picking the market and product!

Can you see what I am doing here? Instead of waiting until the end for your reward you are rewarding yourself as you go. You have just received a reward and yet you haven't sold anything, created anything, or created any marketing material.

If you are guessing that I am going to suggest that you reward yourself after you have completed each step on your list, you would be right...

...All I'm doing by asking you to reward yourself every step of the way is giving you an incentive - lets call it a bribe - to continue right through until the end where the real reward is waiting.
===

The problem with the above is... like one of the Blog Comments wrote... I would reward myself with chocolate after each paragraph - I have real short paragraphs.

Anyway. Thought I'd share a Different Way of looking at it. Of a Reward after a Step in any kind of Action Plan Checklist you create for the project/task you are doing.

Michael Ross