We are all feeling the effects of many months of social isolation and restrictions on activities. How you respond to these challenges can make a big difference in how you feel about yourself, your relationships with others and your progress towards your goals. This little self-reflection on motivation might help kick-start some ideas to get you back in your groove.
Do you accept responsibility for your circumstances, or do you see yourself as the victim of outside forces or someone else’s actions? Motivated people have a sincere belief that they have the power to create the results they desire.
- Motivation allows you to overcome obstacles, bad luck or disadvantages to achieve your goals.
- Motivation helps you focus on the challenge at hand and plan a strategy to win even if you have had previously failed.
- Motivation brings enthusiasm to your voice, your thoughts and your actions.
- Motivation is the desire to better than you are.
Here are some strategies to help you master motivation:
1. Monitor Your Self-Talk
Ensure that you keep your self-talk positive. The next time you catch yourself slipping into negative self-talk, break the pattern by answering these three questions:
- What benefits am I going to gain by working through this challenge?
- How does this situation move me closer to my long-term goals?
- What about this situation can I be thankful for?
2. Surround Yourself with Positive People
Surrounding yourself with motivated, positive, and ambitious people can dramatically change your outlook. Think about a few people in your network who know what they want and are relentlessly determined to get it. For each person you come up with, think of a way that you could be valuable to them. Start with someone you consider a friend so you can get your process down before moving on to someone further out in your network.
Use networking tools to reach out to your targeted person to ask them about their professional challenges and then offer them something of value to help with those challenges. It can be something as simple as sharing an article or a blog that you’ve seen recently. If they accept, follow through on any commitment as quickly as possible, then find another way to add value with something that helps both of you and makes you more relevant to them. If you keep doing this, you’ll eventually become an important part of their network.
In addition to creating a personal circle of highly motivated connections, you can also look into professional organizations to help expand your networking opportunities.
3. Keep your Goals Top of Mind
We all know the importance of written goals but what many of us miss is that the real power from goals comes not from creating them, but from constantly reviewing and refining them. If you create written goals and put them away and forget about them, the urgency of day-to-day tasks will certainly limit any progress towards these goals.
In order to keep your goals top of mind, you need to dedicate some time to regularly think about and review them. If you can commit to a schedule of spending 2 minutes per day, 5 minutes per week, 10 minutes per month, 15 minutes per quarter and 30 minutes annually reflecting on your progress towards your goals, you’ll be miles ahead of most people. Really, that’s it… it takes a bit of discipline but if you put these in your calendar and lock them into your routines, they will become second nature.
Since “To-Do” lists seem to be an inevitable part of modern life, the next thing you need to do is integrate your long-term goals into day–to–day life by giving them a constant spot at the top of your task management system.
Remember, your goals are only as powerful as the share of mind you give them. If you want to achieve your goals, they need to be part of every aspect of your life.
Staying Motivated
Staying motivated is far more difficult than getting motivated so that’s why these simple strategies can help you build success–oriented motivation habits into your day–to–day routines.
If you occasionally falter in your motivation, don’t worry. It’s part of the process. Successful people inevitably have some low points and failures along the way. If you fall down, pick yourself up, catch your breath and refocus on your goals. That’s motivation!
