Beeminding reduces enthusiasm for goal

Hi fellow Beeminders,

Whenever I start beeminding something it is helpful at first. But over the weeks I start pursuing the goal with the sole purpose of not derailing. I forget that pursuing this goal is also something I enjoy. Which often leads to burnout. Has anyone faced similar issues/has any advice?

Thanks!

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There is always a feeling of euphoria when you plan things. It gives you a sense of great accomplishment with small effort (despite not having made much progress in the overall scheme of things)

For long term goals, Beeminder does not offer much (except the graph) in terms of celebrating continued success or reaching milestones (small exception: the recent addition of hashtags that show up in your graph).

A couple of things to try within Beeminder:

  1. check the Statistics tab in the goal page, some of the numbers there might surprise you :slight_smile:
  2. zoom out the graph to large time period to visualise your progress

Hope these help :slight_smile:

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That is a fair emotion to have. Like @apolyton said generally the strongest emotions are at beginning. I find 2 things to very helpful:

  1. Make sure that your goals are easy enough to not require motivation. I personally have a goal to study Kanji (Japanese letter system) 6 minutes. No matter what happens or how little motivation I have I can complete that goal. Of course it will take a while for me to reach my main goal but it is difficult to get burnout if your goals are easier.

  2. I try to remember that some progress is better than no progress. Generally, to enjoy the journey.

Here is a great article about willpower vs motivation: https://stephenguise.com/get-motivated-or-use-willpower-guide/

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I also have this handy chart bookmarked

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That’s an awesome chart, do you have the original link?

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Sure it’s https://alexvermeer.com/wp-content/uploads/howtogetmotivated-7100x5000.png from https://alexvermeer.com/

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I have incentives for some of my harder goals. My gym goal, for example – every datapoint I add, I get to add £2 to my book fund. For something I normally enjoy, I might make it an incentive calibrated to the type of project: three weeks of progress on this blanket = buy some particular new yarn (I really like working with very chunky yarn, for example). The incentive is both something to look forward to that’s intimately linked with the goal, and then fulfilling the incentive is a reminder too of what I enjoy about the thing I’m beeminding.

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