Demotivate Yourself Now

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Note: Keep in mind that this is a backwards, sarcastic way to look at motivation by taking the path of least resistance to demotivate yourself. You may want to go back to the first article in this series to truly appreciate the ‘humor’ of seeing motivation this way.

Cutting Down Achievers
Makes You Appear Bigger

Our #4 technique to demotivate yourself is very similar to #5.

Whenever you see another person achieving something you perceive as special, be sure to cut them down. This way you’ll appear bigger (well, at least to yourself – and that’s what really counts, right?) This has several advantages:

It saves you the trouble of achieving something great on your own.
By minimizing someone else’s accomplishments, it spares you the embarrassment of being compared to the person who is actually doing something as you misdirect the focus.
Since it’s easier to cut people down rather than create value, you may become the new ‘hero’ of the ‘loser nation’.

As you can see from our opening video, you can even be a high-profile achiever yourself and still utilize the lazy man’s tactic of cutting others down to make yourself look bigger. Not only is this a great way to demotivate yourself (witness all the tap-dancing Rev. Jackson had to do to follow-up this act), it’s also the perfect way to DEMOTE yourself in the eyes of others. So while you may think cutting down achievers makes you look bigger, in the long run it actually has the opposite effect. (see part one, “Opposites”)

Talking to Demotivate Yourself

Put-downs and underhanded digs are favorite techniques of those who love to cut others down in order to build up their own image. Look for language such as:

I suppose that’s OK… but look what he had to sacrifice in order to get it
The guy should take a blood test. No human could do that unless he was juiced.
I guess she’s too good for her old friends now.
Look at that smile. I wonder if he takes that mask off at home.
How much is enough, already? What’s he killing himself for?

You know the old saying, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

Even if you have no self-serving interest of making yourself look bigger by cutting others down, simply by thinking cut-down thoughts and lies is a sure way to demotivate yourself. Through justification in your own mind, you let yourself off the hook as far as having to contribute anything of value to society.

To recap, so far we’ve covered two of the five easy ways to demotivate yourself.

#5 – Hang Out With Low Achievers
#4 – Cutting Down Achievers Makes You Appear Bigger

Our series continues tomorrow with #3 – Stop…

Oh, did you really think I was going to tell you?

See you next time!