Today I want to talk about motivation and why it is key to successful academic writing. Without motivation, writing happens in a sea of misery. If we are miserable about writing, we don’t want to do it and it is a vicious spiral all the way to oblivion. It is not impossible to write when motivation is either missing or low, but it is not a happy writing experience. We have all written when motivation is absent: in a PhD, doing an R&R, writing a grant proposal because our metrics require it rather than because we care about the research itself. Low motivation isn’t fatal to writing, but it is fatal to happy writing.

The motivation - procrastination mash up

Many people mistake a lack of motivation for procrastination, and don’t recognise the qualitative difference between the two. Procrastination is what happens when we avoid doing something. We may well be motivated to achieve this thing ultimately, but we don’t fancy doing it right now, or soon. That is procrastination. We accept ultimately we ought to be doing it, and we certainly want the end result of having done it, but we would rather clean the toilet bowl first. That is procrastination. At the heart of procrastination there lies many things - but a lack of motivation isn’t one of them.

A lack of motivation means you don’t want to do the thing, and you don’t really care anymore about the consequences (in the short term) of not doing it. It is an infinitely more negative space to occupy and it won’t go away when the house is sparkling clean.

Motivation is not accountability

Motivation is often mistaken for accountability in a lot of writing related advice: it might, for example, be treated as synonymous with writing groups or writing retreats. These types of solutions to unhappy writing are methods of writing, not motivation to write. Accountability through writing groups ensures you show up to write. Motivation comes before this - you are already motivated if you put these mechanisms in place.

Motivation - intrinsic and extrinsic

Why do you write? 'Because it’s my job'. True. But this is not enough to get us through the dark night of the soul when things are hard, because consequences of not writing are very far in the future (sometimes decades) and quite diffuse. This is in any case an extrinsic (negative) motivation (fear of one day being fired). These are negative motivations because you cannot control them. They do not hold sway for long.

You may write because you want to get past probation; get promoted or tenure; have a burning desire to be submitted to the REF (or fear the consequences of not being submitted); want to be the shining star of the impact case study; want respect of your friends, enemies, colleagues and complete strangers.

All of these are a mixture of 'hoop jumping' and of being considered successful by people whom we have no control over (ego). None of these are wrong: why we write is intensely personal and can depend on your career stage and personality / personal and financial circumstances.

Later on in your career, each of these (extrinsic, negative) motivations start to diminish. You have by then achieved a degree of respect as a scholar (your ego is somewhat satisfied); you are a professor or have reached the stage at which you are personally happy to stay so promotion no longer motivates; you have probably been through enough REFs to know none of that is in your control and cannot motivate you. If you don't show up to that conference and give that paper - well, shit happens, you have discovered this by now. If you are six months late on a book, or book chapter (and sometimes abandon a book altogether) there is very little consequence. So then what? Then what?

ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE

You need a raft of positive motivations to keep you afloat that are not based on threat or ego alone because when you don't want to show up to write, when you don’t want to show up to the sessions you have scheduled, something must keep you going. Something positive, or it becomes very difficult to keeping showing up for yourself without some outside moderator of your behaviour. And we don't have one.

Often people motivate themselves by working collaboratively with others (so you push each other through the tough times); or they find joy in actually getting out into the world of empirical discovery; or (common for me) they have something they just have to say because everyone else is wrong about X. They want to (and can) make a positive contribution to a field and change policy, the scholarship, contribute new methods of doing things that just excite them on an intellectual level. There are probably many more positive motivations you can identify for yourself.

But it is important that you know why you are writing. Try to identify something positive that you can control (hint: you cannot control other people's judgment, including REF, promotion, or journal editors or grant bodies accepting your paper or proposal). Stick these to your computer to remind you: why am I doing this?

The motivation - energy (Youth) level symbiosis

We tend to think of motivation as a static state or thing. I am motivated to do this, and I am not motivated to do that. And we also think that we remain in this binary state at a steady level, but this just isn’t true. Motivation levels wax and wane in response to the ebbs and flows of our career, and it ebbs and flows in response to any particular writing project we undertake, and let’s face it, in response to the ebbs and flow of life, and where we are in it.

Let’s take a book for example. At the beginning we are super motivated: we do a book proposal, we love the idea, and we get the contract. The initial stages of research are still exciting, but as we move further into the project, and things gets difficult, our motivation starts to ebb away. When we come to the middle, we are spent, yet there are miles to go. Motivation may desert use, or at least it feels that way, yet we are committed to completion. This is where we need to connect our motivation (or lack thereof) to our energy levels more generally.

A universal truth we can all agree on is that: bad sleep + bad diet + no exercise = low energy. At least if you are over 30 years old. And this age factor is relevant, and something it is hard to make your 30 year old self understand: you will not feel this effervescent sense of wellness and go-getterness forever. Yet in a cruel twist of fate your 30 year old self simply cannot comprehend of feeling any other way than you do now [ah but you will learn my fleet footed friend <laughs manically> you will learn]. I digress. My point is motivation to write is often easy to find when you are young(er) - you have many less life distractions, and if you are an academic, it is common to find people putting off life distractions (eg kids) until much later still (yes I am speaking in generalisations). Your energy levels are just HIGH. Motivation can be everywhere, intrinsic and extrinsic alike - it is a veritable buffet of motivational snacks.

Later though, things might get tough. Further into your career, having hit many of the extrinsic targets that motivated your writing originally, you begin to look more towards intrinsic motivations to keep you going…and you find the well has run dry.

Restocking the motivation well

Just like how we restock our energy levels through good sleep, diet and exercise, we need to do the same in relation to motivation. It is not in endless supply and when you have drawn down on it for a long time, it will run out without proper care-taking. Many times we don’t even notice this is happening, and we think we are just procrastinating.

I think this is especially hard now in isolation. We are missing the corridor conversations, intellectual exchanges, staff seminars and in person conferences that puts motivation back in the well. The chance exchange of comments or ideas that spark some creativity in our thinking is hard to recreate over Zoom.

The first step to restocking the well is noticing it is empty. It is not procrastination: it is something more fundamental, yet eminently fixable. For me, conversations with people in my research area become absolutely essential to restock that cupboard. Giving a paper, hearing comments (even if over Zoom). Perhaps a Zoom reading group to discuss new publications in your area. I find myself fixated on Twitter - not for doom scrolling - but for intellectual exchange of people in my research areas, like a woman in the writing desert searching for an oasis. Whatever activity restocks your creative well - and it might be baking - make sure you make time for that. Invest time in thinking about how you replenish motivation even in these direst of days and you will be rewarded ten-fold.

When motivation is low, we don’t always recognise we have hit rock bottom, and we just keep digging hoping to hit another spring but instead, we hit the molten core and burn out. This is not the time to start digging further in, it is time to restock. We need to do this ahead of hitting rock bottom and as often as we can.