How to motivate yourself? First what is motivation? The general desire or willingness of someone to do something. So, the goal is to actually find the desire or be willing to do something. I guess to be willing, there has to be some level of desire. What is desire? A strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen. So, how to motivate yourself? You have to want something strongly! Strongly being the key word, not just in thought, as they say wishful thinking, not just because you think it is the thing to do at the time, no you have to want something, really want something strongly, with power and strength. How to determine if you really want something? When the thought of something continuously moves around in your head. No matter what else is going on in your life, the thought of this one thing never goes away. There is nothing else that you would rather do. Even when after careful thought, and the struggle to obtain the goal is present in your mind and common sense tells you “Don’t do it”! This one thing is still there present in your thoughts, in my opinion, that is desire. The desire to make you willing to do something, that’s motivation.
For the purpose of this article, I’ll assume that you have the desire, but lack the motivation. So back to the original question, I have the desire but, how to motivate yourself? Let’s look at some examples…let’s say you are trying to motivate yourself to paint your house. Great example because I need to paint my house! So, what could give me the desire to want to willingly go to the hardware, after willingly figuring out what color I want to paint. Get all the supply’s, willingly tape off the areas I don’t want to paint, move furniture out of the way of the paint, willingly, and get to painting? First off, not thinking about all of the above steps might be a good place to start, because after going through all of what I don’t want to do, I have talked myself out of the task altogether. Secondly, imagine the end result of how good the finish result will look, how good the room will make me feel relaxing in the room! Imagine all the other things I can do, add a new rug, or a new lamp! Or you want to start a new business…don’t focus on all the things that could stop you. Yes, be realistic in your plans and how you approach the resources you have available to you. But don’t fret over every little detail. If the desire is there, once the motivation is there then you will find a way!
Simple steps to help find the motivation to achieve the desired result:
- Identify what the reason is for the lack of motivation: Is it that you are afraid of failure? You’ve tried something in the past that did not work, or maybe you tried to do the thing that you desire the most before and it did not work then so the logical conclusion is that it will not work now. Or maybe you lack resources to see your vision to the end. You have to do some soul searching and be honest with yourself and find out the root cause for your lack of motivation.
- How to address the reason once we determine it: Once I determined that fear of not being able to grow the business is the reason, I wasn’t motivated to start the business, I can now take steps to do something towards motivating myself. Ask yourself simple questions; if I never start, how will I ever know if I have what it takes to make it grow? Am I really ok with not trying to see what I can accomplish, ok with what if, ok with always wondering…would’ve could’ve should’ve? The real question is, am I ok with this thought consuming my every moment and not taking a leap of faith and seeing where desire leads me? That’s the real question, if it doesn’t matter, then it doesn’t matter. But if it does matter, then get started. Stop making excuses, get up and get started. Create a plan. If desire is leading you towards a business, then you need a business plan. If desire is leading you towards a health goal, then you need a health goal plan. If desire is leading you to paint the house, then you need a plan for painting the house. Now implement the plan. Set a small reachable goal, something that you know you can check off your to do list. Something that doesn’t cost any money, something you can do all by yourself. Set that goal then celebrate achieving that goal. Then set another goal and celebrate accomplishing that goal. Then set another and another and you will end up somewhere on your journey led by desire. Small goals grow into bigger goals and larger celebrations of accomplishing those goals.
- Find a like-minded community: Finding people that are into the same things that moves you can be a community of people who understand and relates to you. This community can also serve as a support group if needed or a networking community if needed. Like-minded people tend to motivate one another in their shared desires, someone can help you with how to motivate yourself!
- Have fun! Whatever it is you do, if it’s driven by desire, make sure to enjoy doing. Try to never let it become a burden. Even when it gets difficult and you want to quit, remember the reason, remember the passion driving the desire, remember that if you quit the thought of trying again is only going to swirl around in your head until you get up and start and again. So, smile and be grateful the desire for something was put in you, it’s who you are, let that be your motivation!
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” -Malala Yousafzai
“If you can’t yet do great things, do small things in a great way.” -Napoleon Hill
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