{"id":5480,"date":"2026-07-26T15:56:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T19:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/?p=5480"},"modified":"2026-07-26T15:56:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T19:56:42","slug":"motivation-lost-and-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/motivation-lost-and-found","title":{"rendered":"Motivation: lost and found"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"696\" src=\"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/woman_sign_decision_9110698.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5141\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/woman_sign_decision_9110698.png 800w, https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/woman_sign_decision_9110698-300x261.png 300w, https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/woman_sign_decision_9110698-150x131.png 150w, https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/woman_sign_decision_9110698-768x668.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a few days now, I&#8217;ve been trying to get myself to sit and write a post &#8211; knowing that that never works to motivate me&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The writing motivation was elsewhere, which is good because it&#8217;s those other places that I have been working on this year and plugging away at posting on my blog is something I tend to only do when I sign up for this challenge &#8211; and even then I sometimes let the whole challenge month go by without writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This time around I&#8217;ve written more than my usual amount because I&#8217;ve been willing to sit here and write about why I don&#8217;t feel like writing and decide that&#8217;s one of the books I&#8217;m working on &#8211;  how to motivate yourself when you don&#8217;t feel like writing&#8230; Of course that book doesn&#8217;t really get done except in spirits because it&#8217;s about the issue of not writing <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But probably to distract myself from thinking about why I&#8217;m not writing anything, I got motivated to think about psychology. It&#8217;s my field. I&#8217;ve published several textbooks &#8211; I&#8217;ve written a lot of articles about it, and I have taught many courses on different aspects of psychology and especially about lifespan development &#8211; so I decided to start thinking about writing more psychology books and I spent hours working on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It felt good &#8211; but that&#8217;s not posting here &#8211; yet both of those happenings felt OK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Like in the image at the top, all those writing choices are the correct choices!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"485\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/emoji_winning_trophy_400_clr_33635.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5486\" style=\"width:485px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/emoji_winning_trophy_400_clr_33635.png 485w, https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/emoji_winning_trophy_400_clr_33635-300x261.png 300w, https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/emoji_winning_trophy_400_clr_33635-150x131.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 485px) 100vw, 485px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However I look at it it&#8217;s a win-win for me!! It got me sitting and writing this, which will keep me going for a bit later today &#8211; and again during the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-comments\">\t<div id=\"respond\" class=\"comment-respond wp-block-post-comments-form\">\n\t\t<h3 id=\"reply-title\" class=\"comment-reply-title\">Leave a Reply <small><a rel=\"nofollow\" id=\"cancel-comment-reply-link\" href=\"\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480#respond\" style=\"display:none;\">Cancel reply<\/a><\/small><\/h3><form action=\"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-comments-post.php\" method=\"post\" id=\"commentform\" class=\"comment-form\"><p class=\"comment-notes\"><span id=\"email-notes\">Your email address will not be published.<\/span> <span class=\"required-field-message\">Required fields are marked <span class=\"required\">*<\/span><\/span><\/p><p class=\"comment-form-comment\"><label for=\"comment\">Comment <span class=\"required\">*<\/span><\/label> <textarea id=\"comment\" name=\"comment\" cols=\"45\" rows=\"8\" maxlength=\"65525\" required><\/textarea><\/p><p class=\"comment-form-author\"><label for=\"author\">Name <span class=\"required\">*<\/span><\/label> <input id=\"author\" name=\"author\" type=\"text\" value=\"\" size=\"30\" maxlength=\"245\" autocomplete=\"name\" required \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"comment-form-email\"><label for=\"email\">Email <span class=\"required\">*<\/span><\/label> <input id=\"email\" name=\"email\" type=\"email\" value=\"\" size=\"30\" maxlength=\"100\" aria-describedby=\"email-notes\" autocomplete=\"email\" required \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"comment-form-url\"><label for=\"url\">Website<\/label> <input id=\"url\" name=\"url\" type=\"url\" value=\"\" size=\"30\" maxlength=\"200\" autocomplete=\"url\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"form-submit wp-block-button\"><input name=\"submit\" type=\"submit\" id=\"submit\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" value=\"Post Comment\" \/> <input type='hidden' name='comment_post_ID' value='5480' id='comment_post_ID' \/>\n<input type='hidden' name='comment_parent' id='comment_parent' value='0' \/>\n<\/p><p style=\"display: none;\"><input type=\"hidden\" id=\"akismet_comment_nonce\" name=\"akismet_comment_nonce\" value=\"528aceb4ba\" \/><\/p><p style=\"display: none !important;\" class=\"akismet-fields-container\" data-prefix=\"ak_\"><label>&#916;<textarea name=\"ak_hp_textarea\" cols=\"45\" rows=\"8\" maxlength=\"100\"><\/textarea><\/label><input type=\"hidden\" id=\"ak_js_1\" name=\"ak_js\" value=\"23\"\/><script>\ndocument.getElementById( \"ak_js_1\" ).setAttribute( \"value\", ( new Date() ).getTime() );\n<\/script>\n<\/p><\/form>\t<\/div><!-- #respond -->\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"480\" height=\"330\" src=\"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/thank_you-4.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5487\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/thank_you-4.png 480w, https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/thank_you-4-300x206.png 300w, https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/thank_you-4-150x103.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a few days now, I&#8217;ve been trying to get myself to sit and write a post &#8211; knowing that that never works to motivate me&#8230;. The writing motivation was elsewhere, which is good because it&#8217;s those other places that I have been working on this year and plugging away at posting on my blog [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[75,425],"tags":[181,130,436,117],"class_list":["post-5480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","category-psychology","tag-writing","tag-brain","tag-motivation","tag-psychology-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5480"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5489,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480\/revisions\/5489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graywolfproductions.com\/graywolfproductions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}