Flattery and Motivation

[ellenmillion]

I am soooo lacking in motivation right now. It's just killing me. I have heaps and heaps and heaps of work to do. I get home, look around my pittly house at the cleaning I should do, get discouraged, walk upstairs to my crowded desk, get discouraged, look at the awful load of emails I have to answer, get discouraged. I think about the updating of my databases that I need to do, and the printing I should be doing, and the work that will need to be done on the house, and the orders I need to fill, and I just feel hopelessly overwhelmed, go back downstairs and collapse into my chair. I work 8 stress-filled hours, and come back home and cannot face the amount of work still to do. I need to get motivated. So BADLY. I may take a day off next week and sit down and just do it all. It won't be so bad once I get started, but I'm just soooo unmotivated to start.

Argh.

On another note, I don't know what to do with flattery. I don't. On a club chat last night, I was introduced as the famous and wonderfully talented Ellen Million, and I just about died blushing... that was followed by a chorus of: 'oh, she's so good at such and so,' and 'she's so easy to work with,' and 'she writes stories I wish I could...', 'she draws so well...' It's nice, and I like being appreciated, but what the hell do you say to that? No one else got that kind of reception. I'm a little at a loss. And I don't really deserve it; I'm a rank amateur, and I know it.

Today, at work, they were talking about how I must be a genius and use more of my brain, and how I can figure out anything, and speculating on my IQ... and again, what the hell do you say to that? I'm uncomfortable being anything special. And I get credit for waaaay too much.

At work, too, I'm getting really unmotivated. I don't *want* the attention of being 'better' or 'faster.' I print something for one of the secretaries, or solve a computer puzzle, and I get this outrush of 'you're so good!' 'what would we do without you?' and 'how do you know so much?' To hear them talk, the office would come to a grinding halt without me. It wouldn't. Frankly, I don't do much. I draft. I half-heartedly layout webpages. I print stuff and solve obscure computer problems that the net tech and the electrical engineer either don't know or are too busy to deal with. Anyone could do the half-assed crap I do for these people. I surf the internet, and write fanfic, and twiddle my fingers and dawdle over my work, and I still get accolades and honors and 'oh, isn't she wonderfuls.' I DON'T DESERVE THIS!!!

I keep wishing that the outpouring of crazy flattery that seems to be trailing along in my wake would motivate me. Shouldn't I be trying harder to earn the stuff that's already being thrown at my feet? Shouldn't I be doing the kind of conscientious work that impressed people at first, and actually maintaining the business and art that gets me praise?

I need criticism. I need someone to remind me what a vain person I am, and how idiotic I can be. I need a good scold, someone to kick my ass back into humility. Someone tell me how I suck! I need the motivation that a good stinging criticism brings.

I drive me crazy.

Comments

At the risk of being a big meanie . . .

[delusiongirl.livejournal.com]

I think you can do better. Seriously lots better. There's room for improvement, and I think that's a good thing. You might be doing great for average folks, but you aren't average, are you? Sure, I could flatter you to death right now, but I'd be peaking far too early. ;-)

Motivation, ugh. I am the queen of working on project Y when I should be doing project X. And I like being able to do something all in one sitting, instead of snatching an hour here and there. Of course, that's something I can't do very often, if at all.

When I discover the secret to pure, instantaneous motivation, I will share it with you. :-) I could loan you the mothbat and you could shock yourself. Put that on your chair, so when you sit down - woo!!

I don't really think there's a good way to deal with a flood of praise besides playing humble and making a joke out of it. And I guess it's not playing humble when you really think you could do so much better. A good cynical chat with myself seems to do wonders. People are far too kind, in general.

Re: At the risk of being a big meanie . . .

[(Anonymous)]

Motivation in a bottle: it's amazing what one can accomplish when trying to avoid something else. For instance, how much cleaning needs doing when a paper is due?