A nagger is somebody who performs the act of nagging. According to Wikipedia, nagging means “continuously urging an individual to complete previously discussed requests or act on advice”. Could this work to motivate you? With a bit of twist, it does and I’ve tested it! We could say it’s a SeeTheHumanSide certified, motivation method 🙂

Mentors vs naggers

Mentors offer guidance, they help you build a plan. However, You have to find the mentor and ask for advice whenever You see fit. It’s like a pull notification: you ask for guidance and you receive it. The other way around is just unsolicited advice, much like spam. Believe it or not, I did meet someone who was trying to find mentees and self-proclaim as mentor. That was wrong in so many ways.

Nagging usually has a bad connotation as it resembles bullying. Here, we’re not talking about getting pushed into a corner. It’s about repetition and getting poked to do something. If you ever had a sports buddy, it’s quite similar: someone calling you and asking you to stick to your commitment. Therefore a nagger would constantly ask you what action have you taken in regards to your declared objective.

The method

It’s simple. You have to decide: who, how often, then make the request.

For this method to work you have to pick someone dear to your heart or someone you respect. I would go with the first option because that person would be more difficult to avoid.

How often depends on how quick you want to get results. The more often you are reminded, the more often you will feel compelled to do something. Every little step taken is a progress in the right direction, even if you fail. Yes, failure is a form of progress, or at least of learning: you find out one way in which it doesn’t work. You don’t have to move mountains to make it count as progress.

Make the request: call that person, tell him/her what you want to achieve and ask that person to nag you about it every day / week / twice a day, three times a month – it’s up to you. The cadence depends on how fast you want to progress.

Two possible outcomes

There are only two possible outcomes here. If that objective you’ve set really matters to you, then you will feel compelled to make some progress. It’s not the actual nagging that will drive you, but the fact that if you don’t have progress to show, you will realize you aren’t really doing anything. Action makes the difference between hoping for positive outcomes and wishful thinking. Motivation without action is just a nice thought.

If you’re not truly committed and it was just something you threw out there because it sounded good or it was drawing attention, you will quit. Ex: ‘I’m planning to become an investor on the stock market and become financially independent in x years’ – incredible! But you aren’t really doing anything about it, are you?… Either way in this case quitting is not so bad either, because it will save you the energy of boasting about something you’ll never start or advance with.

True story

Well, here’s how it went for me. I had a creative project that I’ve started over a year ago, after thinking about it for a long time. The progress was let’s say 10% at best and yet, I was decided to finish it. My motivation was running on an empty tank. Therefore, I asked a dear friend of mine to keep reminding me of my commitment every time we were talking on the phone (which was quite often).  I’ve explained that I needed a constant active push from someone whom I wouldn’t avoid, nor try to make up excuses. Guess what happened? Not only did this friend come on-board of my idea after a while, but in about a month, the progress went from 10% to 80% and a plan forward to complete it. As far as I am concerned, I’ll keep applying this method, because it gets me the results I want.

When it comes to motivation, the best method is the one that works. For You.