What is motivation?

[IJesusChrist]

I have found that one of the key aspects to happy and succesful people is motivation.

After a long strenous trip on psilo, I am always extremely motivated to get my act together, I came to the same conclusions every time:
Quit smoking weed,
Clean your room,
Don't do mushrooms if you don't have a reason,
Study your books,
Plan your life,
Be happy,
and spread some damn love IJC!

Stuff always makes life feel like it's starting over - like I have another chance, not that I screwed up, but obviously was not consistintly happy with my behaviour.

But, what is it? What is motivation?
What gets you motivated, how do you become motivated?

 

[darkwolfunseen]

Over the years I've discovered that most of the time motivation is one part enlightenment, two parts conditioning. That means if you want to have a clean room, you have to just want to live cleanly, and then force yourself to mark down in a calendar a day each week you have to clean no matter what. After two months, you can stop using the calendar and you'll just do it.

For larger life changes I'd say if you feel motivated, right down what you need to changes (high-level) and then break it down to smaller pieces. Give yourself deadlines on the small pieces, and enforce yourself. Hopefully that works.