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How do you motivate yourself to go and geocache?


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Four hours of intensive daily meditation for the last 15 years. This has done wonders for my motivation to go caching, and it's honed my geosenses to the point where I can not only discover even the toughest D5 instantly upon arriving at the GZ, but I often find that I've already telepathically signed the log as well.

Edited by NiteCrawler
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1 hour ago, GeocachingGoku said:

How do you motivate yourself to go and geocache?

 

If you need motivation to go geocaching maybe it's time for a break?

 

Otherwise I would suggest:

 

1. Make plans to cache with at least one other person. Now you can't let them down.

 

2. Combine caching with something else you want/need to do. Go shopping then stop by a park on the way home for some caches. When I'm on vacation I mix caching with other activities. Caching in the morning, museum in the afternoon. Or I drive an hour, stop for a cache break, repeat. 

 

3. Figure what you like and dislike about caching then take the time to figure out where you can go to find what you like while skipping what you don't. 

 

Admittedly, that last one can be part of the problem. I prefer hiking caches, but I usually have to wake up early and make a daytrip out of it. And I live in Florida so I need the weather (heat, humidity, and precipitation) to cooperate. 

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I don’t think I’ve ever had trouble motivating to go cache.... I’ve never been one to obsess over daily’s or ftf so if I’m in the mood and the weather is good, I go! It should be something you enjoy and look forward to as a fun hobby, not as a chore like laundry or cleaning!!

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Life...Life is my motivation. I work full time and then some. I, as well as my wife unit, are the primary caregiver for my mother who lives with us, and suffers from Alzheimer's disease.

 

The need for a break, to just get away for even just a lil bit. And due to our schedules I end up flying solo most of the time ..which is not necessarily a bad thing. This geo-thing is not really her bag. Sure she will go with me at times if we can get all the planets to align properly. Not by herself tho. She is not into it nearly as much as I am. She has other interests.

 

Motivation is really not that motivating. A little time along with the aspect of maybe some peace and quiet, Fresh air, and being "Out" is all the motivation required.

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I look at the map and see where I haven't found caches.  Especially when I am stuck at work (or ordered to stay home) and wished I was doing anything other than what I was supposed to be doing.  I look at the descriptions and see if they interest me.  I plan a little trip in my head.  And then I go do it when I get the chance.

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On 5/18/2020 at 9:58 PM, GeocachingGoku said:

How do you motivate yourself to go and geocache?

 

I've heard that some people are motivated by goals they decide to achieve, for example  a streak. I am not motivated by goals but geocaches motivate me to go out and to do some mental practice.

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Never needed any motivation.

Discovered the hobby by pure chance, now I have to find an excuse not to go out.

Family say, 'but you hate the cold', I do, it's true but I now happily freeze or get wet........ I must find it.

Back out first time since 'lock down' today.

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It's a hobby for me, not a job.  Sometimes I go days without even thinking about it.  Other days, I feel a bit restless at home and jump in my car and head out somewhere new to get caches.  And every time I need to travel for work, I make a goal to get a few in the new location.  On the days you need motivation to do it, your mind and body might simply want to do something else.  And that's okay.

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7 hours ago, The Jester said:

And Covid-19 did that to many of us... :wacko:

Yes, I needed to motivate myself to stay home where I live, as we didn't have compulsory stay at home orders, only the strong suggestion we do. Over the border it was compulsory, but not where I live. Still most people locally did stay at home, except for food shopping, medical appointments and exercise. It wasn't necessary to be compulsory, as most people understood the necessity of distancing. It  meant though that as long as I cached alone, didn't cross the border and kept away from others, I didn't need to stop caching. I included it in my daily exercise. (So no drive-by power trails. I walked or cycled to the caches.) I carried the hand sanitiser, although many caches I did find had not be found for a week to a couple of months. One for more than a year.

Without this being compulsory, it was still successful because of community cooperation. We have no cases at present and the last case was almost three weeks ago. Still more than 500 cases in Australia as a whole though. We are now slowly opening businesses again.

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With only 34 finds so far this year, and most of those pre-lockdown, a lot of my caching-related activity of late has been visiting my own hides, particularly the ones that are on local trails where I was still allowed to go walking for exercise. With the easing of restrictions a few weeks ago, I was able to join a couple of friends on a group caching trek through the nearby Brisbane Water National Park. Even though two of the four caches we visited were mine and the other two were ones I'd previously found, it was still just as much an enjoyable day out as if I'd got a bunch of smilies.

 

Yesterday, after a week of rain, the sun came out so I went on a 3km hike to visit one of my more remote multis. On the way back I took a bit of a detour to suss out an area that looked interesting on the satellite images and found a neat hiding place for a new cache, so I created the cache page last night and headed back out first thing this morning (in the rain) to place the container and submit it for review. Here's the view from GZ:

 

MountainToSea.jpg.d1fe13d5bb0acb691e72a3bb6ac6972b.jpg

 

With a further easing of restrictions here on Monday that will allow unlimited travel within the state, I'm looking forward to heading up north to Newcastle to attempt the bunch of puzzle caches I'd solved during the lockdown, and will also be resuming my routine visits to my more distant hides.

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I was able to get out to a few rather old ones today, that had new logs in there but still had the old logs and were readable. Was pretty cool taking a moment to read back on some of the comments from so many years ago. Makes me wish more caches had space to write a thoughtful comment instead of just a name and date (not sure what the percentages are around here, just the 8 or so I've found so far had more micros and nanos than small or regulars).

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7 hours ago, Unit473L said:

I was able to get out to a few rather old ones today, that had new logs in there but still had the old logs and were readable. Was pretty cool taking a moment to read back on some of the comments from so many years ago. Makes me wish more caches had space to write a thoughtful comment instead of just a name and date (not sure what the percentages are around here, just the 8 or so I've found so far had more micros and nanos than small or regulars).

 

Yep.  With some this hobby became a game,  and maybe they're in too much of a hurry to sit around a while.   :)

I still have two caches with log books.  Both mostly have the cacher's name and date on single lines now.  They'll last a long time...

 - So I don't feel it's necessarily the log, but cachers opinions on the hobby that's changed. 

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11 hours ago, Unit473L said:

Makes me wish more caches had space to write a thoughtful comment instead of just a name and date (not sure what the percentages are around here, just the 8 or so I've found so far had more micros and nanos than small or regulars).

 

My first find with my son...the CO had a notebook in the cache asking to share our experiences. Logging our experiences is just  as good.

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22 minutes ago, Unit473L said:

 

Totally agree on that one, and not just geocaching. Everybody seems to be in a great big hurry to get to where they aren't and ignore where they are now. :( 

 

At least some cachers are less hurried around here, as they write more than just a date and name in my logbooks, like this one:

 

Logbook.jpg.96e4a46e9e26d6532f1ce4847a2346ba.jpg

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