Most of us have a ton of goals and dreams, both in our personal life as well as our professional life. But sometimes it can be hard to find the drive and motivation to get to where we want to go. It is totally normal and common to experience a drop in our motivation every now and then, because life is cyclical.
But the truth is, a drop in motivation actually comes with a purpose. It gives us the chance to turn inward and re-evaluate our goals and dreams as well as our journey towards them and figure out what’s working and what needs to be changed.
While we all have vastly different goals and dreams in life, there are certain things that will help us reach our goals. If you feel like you could use a little spark in staying motivated and getting things done, consider adopting some new daily habits that will help you to tap into your inner reserve of self-motivation.
Here are our TOP 10 tips to stay motivated every single day.
#1 Find Your Why
If you want to stay motivated you need to start with your WHY. You need to connect with the reason behind what you do. If you simply climb a mountain because it’s there, you are probably not going to keep going when the going gets tough. However, if you know your WHY and the reason is hugely important to you, then you will find a way to get through any challenge or obstacle because you are focused on the prize and your motivation will give you that extra boost.
#2 Accomplish Something Right When You Wake Up
It may be trivial, but accomplishing something in the morning, even if it’s the tiniest thing, will have a tremendous impact on the motivation you will be able to carry throughout the day. Right away when you wake up, the simple task of making your bed, preparing breakfast or getting yourself to the gym, will get you energized for the rest of the day. Getting something done first thing in the morning gives you a sense of accomplishment that will impact the rest of the day. And keep in mind, every little thing counts.
#3 Practice Self-Compassion
Most of us tend to be nice to other people. It is incredible to see how someone can show empathy and even motivate another person. However, instead of giving ourselves the same respect and positive pep talk, we tend to be extremely hard on ourselves and go on a guilt trip. Keep in mind, we are not here to achieve perfection. We are here to learn and grow and do the best we can. If you don’t get to finish a specific task today, instead of complaining and putting yourself down, make the decision to finish it first thing tomorrow. You give others a second chance when they made a mistake. Give the same courtesy to yourself. Keep in mind, nobody and nothing can motivate you, if you don’t give yourself a chance.
#4 Manage Your Energy
In order to get to where we want to go and reach a desired goal, we have to maximize our energy. So instead of multi-tasking, which only saps our energy, overwhelms us and leads to poor performance and mistakes, focus all your energy on one single task and reach your goal with gusto and zest. Managing our energy means that we take care of our body to maximize physical energy, calm our emotions to maximize emotional energy, control our focus and attention to maximize mental energy and maximize our spiritual energy by connecting to the purpose that drives our goal.
#5 Change It Up
We’ve all heard the saying ‘Variety is the spice of life’ and this is true for our motivation as well. Changing it up helps us to stay motivated to reach our goals when we hit a roadblock and don’t make much progress. Before you fall into a rut, change up your routine. Variety breaks up the monotony, so go enjoy new experiences and try out new skills and with that develop new ideas and passions that will get you closer to your ultimate goal.
#6 Take Care of Yourself
When we are not feeling our best, it is very hard to stay motivated and push ourselves to give it our all. It is detrimental to take care of ourselves in order to refill our motivation and get things done. This means we need to nourish our body as well as our mind and our emotions in a positive way. Remove some of your stress levels, eat healthy, keep working out and bring yourself back to your own center and it will be much easier to stay motivated and keep working on your goals and dreams.
#7 Reframe Your Setbacks
We all experience mistakes and failures at some point in our lives and it’s no big deal when we know how to deal with these setbacks and learn to get back on the right track. Just look at highly successful people who can manage to overcome their setbacks in a healthy way. They see their failures and mistakes as an incredible opportunity to learn and view their temporary setback or drop in motivation as something very normal that can be overcome. As we mentioned earlier, we tend to be extremely hard on ourselves, so don’t put yourself down and instead reframe your setbacks as an opportunity.
#8 Savor Success
To keep your motivation high, don’t forget to savor your success and celebrate your progress. Neurological research shows that negativity sticks to the brain like velcro and positivity slides off like teflon. Unless we applaud our efforts, savor our achievements and relive our successes over and over again until the positivity of a job well done trickles down into the deep recesses of our neural structure, we won’t be able to build any kind of memories that give rise to resilience, competence and motivation. So savor your successes to prime your brain for positivity and motivation.
#9 Pull Yourself Forward with Compelling Goals
Compelling goals and dreams inspire you from the inside and they automatically pull you forward. On the other hand, when you have to push yourself to get things done, then there is something not quite right with the goal. And if a goal is imposed on you by someone else, reframe the goal in a way that you can find a challenge that inspires you and design the other person’s goal in a way that you can enjoy both, the journey as well as the outcome.
#10 Recharge Your Batteries
Breaks are essential to avoid getting burned out and boost our motivation. Even if you don’t feel it in the moment, it has been scientifically proven that regular breaks help you to be more productive and keep your motivation going. Keep in mind, productivity gives a big boost to your motivation so whenever you motivation takes a nosedive, take a break and with that prop up your productivity and ultimately your motivation to keep going and stay one happy camper.
Even the most successful people in life have to deal with a drop in motivation from time to time. Keep in mind, motivation is something that we have to recreate on a daily basis. Knowing how to pick yourself up when your motivation dwindles is what can make all the difference in your ability to reach success.
BE YOUR OWN BEST CHEERLEADER AND STAY PASSIONATE, EXCITED AND MOTIVATED
Joschi & Monika
#BoldNaked