Everyone in the world loses motivation at times throughout their lives. The degree to which we lose motivation and for how long varies from person to person and our different situations.
Even though it can be discouraging when we lose our motivation, there are steps you can take to bring about change and get yourself motivated again.
There are all kinds of strategies out there for helping to build or rebuild your motivation. I am going to share several of them with you today to help get you started.
1) Give Yourself A Goal. Just One
We all have busy lives. We try to accomplish so much with the short days that we have. Sometimes we are pulled in so many different directions that we don’t even know what’s going on.
When we have multiple things that we are working on at the same time we can easily become burned out. The progress of all our goals slows to a grinding halt and we aren’t getting anywhere.
The best thing you can do is to focus on just one of your goals at a time. Pick one and focus only on that until either it is completed or you get to a stage where you can or need to take a break for a while.
2) Look For Your Inspiration
We all have things that inspire us to do different things in life. It may be a celebrity, a book, a family member, a friend, or any number of different things.
Do some research on success stories for what you are trying to achieve. This could be articles, magazines, YuoTube videos, etc.
Reading those stories can help us to remember that what we want is achievable because it has been done before. At the same time, you may find some new ideas or a different way of approaching whatever it is you’re wanting to do, and that can bring all kinds of motivation.
3) Make A Public Commitment
When we are only held accountable to ourselves, it becomes much easier to put things off that we know we should be doing. After all, no one knows what we are doing but us, so there’s no accountability and all kinds of reasons we give ourselves to put things off.
You can go big or go small, the choice is yours just make that commitment and give yourself that accountability.
You can tell one or a few family members or friends, make a post on Facebook to everyone, or post on Twitter.
If you want to take it a step further ask someone, or several people, to check in with you to see how you are doing with whatever it is you want to accomplish.
This way you know that someone is going to be checking in with you so your excuses will be limited and you will likely hold yourself to a higher accountability.
4) Don’t Go At It Alone
Build a support network for yourself. It doesn’t have to be large, but be sure to make it with people you know will support you and help you to accomplish your goals.
Doing things alone can be very tough. There are some people who can get more done by themselves, but the majority of people need others.
That could be to bounce ideas off of, give encouragement when it’s needed, give suggestions, and so on.
Choose the people in your support network based on your needs. You know the people around you and who would be better suited to help you with certain tasks or goals.
5) Understand That Motivation Goes Up and Down
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are always going to be motivated all the time for everything you do. There are so many things in life that can happen unexpectedly that change our motivation, driving it up and down.
When you understand that there will be times that your motivation decreases or goes away altogether, it won’t be a surprise to you when this happens and won’t add a letdown to your already dwindling motivation.
6) Don’t Give Up
When the motivation to do something fades, don’t decide that you just can’t do it and give up.
Remind yourself that the motivation will come back, whether that is in a couple of days, a week, or a month. There may be times that you temporarily have to put things on hold and that’s ok.
Just don’t throw in the towel thinking that you’ll never get the motivation back to continue. It will come back in time and with some effort from yourself.
7) Focus On The Benefits
As humans, we often tend to focus on the negative much easier than we do on the positives.
Don’t let yourself get stuck in the cycle of thought about how difficult it is to do what you’re trying to do, why you shouldn’t continue to try, that it’s pointless, etc.
Focus on what the benefits will be for completing the task or tasks that you’ve set for yourself. How you’re going to feel during the task and after the completion of it.
When we know what the benefits are going to be and how it’s going to make us feel it becomes much easier to dive into a task. We want those benefits, sometimes we crave them, and that can pump up the motivation to complete your task.
If you have to, make a list of all the positives and keep it close by. Whenever you find yourself thinking the negative thoughts, pull out that list and read it off to yourself to remind yourself of the positives.