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

[octoberdreaming.livejournal.com]

*grins* Here's a bit of gentle scolding and criticism - you're worrying too much. You are a talented individual, and as such, you expect a lot out of yourself. We all tend to see faults in ourselves that others are not even aware of. I doubt that most of what people say to you or about you is flattery. I think that mostly, people are just trying to connect with you in some way, because they admire you. I know I do! ^_^ My suggestion would be to quietly accept the praise people give you, because these are things they want to tell you - you don't even have to say anything, if you don't want to! This goes for the people at your work, too. What you may consider "half-hearted" work may, to your co-workers, be more than they have been led to expect out of someone else. They appreciate you, and maybe this is their way of letting you know. Don't be so hard on yourself.

[jaenanda.livejournal.com]

::hugs you::

Yes, I do believe you are stressing too much. One of the best things I've ever learned is that it's not stuck-up to say "thank you" gracefully when someone compliments you, even if you don't agree with them. A compliment is like any other opinion or piece of information that all of us recieve durring the day. One just needs to learn to shift through that information, keep what one wants and throw away the rest. Humility is overrated.

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?