I don't think trying to "motivate oneself" will bear a lot of fruit. Motivation is a combination of beliefs: belief that a thing will be beneficial, and that it's possible.<p>That's at the macro level. On the micro level, structure helps a lot. Some of the more go-getter people you know are just on autopilot, but have done the work beforehand to hack their motivation, mostly by forming habits and setting themselves in social environs that reward achievement.<p>Motivation is a fickle, mercurial beast. Trying to run on it at all times won't work. Use motivation wisely, for short bursts of work that get/keep autopilot-you on track. Things like: going to sleep when you want to stay up, making a plan for issues you don't want to think about, setting habits to do things you don't like to do.
By avoiding triggers, that demotivate you. I see myself as a stupid machine, which behaves like it does in certain situations. If you want change in the long term, you have to change the situation and preconditions instead of trying to reprogram the machine, that will follow. Exercise, eat healthy, sleep enough, see enough sunlight, do what you like. If you have a setback, try to find out, how it started and try to avoid that situation, don't try to master it.
One thing that works for me. I keep a legal pad for each project I'm working on. I write a to do list in pencil on a sheet. When a task is complete I cross it out with red pencil.<p>So I say to myself just pick something and do it. The reward is the gratification of crossing it out. If a sheet gets filled up, I transcribe the remaining items to a new page, which engages visual, verbal and kinesthetic learning modes and refreshes my perspective on where I'm at with the project.<p>There is most always a space to the right of my mouse for the current pad. The system breaks down when that space gets cluttered for whatever reason. But when it's there I jot down tasks that come up while I'm coding. I keep the pads organized in a flat file that is just big enough to hold papers.<p>It works for me. Also getting enough sleep, exercise and eating properly helps.
Motivation means creation of incentives to do something. To be successful in that, you need very few things:
1. You should know what you are going to achieve. That is, you should have SMART goal (see Wikipedia article "SMART criteria"). Unclear of definition of the goal may become the biggest obstacle: you will always try to avoid the uncertainty by switching to other activities.
2. The benefits must seem to you realistic and the path to them short. For example, if you set the goal as "build 1 billion dollar business in 5 years", it will be SMART, but will look like a fairy tale to you. Building MVP in 3 months won't make you richer, but you'll be rewarded with positive feeling of creating something working and useful, something that will enable you to go further.
3. Not doing what you want (let's call it "A") must be painful. If life is good enough and you won't be harmed by just living it, you'll probably will not start, because there's no real reason for it. Some people are saying that you'll need to move out from your zone of comfort - they are close to what you really need to do: you need to move your zone of comfort, not yourself. Imagine, how good life will be when A is done. Think, how bad is your life while A is not done. Now you have real incentive! But don't do that until you've done 1 and 2.
It's a bootstrapping manouver, so it's kinda expensive and nonintuitive. First I try to find another body of work to slingshot around. Then the key is to keep structural integrity and life support systems on full. Then, as long as I'm pointed in the right direction, and don't run into any distractions (which fall away if I have enough inertia), I should be good for a little while.<p>The target is flow, the enthusiastic engagement in that activity I so desire to be motivated to do.
I envision the end goal in detail. e.g. if I'm building a business, I envision the office we are in, the staff, the levels of income and the services we provide, etc.