Do you struggle with finding the motivation to get you started on something you want to achieve? Are you waiting for something or someone to come and motivate you to take action?
If you’re like many and answered yes to these questions, the truth is that you will be waiting for a long time, why? Because Motivation doesn’t come from somewhere or someone! It comes from within, from you taking an action towards what you want, getting inspired in the process and then feeling the motivation to keep going after what you want.
Like many, I used to wait for motivation in the past, motivation to get started at the gym or on a project I wanted to do, or even trying to wake up early to do some work but it never worked well because while waiting, procrastination kicked in, excuses cropped in and I would start to overanalyse and overthink too much and that leads to me losing interest.
I then realised that Motivations was like having a plant or flower at home which you must tend to and water every day to see it grow and blossom. To get motivated, it required one to take an action first no matter how small it is, as long as it is thoughtful and regular, it would allow you to build the motivation to keep going and achieve your goals.
The truth is that you can never be successful in anything without taking that initial action. Your action will lead you to be inspired which will then bring about motivation to keep pushing and working towards what you want.
Regardless of whatever it is you want to achieve, the most important thing is to take action, take that first step and start today and see transformation happen.
Several studies have shown that those who become successful are those taking action and stop analysing the what if’s or the potential outcomes. There are several types/forms of motivation that drive people towards achieving their desired goals and today I will briefly mention two of them for you to be aware of.
These are; the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations. It is important to understand these types of motivation for your own benefit and growth, their importance in education even for professional higher achievement.
Outward (Extrinsic) Motivation
Extrinsic motivation is driven by an external source, action or non-action and can either be the result of fear of punishment by someone, promotion, money or recognition from society and isn’t exceptionally dependable. Usually, the fears aren’t realised and the rewards suffer due to elevated expectations and are often never achieved.
Some of the examples include such things as giving yourself a treat or reward for achieving a milestone on your weight loss journey, or a lecture giving you a reward for being a winner of the debate, studying because you want to gain a scholarship, etc.
If you need outside motivation to get things done, understand that this type of motivation is much less reliable and can be harder to achieve.
Inward (Intrinsic) Motivation
Intrinsic motivation refers to behaviour that is driven by internal reward (internal to ourselves), action or no action. However, when you learn about your mind and how it really works, you will understand that you need to build intrinsic motivation into your life by knowing your why or the impact you want to make. This can be done by breaking down the tasks, focusing on the right things, being accountable. Richard A. Griggs in his book Psychology: A Concise Introduction, emphasises that “A person’s intrinsic enjoyment of an activity provides sufficient justification for the behaviour”.
The important thing about Inward motivation is that it’s a result of doing the things that are in line with your beliefs, values and the things that give you satisfaction when while performing them. You focus more on truly fathoming the journey of your life, not the unreliable results that everyone experiences, but the daily unexciting and normal parts of life that make up a full and contented life. You do things because you find them enjoyable, and it gives you a sense of pride, etc.
Having a lot of intrinsic motivation is regarded as a good thing as it shows that you have passion and internal drive and motivation to work towards your desired goal. However, if you have the intrinsic motivation and without extrinsic(or a few extrinsic), then you have the drive to do things but without anything external to hold you accountable for meeting your deadlines!
Enjoy The Journey
Going for your goals shouldn’t be unpleasant or make your life miserable. In fact, life, even when it’s mundane, can be a joy. It’s also been found that people are more productive when they are intrinsically motivated. To motivate yourself and become more productive, I have come up with the following tips and ideas to help you on your journey and I believe they’ll help you to accomplish more.
1. Know Your Why
For everything you want to do in your life, whether it’s learning how to sleep better at night, learning how to eat right or planning how you want your life to look ten years from now, it’s imperative that you know and analyses “Why” this is important to you and why the actions you are taking now impact the future. Look at the benefits of taking that action now and later in life.
We talked earlier above about having Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation and these are the core to what you achieving your results and will guide in your “Why” you want to do the task you want. You want to make sure that you have both as this will help you have the drive to perform what is needed and have accountability at the same time. This will lead to your results.
Allocate time where you’ll be able to analyse why you want to do the thing you want to do. Ask yourself how this will impact your life and other goals you have in place! The benefits, what are they if you go on and do this? For any task or action that you need to do, whether one step in a bigger plan for your life or a small factor in your daily needs, understanding why you’re doing it in the first place will give you a lot more motivation than if you’re taking actions without understanding the impact.
Because if you have no idea what the impact of your actions is, it will be much harder to make yourself want to do it in the first place. For example, saving money for the future will be much easier to do if you know how you’re going to use that money when you save it, but it also helps to find ways to do it without suffering in the meantime.
Your Why Is Your Core Source of Motivation
Knowing your why is the core source of your motivation for doing big and small actions that get you to where you want to go. To discover your why, it’s important that you learn who you are by discovering your principles, morals, and values through self-discovery, self-care and a real understanding of the big picture result you want to achieve. Then break those goals down into shorter-term goals and the shorter-term goals down to daily actions that you can easily perform to achieve the results you desire over time. It may surprise you what has been discovered is that when you know your Why, it sparks a sense of curiosity and you end up wanting to know more!
Again I emphasise this, take time to think about WHY you want to do the thing(s) you want to do. By doing so, you’re tapping into the emotions centre of your brain and emotions are what drive motivation and your motivation drives behaviour and finally, actions drive motivation. When you know and do this in your life, things will definitely fall in place if and when you Take Action.
2. Take Necessary Action
As already mentioned above, you cannot wait for motivation and expect things to happen! It’s important to remember those who are successful in life are the action takers who avoid over-thinking which can lead to procrastination if not careful. To boost your desire to do the steps necessary to get the desired results, breaking down the main goal into smaller benchmarks to simplify the tasks will help you go far.
We all have voices in our heads that would try to pull us down with negative thoughts telling us many reasons we can’t do things, what we lack and why we’re not good enough, etc., but the truth is if you listen and adhere to that voice, we give it power over us and we end up feeling discouraged.
It is up to us to remind ourselves that it is only by taking necessary action that only then motivation will come and allow us to work towards our desired outcomes. So when you take the time to streamline the actions or tasks that you need to accomplish toward short- and long-term goals, you’ll easily get more done than you realise each day.
Break Everything Down into Chunks
Break down any goal into smaller chunks that enable you to take focused action toward achieving your goals. Once you divide your goals into several steps performed over a few hours, days or even months, it’s easier to plan your schedule and overall calendar to work toward achieving them efficiently.
For example, finishing your novel two hundred words a day for a year is much simpler than trying to author an 80,000-word novel without any plans on when and how you’ll do it.
Avoid Unnecessary Actions
As you plan, you will also notice the things you need to do that you don’t fully understand or know how to do. You’ll learn what you don’t want to do and even stuff that doesn’t need doing. Because of planning, you will avoid unnecessary actions that only take time and make you appear busy while in actual fact killing your productivity. Eventually, you can see the big picture more clearly than if you only looked at the result you want and not what it takes to get to the outcome.
For instance, imagine buying an acre of land full of vegetation and trees on which you plan to build your dream house. If you just look at the acre as is, it will feel overwhelming to imagine building the house but if you step back and just do one thing at a time, it will be easier.
Another example, let’s say your goal is to start a mindfulness meditation coaching business. You’ll make a list of everything you need legally and professionally to run that business. You’ll include what you do for your customers, how you’ll do it when you’ll do it. You’ll also list the resources you’ll use (equipment, contractors, technology, money, and so forth). Finally, after thorough planning, you’ll end up with a list of the exact steps you will take to serve your customers and run your business.
As you see, the more you put into the planning process, the more you can simplify the actions needed to achieve the goal. In addition, you can tell in advance if the plans you have will work, which will help you eliminate unnecessary actions that are just time wasters because planning helps you notice a lack of resources, knowledge, and time so you can mitigate in advance for those problems.
3. Channel Your Energy Into The Right Things
People lack motivation because they expect to feel excited about doing things, including the mundane stuff everyone must do every day. They feel like they work and work and work and never see any results. Therefore, planning is so imperative because it will enable you to put your energy into the right things. Planning, in this case, includes writing your goals or what you want to achieve. This should be done in a way that would give you the benefits of doing what you want to do. The benefits here include answers to your Why you want to do it.
For example, if you know you want to publish your first novel next year, waiting until next year to start will ensure you never make the goal because you may not know what to focus on first. The planning allows you to know in advance all the necessary steps you need to take so you can publish next year. It will enable your ability to focus on the right things like; getting the research, outlining, organising, book cover design and getting the writing on your novel finished without panicking on how you’ll publish it, or something that doesn’t matter yet.
Daily Planning Is Key
To ensure that you focus on the right things each day, look at your schedule the night before, so you know what you’ll need to do upon rising up. If it’s easier, put your written goals visible where you can see them every single day to remind yourself to stay focused. Then, when you get down to work, do the hardest tasks first, eliminate distractions, and practice self-care by eating right, sleeping well, and staying hydrated so that you’re healthy enough to act toward each of your goals every single day.
While planning is something you need to do to accomplish your goals, remember that you can plan all day long forever. But if you don’t take action, none of your plans will come to fruition. So, remember to give yourself planning (goals setting) time limit, set deadlines on acting, then act first on the most impactful tasks, and finally monitor your results so that you can change where needed. Plan, Take Action, Be Motivated and Get Results.
4. Get An Accountability Partner
Finding someone who helps you stay accountable to yourself and others is a wonderful way to ensure that you take action every day toward your goals. Surrounding yourself with folks who don’t shy away from telling you the truth, support you when you struggle and who want similar things in life will help ensure you progress in life and succeed.
Formal or Informal
Accountability partners/buddies can be formal agreements like the ones you might have with a life coach, health coach or mentor. It can also be your closest friends and family members who support you and hold you to a high standard while also cheering for you and providing positive feedback that motivates you to succeed in a planned way. For example, groups like Weight Watchers have so much impact because of the accountability factor involved with going to meetings, getting a weigh-in, celebrating accomplishments, and sharing tips on success.
Shares Your Core Values
Whoever you choose to collaborate with you as an accountability partner needs to be someone who shares your core values and is committed to helping you do the things you need to do to achieve the results you desire.
For example, you may join an investment club devoted to investing in environmentally friendly choices over those that aren’t. In that case, you all share a core value that the environment is more important than earning money. As a result, you’re going to feel good about your investments and therefore be more likely to stick to the plan.
Check-In Daily
Ideally, your accountability partner should be someone you check in with daily, for about five minutes, to be the most effective. It also helps to formally plan out the partnership to ensure there is a real feeling of accountability. Put in writing how you’ll check-in, whether via a quick phone call, social media or some other method. Knowing how it looks and the process in advance will ensure that it all works out for you.
Providing and receiving accountability is one of the main ways movers and shakers get things done. They surround themselves with folks who value the way they live and place importance on similar things. This is not to say differences of thought isn’t a good thing, but when you want to focus on reaching a particular goal being around people who think the way you need to think to achieve the goal is important.
This shared value system is the main reason you’ll find that you all generally earn the same if you average the income of your five closest friends. It’s more than likely you fit right in with that number than otherwise. If you want to earn six figures, network with those who are also earning six figures. If you’re going to become a long-distance runner, join a club with long-distance runners.
5. Its A Journey, Enjoy It
While it’s true most goals result in a big reward when you achieve them, the problem with relying on the outcome is that you may be waiting years to experience them. Motivating yourself for years without any joy in the process is asking for problems because due to human nature, which mostly like immediate gratification, most people can’t do that. It is in the journey that you find inspiration and joy that eventually build the motivation to keep working on what you want.
Understanding how the human mind works will enable you to focus on what you like about your actions, even if you don’t like doing the act itself. For example, exercising 30 minutes a day is much more doable if you find a way to enjoy it. Don’t like sweating at the gym? Then take some regular walks! Or go swimming in an indoor pool instead.
There is always a way to get what you want without suffering. And like they say, if you hate broccoli, you don’t need to eat it because several other vegetables offer the exact same nutritional value!
Enjoy What You Do
When you choose to take steps that lead to your desired results, you can enjoy the entire process, not just the reward at the end. As mentioned before, if you prefer a particular outcome but find out you really dislike doing the tasks that you think you need to do to get there, try looking for another way. For example, you can outsource building that foundation instead of digging it yourself if you really hate digging.
Motivation May Not Be Necessary
When you design your own tasks based on your likes and dislikes instead of what others say you have to do, motivation will not even be something necessary to start with because you’ll automatically want to do it, whatever it is, because you enjoy it or at the very least you enjoy the knowledge that you’re that much closer to reaching your goals. So, for example, if you want to exercise daily for health, finding what you like to do will be much more likely to be successful than trying to make yourself suffer through something you hate just because someone is doing it.
It’s About Mindset and Perspective
When it comes down to it, motivating yourself to be more productive is really about mindset and perspective than doing more. When you have the right attitude, you will focus on doing the right tasks that are the most impactful over mindlessly going through the motions.
For example, if you’re preparing a romantic meal for your wife or partner, prep and clean-up might not be your favourite thing. Still, the reason that you’re doing it will add joy to the tedious tasks that lead up to the reward of watching your partner enjoy the meal you’ve prepared for them and guess what, even if the worst happens and they aren’t able to show up for the meal you prepared at least you enjoyed doing it.
Finally
It is very critical to know and remember that it is by taking the first step, doing the action that only then the results will follow suit. Focusing on the reasons for doing any given task, whether cleaning after your cat, walking a mile a day, starting a small business, or something else entirely, will surpass the need for feeling motivated before you act.
The plain truth is that motivation doesn’t equal action but the other way round! It comes after the action because it’s about the experience of knowing that success is at hand because you took certain steps towards your goals.
Without experiencing success, this concept can be difficult to grasp but when you do finally grasp it, it’ll transform your way of thinking and your entire life along the way. So take the time to set up your day to experience small rewards from completing even the most mundane tasks. Be aware of the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations you have or around you and see what benefits you more and by doing so it will be so fulfilling and enriching to your life.
ASPIRE >>> ACT >>> INSPIRATION >>> MOTIVATION ===> RESULTS
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