From time to time, each of us inevitably faces certain difficulties in life. All of them are connected with different areas of our lives: work, business, family, friends, finances, etc. But there are situations when difficulties relate not to something external, but specifically to ourselves and our internal state. The biggest problem of all the problems that affects a person most strongly is internal imbalance. One of the manifestations of this imbalance is the lack of desire to take any action, develop and achieve goals. In other words, it is a lack of motivation. And if you can sometimes influence someone else with enviable ease, then it can be very, very difficult to effectively influence yourself. In this article we will talk about practical ways of self-motivation, putting into practice that any person can rekindle within himself the unbridled desire to move forward with his head held high.
We also invite you to our online program “Self-Knowledge”, where, with the help of psychological tests and exercises, you will find out what you really want in life and understand your strengths and weaknesses.
Without long introductions, let's get straight to the point.
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The first method: leave aside everything unnecessary
You must learn to ignore everything that distracts you from achieving your goals and pushes you off your intended path. Developing this skill is not that difficult, but the results you get from using it can be amazing. Take some free time to think about what your plans for life are. Think about what tasks you have set at the moment and realize whether you need absolutely all of them. Surely, you can find something that does not require your effort and that you can simply throw aside. It happens that some aspirations are imposed on us by society, advertising, even parents. If you really want something, keep only this for yourself and forget about the rest. Anything unnecessary is a psychological burden that prevents you from using your full potential to achieve what you really need. The energy released as a result of ignoring everything unnecessary will constantly fuel you and increase your personal productivity.
Highlight intermediate stages
If the program is large-scale and its implementation requires a significant period of time, then it is advisable to differentiate it into several intermediate stages (blocks). This gradation will simplify the process of summing up and allow you to analyze the effectiveness of the system. In addition, this will reduce the level of stress in case of difficulties or failure to achieve any of the stages.
Results and benefits of planning
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Method two: Keep a “Success Journal”
A success journal is a very effective tool for motivating yourself. It is a kind of diary in which you must record all your achievements. Even the smallest ones. This could be a successful acquaintance that occurred on your initiative, praise from your boss for a well-prepared report, an increase in income, getting rid of a bad habit, etc. It is advisable to keep this diary every day, because every day is filled with many events, among which there will certainly be good ones. The more you write down, the more success you will have in your journal. Scroll through and read it in the morning and evening, and whenever you are in a bad mood and feel low energy, loss of motivation, or feel like you are standing still and not making progress. Visually displaying all your successes and achievements will give you a new positive charge and strength to continue to act.
Examples of positive and negative motivation
Positive motivation is built on similarly positive, correct incentives, and negative motivation, accordingly, on negative ones. A simple example can be given. When a child is told: “if he studies well, they will buy him a new computer,” his thinking is set in a positive way and he is encouraged to try harder in his studies. When the condition sounds like this: “if you complete your homework, you will not be punished,” the stimulus is the fear of experiencing pain. The attitude is fundamentally negative, although often effective.
The third way: work in a suitable environment
At first glance, this may seem naive, but in fact, the environment around us has a very strong influence on our mood and our motivation. Where you work doesn't matter. But if your workplace is in disarray, dusty, everything is not the way you like it, or the environment generally irritates you, be sure to correct this state of affairs. You should work in an atmosphere that suits you, gives you positive emotions, where you feel comfortable and comfortable. Clean up, arrange everything the way you like, use your creativity: hang a couple of pictures that inspire you, stick on stickers with motivational messages, put a book next to you that you like to read, turn on your favorite music. “Your” environment will have a beneficial effect on you and contribute to productive work, because you will enjoy being in it.
Play sports
Need to move more. Exercising on exercise machines, jogging in the morning, swimming in the pool - these forms of physical activity should become a habit. Giving up a sedentary lifestyle helps produce endorphins, which provide a good mood for the whole day.
Walking in the fresh air has a beneficial effect on the thinking process, as brain cells are enriched with oxygen. A long stay in a stuffy office provokes fatigue and drowsiness, which negatively affects productivity at work.
Play sports
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Method four: set clear goals
Setting goals has an extremely motivating effect on a person. First, when you practice goal setting, you automatically start thinking about exactly the things that motivate you. Secondly, when setting goals, you think about the time frame for achieving each of them, which already brings their achievement closer and serves as an additional motivator. Thirdly, when you think about your goals and their achievement, you unconsciously think through various options for their implementation. It’s not for nothing that they say that thoughts are material. The energy impulses of your thoughts will attract more and more new events into your life, which, quite likely, will open for you, figuratively speaking, those doors that were previously closed. For effective goal setting today, there are a considerable number of effective methods. You can familiarize yourself with some of them here and here.
Social support
Social support can increase motivation:
- Use social support. The mere presence of people increases motivation, multiplying what you do. Additionally, others may have expectations for your performance (although in rare cases the expectations may be too high, reducing motivation), provide resources, join you, and serve as role models.
- Achieving group goals. When achieving group goals, make contributions public, increase member identification, and inspire them with your contributions.
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Fifth method: use motivating materials
This method is one of the most motivating. It lies in the fact that you systematically (for example, half an hour or an hour a day) get acquainted with the success stories of different people. And you can find a great many such stories. Watch feature films and documentaries that talk about how someone achieved success. Read books and articles, listen to motivating audio recordings. Thanks to the Internet, today you can find an incredible amount of a wide variety of motivating materials on almost any topic. By practicing this method regularly, you will be able to provide yourself with a constant flow of only the information you need, which will charge you with creative energy, change the direction of your thinking towards achieving success and motivate you. In addition, success stories of different people are clear examples of the fact that any person can achieve the most amazing results.
Other engines
Many people tend to complain about the lack of this very motivation, energy, and will to live. Some people sometimes find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes in such situations, the effective solution may not be motivation at all.
Although it is certainly one of the most important behavioral drivers, it is far from the only one. Sometimes the solution to the question: “Where do I get energy?” - is not a search for 100 ways to self-motivate, but setting a mission or developing habits that a person did not have before.
Sometimes, instead of looking for the cherished motivation, you need to remove certain internal barriers that do not allow you to move on, to eradicate self-pity. And sometimes simple rest is the most effective solution.
Sixth method: perform different tasks
Thanks to various psychological studies, it is already known for certain that constant work on one project tends to tire and become boring. If you do only one thing for a long time, then the state of fatigue sets in much faster than in situations where you do different things. If you feel that you are starting to get tired of what you are doing, stop, switch your attention to something else, do some small but unrelated task, or just rest. Take a break and take a break. After some time, your strength will be restored, and you will be able to do what you were doing with new strength and renewed motivation.
Concentrate on the main thing
You need to abstract yourself from everything that prevents you from moving towards new horizons in life. It is quite possible to adhere to this principle, and if you do not neglect it, you can achieve successful results. Initially, you should answer the question: “What do you want to achieve in this life”? It would be a good idea to analyze what goals were set in the past and whether all of them correspond to new priorities. It is possible that some values will not be relevant. It is also possible that one or more goals are imaginary, because they were adopted under the influence of external factors or other people’s opinions (advertising, media, friends, parents). Only those priorities that are dictated by personal desire are important. The rest should be classified as unnecessary (artificial, illusory), since it makes no sense to spend resources on implementing plans that have lost relevance. After analyzing life priorities, additional energy appears to achieve updated goals.
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The seventh method: rejoice in defeat
It sounds a little strange, but this is how you need to act. Defeats and failures should be rejoiced, not grieved over them. The fact is that absolutely all successes, achievements, failures and defeats are the result of our actions. As they say, you need to learn from mistakes. Therefore, treat defeats as teachers. This is precisely the litmus test that will show how competently and effectively we act. If something is wrong, we need to reconsider our plan of action and think over a new strategy. Thomas Edison, inventing the light bulb, constantly failed. When they asked him why he didn’t stop after he failed a thousand times, he answered that, having suffered a thousand defeats, he learned a thousand ways to make a light bulb. Adhere to this position in your activities.
How is motivation different from self-motivation?
Motivation in most cases involves external influence. This could be an illustrative example of other people, instructions from management, or any other factors that require a person to match the circumstances. It is optimal when it is not too intrusive and involves receiving a reward. So, if the bosses demand to do more work in less time, and without additional payment, this situation will be unprofitable for the employee. At first, it may continue to work by inertia, but this is not a fact. Therefore, such an unfair strategy is doomed to failure. However, even here there are exceptions. When a person truly loves his job, he is interested in further development and professional achievements are not on the same level as financial gain, we talk about self-motivation. It differs from the motivation described above in that a person independently strives for perfection, despite the accompanying external factors. Personal growth is important to him, not benefit or praise from superiors. There is no need for additional incentives and control, even in difficult situations.
Eighth way: communicate with the best
Believe me, this method can dramatically change your whole life for the better. In order to become better, you need to communicate with people who are better than you in some ways. In order to achieve high results, you need to communicate with people whose results are better than yours. This will inevitably lead you to personal growth and conquering new heights. But, besides this, you need to strive to communicate not only with the best, but also with positively minded people. The fact is that there is such a category of people as negative people. They are always complaining about something, constantly whining about problems, judging other people and being skeptical about any success. Communication with them is an anchor that pulls you to the bottom. It sounds tough, but it’s worth “filtering” your social circle and trying to interact with negative people to a minimum. Meet those who are positive, who are motivated, enjoy life, smile and joke, no matter what. After some time, you will be very surprised that the quality of your life has improved, and you yourself have become a more cheerful and happy person.
Ignore the excess
At times, it may feel like those around you are deliberately derailing the path that leads to achieving your goal, making it longer. External factors are also not always favorable to working on a project. Constant calls, illness, repairs at a neighbor's house, computer problems - these are just a few factors that can distract you from achieving your goal. But they should be treated as a given, which should not be paid attention to. Maximum efforts should be concentrated on achieving the desired result.
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Ninth way: understand that fear is normal
Many people have big goals and plans for life, but never achieve anything. Fear hinders them. He fetters all their thoughts and movements, like little rabbits who saw a wolf. Understand that it is normal to feel fear. The only difference is that for some fear is a reason to fold their arms and do nothing, while for others it is an incentive to grow, develop and achieve success. Go forward even if you are afraid of failure. This is the only way you can test your strength and find out what you are capable of. It's better to try something and find out whether it worked out for you or not, than to hesitate and never find out. Make your fear your ally, which will always motivate you to take action. Naturally, you shouldn’t rush into the pool headlong - always maintain sobriety and composure.
Read biographies
An effective way to increase self-esteem is to communicate with successful people and constantly analyze the biographies of those who were able to achieve the most ambitious goals. You can learn a lot of useful and interesting things from the lives of politicians, businessmen, and show business stars who managed to reach unprecedented heights in their careers or professional activities. The habit of learning something new about celebrities who have taken place in the profession will become an additional source of motivation. The desire to imitate successful people will bring you closer and speed up the process of achieving your goals.
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Tenth way: develop your inner world
The desire to develop their inner world is common to most successful people. Try to keep your inner world clean and protect it from the invasion of any negative factors that destroy it and have a destructive effect. The consequence of such “hygiene” will be a free flow of thoughts, a sense of harmony, the development of intuition, inner lightness and even better physical condition and well-being. And as the most effective methods for protecting your inner world from destruction and developing it, we can recommend practices such as meditation, reading mantras, mindfulness practice, etc.
And finally, one more effective recommendation : always remember that time tends to pass and life passes. And it’s up to you how you live it: will you remain among those who failed to grow themselves, letting your whole life take its course, forgetting about your goals and betraying your dreams, or will you pull yourself together and make yourself the way you want and will be able to achieve what you want more than anything in the world! Think about the fact that you will always have the opportunity to throw up your hands and head, cry and become a slave to circumstances. But only today and only now can you decide to become a winner - a winner over your fears, your insecurities, your bad habits and, ultimately, over yourself!
Dear readers, leave your comments and share your opinions. Which of the above methods did you find most effective? What else can you recommend to people who want to increase their motivation and learn to be in a state of psychological readiness to take action more often?
We also recommend reading:
- Storytelling
- How to Develop Long-Term Focus
- How to get to know yourself better?
- How to plan for the year ahead
- How to sleep and relax more
- How to develop self-control and self-discipline
- Ways to get rid of morning stress
- Stress Diary
- How to learn to motivate yourself
- What you can do with a notepad
- Personal Effectiveness with the Why Habit
Key words:1Self-knowledge
The Importance of Skill Development
Self-motivation as the art of motivating oneself has an inextricable connection with beliefs, life aspirations, desires and almost everything that is important to an individual. All this can just push you to take certain actions.
Self-motivation is what sometimes allows you to achieve results that a person could previously only dream of. Having the ability to motivate yourself is one of the many factors that separates those who achieve success from those who simply go with the flow.
Developing self-motivation is necessary because no one is born motivated. A motivated person is able to rise above circumstances, because he shows less self-pity and, accordingly, is able to get up early in the morning and do more things in the most effective way.
Non-stop forward movement
Methods of self-motivation mainly consist of correctly managing the forms of “preferred”, “important” and “needed right now”. Self-mobilization reaches an optimal level when at least two forms change into “I can.”
A person is able to show the best of all possible results when all three forms change. This happens, as a rule, when a person’s occupation is the work of his whole life.
In such a situation, a person maintains his level of motivation even at the end of his strength and when significant obstacles arise.
Using Reframing
A special exercise that allows you to see something from a different angle that was previously inaccessible to perception is called reframing. An example is the situation with a glass of water, which for a person with a pessimistic attitude seems half empty, and for an optimist - half full.
Having an idea of a person’s attitude (optimistic or pessimistic), it is more than likely to predict his actions in a given situation. While an optimist strives for something, a pessimist's habitual action is avoidance.
Managers are able to influence their employee to develop a more positive perception of the surrounding reality, as well as contribute to the development of the skill of understanding the other side of what is happening. And all this is achieved with the help of reframing, the construction of which is carried out according to the following principles:
- Constructing more optimistic interpretations of what is happening while only the negative side is visible to the naked eye.
- Finding personal advantages for an individual in a given situation.
- Making favorable comparisons.
- A game of contrasts.
With all these principles, the use of reframing does not allow lying or substitution of facts. All characteristics of the other side of what is happening must actually take place in reality.
Although some managers prefer to conduct training sessions for their employees along the lines of “33 Ways to Self-Motivate,” sometimes it makes sense to simply demonstrate reframing to your subordinates and show how useful it is in relation to self-motivation, because this technique has repeatedly proven its effectiveness.
Build up endorphins
A hormone called “endorphin” is considered by many to be a kind of drug, since with the release of this hormone in the body comes bliss. Physical activity can lead to such a release. A light walk, a short jog or even the most ordinary exercise will do.
At the same time, at times it is simply necessary to relax to replenish your strength. Comedies, funny stories, jokes and anecdotes will relieve tension and allow you to discard unnecessary seriousness. Humor is one of the best cures for stress.
You don't want to take on an unbearable burden by trying to complete a bunch of different tasks without stopping. Overworking can destroy your self-motivation and lead to severe exhaustion.
Instead of trying to do everything at once, it is wise to take some time between tasks to recuperate. Attempting to accomplish something huge at once threatens with a decrease in quality and unnecessary nerves.
Time factor
Gary Vaynerchuk, a Belarusian immigrant, now a businessman who has achieved incredible success in America, once uttered the most motivating words of his life:
One day I will die.
These seemingly depressing thoughts pushed him to live every day as if it were his last.
The time factor creates three forms of self-motivation, these are:
- Low. When a person simply prefers an activity. Emotions in this form are not enough for an individual to mobilize himself “right here and now.”
- Average. This form appears when an important but not urgent task comes up.
- High. Here the stimulus of emotions is at such a level when the individual has practically no choice but to do it right now.
We can conclude that the time factor has a significant impact on what priority is given to certain tasks.
