Have You Hit Pause? How to Find More Motivation in Life
The truth is, we all get off track sometimes. We may even feel like we’ve stalled out.
Sometimes it’s easy to identify the culprit at the wheel where we took a detour. Maybe it’s seasonal, with summer sunshine and fun-time calling out for you to play. Other times it’s sneakier and more deceptive, providing no rhyme or reason to its appearance irritating the living shit out of you nonetheless and causing you unnecessary derailment.
When this happens, there are a few simple strategies you can use to push through the pain and past the resistance and plant your feet firmly into disciplined mode to do the things you need to be doing.
Create Success Triggers
This really just means to take actions that help minimize your resistance to doing those things you don’t want to do in the first place. It’s like clearing the path and eliminating excuses ahead of time. Planned obsolescence if you will.
These will vary depending on what your goals are and what your resistance is. For example, if one of your goals is to eat healthier by cooking more meals at home versus getting takeout at dinner, one of your progress generators could be creating a meal plan for the week every Sunday and buying all the groceries you’ll need in advance. You’ll never find yourself at a loss for what to make for dinner or not have enough food in the house. You’ll help eliminate the temptation to cheat and go out for dinner.
Success prompts don’t have to be complicated. They can be as simple as only keeping your budgeted expenditure amount for the week in cash in your wallet, and removing all your credit cards so you prevent going over budget with unplanned impulse buys.
Set a Timer
When resistance creeps up around something you don’t enjoy doing but know you have to, say exercising, another strategy is to set a timer to give yourself an allotted amount of time to get ‘er done.
The amount of time is irrelevant - 10, 20 or 30 minutes - but when you’re fighting in your head repeating over and over to yourself that you don’t feel like exercising, setting a timer will allow you to reframe those words into something more along the lines of “I can do anything for 20 minutes. It’s only 20 minutes!”.
Of course this technique can apply to anything - writing a chapter of your book, batching content for your web-based business, cleaning out your closet. Set a timer and get to work for the allotted time, no exceptions. You’ll likely find that when the timer goes off, you’re in such a groove you’ll want to keep going.
Create Accountability
Nothing helps you push past resistance like being accountable to someone else for your actions. Personally, I need external accountability to motivate myself to exercise so I sign up and pay for a class or arrange to walk with someone else. Having the accountability of either a) money coming out of my wallet or b) someone waiting for me at the corner is always enough to kick start my motivation to get out there and just do it.
Challenge yourself. Ask a friend, your spouse, a co-worker or even your child to hold you accountable to your goal or help you push past whatever resistance you may be feeling. Sweeten the pot with some sort of “punishment” if you feel that it will give you extra motivation to achieve. For example, offer to pay them $100 if you don’t follow through. Remember, this has to hurt a bit. Simply handing over a dollar isn’t going to give you the push you need but when it’s $100 coming out of your pocket, you’re more likely to follow through.
This doesn’t have to be a financial transaction to work either. An accountability payout could be in the form of you losing your Netflix privileges at night, or your morning coffee. The point is to step outside of your comfort zone and kick it where it hurts. You’ll guarantee yourself success.
Make an Investment in Yourself
We value what we pay for. Similar to the example above in “paying” someone to hold us accountable, investing hard earned money in ourselves is more likely to result in us taking our goals seriously enough to actually achieve them.
When you make a significant monetary investment in yourself, you’re telling yourself and your subconscious that this is something you really want to do and something you really believe in. And that makes you more likely to follow through.
Depending on your ultimate goal, this could look like hiring a business coach or virtual assistant to help you systematize your business allowing you to spend more time on growing it. Or it could be hiring a personal trainer to help you meet your fitness goals. Maybe it’s hiring a wellness coach so you can finally start feeling better in your body.
Investing in yourself is the way to take it seriously and a way to push beyond just having an idea to having something that you need to follow through on because you’ve already paid for it.
If you think you can’t afford it, try asking yourself if you can afford not to.
Celebrate Your Accomplishments
We tend to be most hard on ourselves - in the ways we fall short or don’t push past resistance. That seems to come easily to most of us. But we often forget to give ourselves credit for the times we manage to do the hard things.
It’s only when we begin to recognize even the smallest of accomplishments that we work up the confidence to truly grow and meet our bigger goals. The more you celebrate doing something difficult, the easier it becomes to do it again.
It’s simply muscle memory. Your subconscious remembers that you’re capable of doing hard things and becomes less resistant the next time. Celebrate every time, even the smallest of successes!
In closing, shift your perspective into believing that your goals are for you - your success, your inner being, your personal growth. Be in charge of life happening for you as opposed to you. Use the tools above to help you find a reframe to your mindset and shift your focus aways from procrastination fully into sweet motivation.
