Motivation: How To Get It And How To Keep It

Are you struggling to get the motivation to start on a goal or make a change? Maybe you had the motivation and its slowly slipping away. Often when you are doing something for yourself or doing something alone, finding and keeping motivation can be one of the biggest challenges.

After lockdown and the birth of my second child, I wanted to get fit, be healthier and lose weight. I followed my own Self Coaching Model and I made a strong start but after month 2 my motivation started to dip and there was no one to turn to. This can be the challenge with going it alone, so I did a little research on motivation and how to maintain it. Here's 3 tips for getting motivation and 3 tips for keeping it that I found really useful.

Getting It

Understand your purpose

What are you going to do and why? Set a specific goal that aligns to your purpose and visualise how your life will be better once you have achieved this goal? Write it down somewhere and make it is detailed as possible.

Autonomy

Believe that you have the power to direct your own life. Sure, we must deal with external factors, such as pandemics and state of the world around us but accept what you can’t control and focus on what you can control. Once you believe you are directing your own life the possibilities are exciting.

Method of Tracking your Progress

Break down the big goal into smaller steps, set mini challenges to complete, track and confirm your continuous progress, work in rewards to celebrate the wins along the way.

Keeping It

Revisit Purpose and Autonomy,

Remind yourself why you set out to achieve this goal, read back over what you initially wrote, visualise the result and believe you can get yourself there.

Enjoy the Journey.

If you lost motivation because you are not enjoying the actions you have to do to get there, change it up. Find a new way of doing things that is more appealing or more aligned to your nature. Failing that, change your mindset, focus on the positives instead of negatives.

Take it one Action at a Time

If you are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the full picture, it can drain your motivation. Break it down to smaller tasks and just focus on doing the next task, then the next. Consistently crossing the smaller tasks off the list will help calm the sense of overwhelm and get your motivation back on track for the bigger goal.

These tips (along with some positive and motivational podcasts) have helped me get back on track of my health and fitness goals. When my body was tired and craving sugar or when life got in the way of exercise, bad habits crept back and the motivation was gone, it was a struggle to pull it back. In order to achieve your goal you need to believe in it, believe in yourself and understand how you will benefit from it. You also need to enjoy and get satisfaction from the ride.