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You can’t “hack” motivation. There’s not a quick trick in existence that’s going to motivate you to do something if you just don’t want to do it.

But you can make an effort to understand the psychology behind motivation, and use this to your advantage.

The things that keep us on track towards our goals might surprise you. In this article, we’ll discuss four perspective changes that can help keep you motivated — even when you feel like giving up.

4 Surprising Things That Keep Us Motivated

1) Overcoming a setback.

Despite being one of the seven deadly sins, pride is actually an important factor in staying motivated towards long-term goals. Pride comes in two different forms: There’s hubristic pride (the kind that inflates your ego and gets you into trouble) and authentic pride, which describes those warm, rewarding feelings you get from making progress on meaningful work or accomplishing a hard-won goal.

Jessica Tracy, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, and author of Take Pride: Why The Deadliest Sin Holds The Secret To Human Success, has extensively studied the effects of authentic pride (i.e., feelings of accomplishment and fulfillment) on human motivation.

In a recent study, Tracy and her colleagues examined the effects of authentic pride on students’ test taking abilities. When students reported feeling a low sense of authentic pride after receiving a poor test score, they were more likely to change their study approach and work to improve their results for next time. Students who did not report feeling a low sense of authentic pride after receiving a poor test score were much less motivated to improve.

In other words, having your ego bruised a little bit will actually motivate you to work harder in the long run. So if you’ve recently suffered from a setback or disappointment at work, channel that energy into changing up your approach and improving your results, rather than pushing those feelings away and ignoring them.

But be wary of taking it too far. Tracy warns that there’s an important distinction between using the absence of pride productively and suffering from a problematic lack of confidence — i.e., shame.

Shame, Tracy explained, is characterized by feelings of uselessness, and thoughts of “I’m not going to try to work hard because it’s just going to end up in failure.” In contrast, feelings of low authentic pride push you to restore feelings of fulfillment and achievement by working harder and more efficiently.

2) Being at peace with distractions.

Embracing distractions instead of fighting through them certainly goes against conventional wisdom about motivation — a quick Google search for “motivation and distraction” reveals a list of articles about “killing” or “eliminating” distractions as a strategy to stay motivated. But resisting all distraction can actually make it more difficult for our brains to stay focused.

Oliver Burkeman, the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, believes the typical way of approaching distractions as the enemy of productivity is misguided, and could counterintuitively be causing us to become even more distracted.

Although it’s easy to blame external factors like your chatty coworker or the addictive allure of social media, Burkeman said the real cause of our chronic distraction is an internal urge to fight anything that compromises our autonomy.

In other words, we like to feel in charge, and when we’re told we have to focus on something specific, the idea of fixating on anything but the task at hand becomes irresistibly magnetic.

For example, I recently set aside a block of time on my calendar to get a project I’d been putting off completed once and for all. When the time finally rolled around, all I really wanted to do was mindlessly look at pictures of dogs on Instagram. This was my brain’s way of rebelling against the task at hand, and assuming autonomy by drifting towards a more appealing activity.

“The good news is that when you see distraction for what it really is, you’re much better equipped to fight it,” Burkeman wrote in 99u. “Remember, too, that you don’t need to ‘feel motivated’ in order to do important work. Instead, let yourself feel like you’d rather be doing something else, and at the same time, do the work: Open the laptop, make the phone call, type another sentence.”

3) Strengthening your tolerance for discomfort.

We’ve all been here before: you’re just about to jump into a big project, and the thought of taking those first steps is almost physically painful. All you can focus on is the hardship to come: the effort you’ll have to expend, the hours you’ll have to put in, and how taxing the project will be from start to finish.

Carson Tate, a productivity coach and business consultant, calls this phenomenon intellectual discomfort, and pretty much everyone has experienced it at one time or another. It’s a gut-level aversion to doing any work that requires us to come off autopilot and challenges us on a deeper level.

And to get any meaningful work done, you have to learn to fight through it.

It will be unpleasant at first, but it is possible to train yourself to become more comfortable with the discomfort of intellectually demanding work. Think of it like preparing for a marathon: If you make a training schedule and put in the effort to stick to it, eventually the running gets easier every day. That first day, running a mile might seem tortuous, but in six months, it’ll be a breeze.

To start increasing your tolerance for work that requires your full attention, consider using a structured framework to manage your working hours. One of the most commonly used (and widely discussed) methods is the Pomodoro Technique, which relies on a intervals of work and rest to keep your mind on track without burning out. 

When used consistently, structured methods like this can help increase your endurance for intellectually taxing work — and make it easier to prevent those pangs of dread and premature fatigue before the project even kicks off.

4) Stop obsessing about being unmotivated.

The overarching theme in the previous three methods seems to be this: stop beating yourself up about not feeling motivated, and just start working. It sounds counterintuitive — how can you work when you don’t feel like it? — but constantly fixating on how motivated you wish you felt only amplifies your lack of motivation.

Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner famously demonstrated that attempts to forcibly coerce your own thoughts or emotions overwhelmingly backfires. If you force yourself to get super motivated to start your next big project — but in reality, you’re really not feeling it — you could actually end up feeling more unmotivated than before.

All you accomplished was making yourself feel bad that you weren’t experiencing what you perceived to be the ideal emotional responses: excitement and motivation.

The takeaway? Don’t judge yourself so harshly for feeling unmotivated. It’s perfectly okay, and you can still get things done without being extremely excited about them. So go ahead, give yourself that Twitter break. And then get down to business.

How do you stay motivated when things get tough? Let us know in the comments.

Marketers work hard, amirite? But there are still some people in our lives — ahem, Mom — who seem to think that we just write stories and draw pictures on the internet all day.

I mean, we don’t do that every day. We work hard, and we have a great appreciation for things that are creative and clever. It makes sense, then, that we also like our season’s greetings to share those traits. And when it comes to holiday cards, just make us laugh.

But if you’ve been described as “impossible to please,” or having an “abnormal appreciation for puns,” have faith — you’re not alone. That’s why we put together this guide of great holiday cards for marketers.

From punny to downright clever, these cards certainly have us in stitches — We hope you’ll enjoy them, too.

11 Hilarious Holiday Cards for Marketers

1) Thoughtful Tweets, by Someecards

Leave it to Someecards to capture the holiday snark that lives in all of us, at least a little bit.

Holidays are a busy time for marketers. We have to plan content for the season — which is remarkably easier with a social media content calendar — and make sure it continues to thrive, even if we’re elsewhere, donning ugly sweaters and drinking eggnog.

Naturally, this fitting sentiment made us laugh.

Someecards makes it super easy to send these greetings, too. Just visit the link, click on the picture, and choose when you want it to be delivered.

2) CapterraGrams, by Capterra

In a past holiday season, Capterra compiled a list of 10 B2B holiday greetings that were so clever, we’re kind of jealous that we didn’t come up with them.

It’s hard to pick just one, but here are a few of our favorites — like this one, which puts a marketing spin on the classic carol “Up on the Housetop.”

Or this one, which turns social sharing buttons into dreidels.

Of course, we couldn’t leave out a good CTA color pun, either.

3) The Forgetful Marketer, by SadShop

We love all of SadShop’s holiday cards for their deadpan greetings, like “You are not bad” for Valentine’s Day, and “You are too old to say yolo” for birthdays.

So when it came time to find the perfect holiday sentiment for the marketers in our lives, we knew that SadShop would have something fitting. And if you’re the type of marketer who works so hard before the holidays that perhaps you never quite make it to the “cards” line on your December to-do list, this one might be for you.

4) Holiday Zen, by ThePaperArtShoppe

Then, there are the marketers who do manage to get it all together — work, cards, and maybe even a box of homemade cookies — but you wish he or she would take a minute to breathe. (Or maybe, you know, that describes you. We can relate.)

There’s nothing like some holiday yoga to keep calm and market on during this season. A little bit of laughter wouldn’t hurt, either — What better way to get a chuckle than with a tree-posing reindeer?

5) Appy New Year, by nocturnalpaper

As marketers, we really love our apps, especially if they help us relax or become more productive. So when it comes to wishing us a happy holiday, it’s quite fitting to make it more of an “appy” holiday.

This adorable card puts that pun to work by taking four app icons — weather, mail, messages, and music — and attaching tiny arms and legs to them. However, depending on who you ask, those arms might look like little reindeer antlers. Festivity is in the eye of the (appy) beholder. 

6) For the Good-Humored Boss, by FINCHandHARE

If you’re as lucky as we are, your boss has a great sense of humor. In that case, he or she might appreciate this greeting — which is actually meant to be a birthday card, but still works as a holiday one — which simply reads, “You are terrifying.”

Once the card is opened, the humor continues with, “You are a terrific boss. I am really enjoying the comfortable work environment you foster.” Be sure to add your own warm, hand-written greeting, though, to make sure it’s all in good fun. We suggest, “For one of the best marketers I know. Happy holidays,” or, “I mean it. Thanks for such a great year, and happy holidays.”

7) Holiday Buzzwords, by Someecards

Someecards strikes again with this great greeting that calls out marketers on, well, the language we might throw around during the holidays.

But hey, don’t fault us — we really do wish you hope, peace, joy, and successful marketing.

8) #FFFFFF, by NerdyWordsGifts

Where there’s marketing, there’s often branding. And where there’s branding, there’s a style guide. That usually comes equipped with official rules about which colors should be used in marketing collateral. Those colors usually have their own html codes that lead with the # symbol.

As you probably guessed, #FFFFFF is the html color code for white. This card puts a branding and design spin on the famous carol lyrics, “May all your Christmases be white,” replacing the word “white” with the digital symbol. In that case, we hope your holidays are anything but #0468E0. 

9) Holiday QR Code, by kissandpunch

QR codes are hardly a new marketing concept, but when used correctly, they can still be effective. Case in point: this card with a QR code letterpress.

But the greeting doesn’t end there. Once the code is scanned, the recipient is taken to this adorable video of a yorkie’s holiday adventures — and who doesn’t love marketing with a healthy dose of dogs?

Warning: The video is a bit corny, but we can’t think of a better time than the holidays for some cheesy cheer.

10) #Presents, by NewtonAndTheApple

No matter how you feel about a personal use of hashtags, there’s no denying their importance in marketing.

The makers of this card leveraged that idea to capture a hightlight of the holidays: #presents.

But if the marketers in your life are feeling a bit grinchy this season, fear not — there’s another version made just for them.

There are also editions available for #lights, #Rudolph, and #tree. Might we submit a request for #cookies and #wine?

11) Beyoncé Jingles, by NostalgiaCollect

Consider this one our gift to you. I mean, Beyoncé and a pun? Nothing says “happy holidays” to our favorite marketers like a play on popular song lyrics.

Happy Holidays From Our Marketers to Yours

Between all of the chaos and planning, it seems like there’s one big thing we forget to do during the holidays — laugh. That’s what the season’s greetings are for, after all. And if that festivity and joy happens to come with a good dose of marketing humor, we hope that makes you all the merrier.

Have you come across some great holiday cards for marketers? Let us know in the comments.