The title of this post isn't contradictory at all. Stay with me.

A few weeks ago via my Starbucks iPhone app, I was sent a message saying Angry Birds Star Wars edition was free that day in the app store. I hadn't played the game in quite some time and thought it could be a fun game to play while killing time on MARTA. Sure, I normally try to do something more life enriching like read a book, but sometimes you just have to do something mindless and fun.

My game habit flowed from my train ride to sitting home in front of the TV with Megan. She'd watch Dancing with the Stars and I'd play Angry Birds. It didn't take long for me to at least pass all the levels. Easy enough. To take things up another level, I challenged myself:

Get three stars on every level.

For most levels, this essentially means killing all the pigs with one bird. It's like a backwards outlook on "two birds with one stone." For the first several levels, this wasn't a hard task. As I started moving up stages, I found it extremely difficult. There just didn't seem to be an obvious solution.

Keeping My Eye on the Prize

The easier thing to would be to just move onto the next level. I could always mess with that hard level later. Or I could do the next logical thing and find a better way to spend my time (there are plenty of options there). However, I stuck with the level. I knew there HAD to be a way to get three stars on a level. Sadly, some of those levels would take me a day or two to figure it out.

No matter what, I'd always figure out the trick to getting three stars on any level. Eventually. It just took a bit of perseverance.

Carrying This Mentality to Work

There are problems to be solved no matter what job role you have. Every one of my jobs so far has been different. It's easy to either give up on a problem and say "it can't be done." It's also just as easy to make a problem or snag become "future Drew's problem" and put it off for something easier. Procrastination doesn't always mean not doing work but can sometimes just be substituting the easier work and avoiding the hard stuff instead.

To solve problems, we can't just sit around and wait for inspiration to strike every time. Sometimes sweat is the best source of inspiration.

What about you? How do you motivate yourself to solve a daunting problem or task?