English Listening Podcast - Increasing Motivation

welcome to the listening Time Podcast hey everybody this is Connor and you're listening to episode 172 of the listening Time Podcast I hope you're all doing great and that you feel motivated to practice your English with this episode and I mention motivation because in this episode I want to talk about how I increase my motivation to do certain things to achieve certain goals uh to do what I want to do in theory so I think that you all like episodes about motivation uh it's a topic that uh I think that we all like because we

all want to feel more motivated and motivation is something that comes and goes It goes up and it goes down but I think that there are ways that we can actually uh increase our motivation and maybe uh have a little more stability uh in the sense that we can keep our motivation higher if we do certain things so that's why I like to talk about this topic uh and I'm sure that um in this episode today uh you'll get some ideas maybe about how you can increase your own motivation so uh that's what we'll talk

about today and if you feel motivated to practice with my Advanced podcast episodes in which I speak fast and I provide the transcript then make sure to sign up to become a listening Time family member and you'll get two new Advanced podcast episodes every month this is the perfect practice for you to start to understand fast English so I really encourage you to sign up for those episodes and I also encourage you to sign up for my Us com ation podcast so you can practice with my conversations that I have with people from all over

the US from different cities and states you learn a lot about the country uh with this podcast and it's a lot of fun and this is a great introduction to listening to two people talking and not just one so the link to sign up is also down below below and you have the link to the transcript for this episode Down Below as well all right let's get started are your ears ready you know what time it is it's listening time all right let me talk about how I increase my motivation to achieve my goals to

do things that I want to do uh how do I increase my motivation uh for different things in my life well let me just be honest many of you are not going to like the answer to this question so that's okay it's okay if you don't agree with me uh about this however even if you don't agree with me I think that there are some things that you can take from this episode that you can still apply to your own life and uh you'll see some benefits so how do I increase my motivation the way

I do that is that I remove things from my daily life that give me a lot of instant pleasure so I actually take away a lot of things that that most people have in their everyday lives and so I know just hearing that doesn't sound very good for a lot of you and like I said it's perfectly fine if you disagree with me on this and I might be a little extreme with this so um like I said you might just be able to apply a little bit of this and that can really benefit you

so why do I do this why does removing things that give me pleasure uh help me be more motivated to achieve my goals well uh it's pretty simple when I remove things that are uh really stimulating and pleasurable uh that I can do on an everyday basis when I remove those things then the other activities that I do that are related to my goals or that uh are the things that I want to do but I uh have trouble starting them or they aren't necessarily as fun at the beginning uh those things these good activities

I'll call them become the most interesting things in my day so if I don't take away those uh instant Pleasures then those things will always seem better funner and uh preferable uh preferable refers to when something is preferred right those things will always be preferable if I have them in my day and it will always be harder to do the things that are related to my goals that don't give me as much pleasure uh right now okay so let me give you four examples uh of what I have removed from my daily life uh uh

and how that has helped me uh actually do other actions uh that are related to my goals okay and maybe you can uh remove one of these things or decrease one of these things uh or maybe you can think of something else that uh you might be able to remove from your day that can allow you to take more interest in another activity that is related to your goals so the first one that I want to talk about is TV and movies this is one of the hardest things I think for people to get rid

of and I'm not saying that you're all uh gonna be able to do this really easily um but I have been able to do this and it's had great benefits for me so uh I don't watch TV in my everyday life and I don't watch movies and because of that uh I've been able to do a lot more reading in the last couple of years uh one of my goals uh one of the things that I really want to do is to read consistently uh it's something that I really enjoy it's not like I need

to force myself to do this but it definitely doesn't provide the instant pleasure that uh watching a movie does or uh watching something on Netflix does right you know what I'm talking about if you turn on the TV and you start watching ing something it's very pleasurable you're able to relax and just uh be absorbed in uh that TV show or that movie and it's very easy to do that reading a book is not as easy it takes more effort it takes more brain power more attention it is not something that uh Sparks that same

immediate reaction in your brain uh that these other things do right when you're watching Netflix for example um however I really like reading and I have the goal of uh reading consistently throughout my life and one of the ways in which which I can do this more easily is by taking away these other things that uh are the easier Choice uh instead of reading and so because I don't watch TV and because I don't watch movies I really look forward to reading because this is my main form of entertainment this is uh where I can

get that interesting story the interesting plot with interesting characters by the way the word plot refers to the story of some book or movie Etc so I get all of that from my books because I really like to read classic fiction classic novels and so um I get that stimulation from my books instead of from a TV screen right and so you can see how that works right if TV and movies aren't an option and I want that uh interesting story I want that entertainment well suddenly books become very attractive because that's the way that

I fulfill that desire right so books have become more desirable and they've become more fun for me uh since I took away those other easy forms of entertainment and honestly I don't regret this decision at all I don't think about watching TV or movies I save a lot of time and I spend more time reading and this is a very rewarding thing for me so I'm not saying that you need to do this but I'm just trying to give you some ideas okay the next thing that I have removed from my life uh that has

helped me uh be more motivated to do other things is social media I've talked about this a lot uh I don't consume social media in my life I haven't done this in I think maybe two and a half years or so uh and because I don't have that I have more motivation to have genuine interaction with other people I have more motivation to actually socialize with people in the real world because social media can kind of um make us feel like we are interacting with the world because we're consuming things um from other people maybe

we're even talking to our friends on social media um it's a type of interaction right however uh for me because I've taken that out of my life uh I've removed that now if I want to interact with people I have to actually do so in the real world I have to go see those people and talk to them and I've noticed that since I took away this social media uh I have had a bigger interest in socializing with people I'm more interested in talking to people going out and uh spending time with people I remember

that when I was living in Mexico uh for the last uh year or maybe the last six months um that I lived there I had just removed social media completely from my life and and that was also when I just felt the need to go to these Meetup events where uh people uh that were locals and then also foreigners would go and meet up and uh have conversations and uh eat at a restaurant together um that was when I started doing that was after I complet completely removed social media from my life and I don't

think that that's a coincidence I think that before that time uh I was able to just feel like I had interaction with people via social media but uh when I took that away I had that desire for socialization and I actually uh felt motivated to go out and meet people and talk to people and interact with people Etc so that's another thing uh that I have removed from my day and has helped me be motivated to do something that's good for me okay another thing that I've removed from my day that has helped increase my

motivation for something good is that I don't watch YouTube in English anymore uh or I do so very very little or very rarely so before I watched a lot of YouTube in English but now because I don't do this uh when I'm on YouTube I have to watch things in French because that's the language that I'm learning and so watching YouTube in French has become uh my source of pleasure uh instead of watching YouTube in English and this is great because I'm actually learning French which is my goal so uh if I still watched YouTube

in English it would be hard for me to choose to watch videos in French because of course if it's easier and uh more pleasurable to watch things in English and just spend hours watching videos in English that's easy and it provides instant gratification right this means that it gives me Immediate pleasure um but now because I've removed that uh if I want uh to watch YouTube and get that pleasure I watch it in French which uh gives me the benefit of learning French so um this has increased my motivation to uh consume content in French

because watching videos in French is the only way that I get to watch YouTube nowadays so of course uh I watch YouTube in French with the goal of learning French which is great but I actually sometimes uh just feel like I'm really interested in uh that YouTube channel or the content of the video or whatever um just because it's really interesting for me so uh I'm not only doing it to learn French I feel motivated because it's actually fun right uh it's like watching YouTube in English except it's harder uh I'm actually doing it in

a different language so um you can see how taking away uh that option to watch YouTube in English gives me motivation to watch it in French because I still want YouTube in my life and so uh that's the way I do it I watch it in French right so um that's another thing that I've taken away and one other thing that I've removed from my day that helps increase my motivation to achieve certain goals is that I don't have a lot of easy entertainment at home so for example I don't have uh video games and

other things that are just really fun and give instant pleasure and that are addictive or whatever um in my house there isn't a lot of entertainment to be honest there just isn't a lot of entertainment in this physical space so because of that I feel more motivated to get out of the house to go be in the real world and to uh do things that are fun outside of my house because when I think of uh all the fun things that uh I do during the week pretty much all of them are outside my house

because I don't have a lot of really fun entertainment here and so this helps me to be motivated to actually go out and do things outside I think uh some of you might have that goal to uh go explore new places go to different uh uh parts of your city or go to uh different uh nature places and Hike or do things like that um but it might be hard to do so because you have uh tons of entertainment at home that makes it really easy to just stay home and uh stay indoors all day

so for me because I don't have all of that entertainment here uh my fun is found outside my house and this also helps me do things like go running so I've been running more recently and I've been feeling really motivated to run uh because it gets me out of the house I get to be outside in the fresh air in the sunshine or around nature and uh I feel motivated to go outside to run because it's actually funner than being here at my house uh for the most part because I don't have all of these

uh easy sources of addictive entertainment here so that's actually helped me be healthier because uh I feel motivated throughout the week to go outside and not just run but to go on walks uh in nature go on Hikes go to Parks uh take my my kids uh to fun places things like that and so I've been able to spend uh some more time outdoors and I hope that I can uh explore a lot of different places around me in my city and um see some cool nature places uh I feel motivated to do that because

those things those places are more fun than my own house but of course I'm not saying that we should just have a really really boring uh living environment here at our house of course not but I think that if we limit how much uh addictive entertainment is here at our houses uh we can feel more motivated to actually find fun things outside of our house in other places and so um this is a goal that I have uh to spend more time outside my house so that's how uh I can feel more motivated to achieve

that goal so uh hopefully this episode gave you some ideas of things that you might be able to reduce a little bit um so that you your other activities uh seem more uh interesting for you and really uh in summary that's what I was trying to get across with this episode uh the phrase get across means to communicate something so what I was trying to get across uh with all of these examples in this episode is that the way I increase my motivation to do things in my life is to remove the other things that

give me more pleasure but that I don't really want to do I want to do the activities related to my goals and so because I want to do those activities I take away the easier activities that are uh more pleasurable I think that makes sense right but of course it's okay if you disagree with me uh about this that's perfectly fine but maybe this episode got you thinking about some things uh that can help you increase your motivation all right remember that if you want my Advanced episodes if you feel the motivation to start practicing

with those then make sure to become a listening Time family member the link is down below and if you feel motivated to practice with my conversations with other native speakers from around the us then make sure to sign up for my us conversations podcast it's great practice and it's a lot of fun so the links are down below and you have the transcript for this episode Down Below as well all right thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of listening time