Motivation is an important element that can help you do different things in life. If you are motivated, you feel as if aiming for something is worth your time and efforts. While being motivated is good, you should realize that without actual effort, motivation is useless. There is no point in finding ways to be motivated if you cannot work that motivation into your efforts in order to achieve different things.

Motivation in the offline world depends on real efforts to be useful

Self motivation is a good thing. Being motivated on your own can help you be more comfortable as you pursue different goals. However, motivation is usually reliant on emotion. Emotions change. If you depend solely on motivation to do things, you are depending on a dynamic part of your life that can constantly change. Motivation is nothing without real action that backs it up.

For example, you might feel interested in building a wooden table. Reading books on the topic can motivate you. If you wait a month before starting any real work, you might lose interest in building a table and may move on to other things. If you find motivation to do something, you can work on that motivation and start achieving the goals you have in mind. Sitting around and thinking that you have motivation to make a wooden table is probably not going to result in anything useful.

Motivation online needs actual efforts to make a difference

Online things like blogging, commenting and even socializing with other people require some kind of an interest on your behalf. Successful blogging requires an enjoyable passion, and enjoyable passion and motivation require active efforts in order to be useful. Having the motivation to do something is not an achievement. Acting and utilizing your motivation to do something is an achievement. It may be hard to find the motivation to do things online, but it is even harder to act upon such a motivation when you find it. Even if you feel motivated daily because of your emotions, you still have to act and do something in order to get results you seek.

For example, I was thinking for a few years to start a separate photolog site. I had the motivation as I was already taking a lot of pictures and posting them on my Flickr account. However, I only kept thinking that I was motivated. I did not start any photolog site until 2006, when I decided to act on my motivation which was slowly fading away and start Eyeography. Simply having the motivation did not result in anything useful, but when I acted on that motivation, I created the site. I accomplished something only when I acted on my motivation.

Look for motivation only when you are willing to act

Motivation is important for a lot of people. I think I have realized over the years that even when I am passionate about some things and feel motivated, nothing actually changes until I act a little bit, regardless of the level of motivation I feel. Motivation is a tool that you realize exists for your situation; the only important thing to do is to do something by using such a tool. While feelings and thoughts are beautiful things to pursue, your actions are also needed in order to achieve something. Planning something with great care and passion because of being motivated is worth nothing until and unless you start carrying out your plan.