I will be honest, I have had struggles when it has come to procrastination in the past and motivating myself, whether it is about talking a leap, finishing something, starting something or even continuing something. For the longest time, I have had so many ideas, I think sometimes too many about what I want to do and a lot of the time, it always became overwhelming and stressful to see how I was going to manage it all. It was very demotivating, especially knowing that it was only really me doing it all. I also struggled even balancing my life, trying to make time for everything, which I haven’t completely mastered yet, but I’m doing a lot better than I was. I somewhat even got into the habit of either do it all, or nothing at all, which to be honest wasn’t always the best when it came to motivating myself. What I also realized was a lot of my resistance and lack of motivation was coming from my limiting beliefs and the issues within myself, which was stopping me from feeling motivated to move forward, of which I will discuss a bit later.
If I am being truthful, for the longest time I was the person who waited until I was motivated to do things and then I heard the saying don’t wait until your motivated, instead start and the motivation will come and that does actually work. However, what I also realized is that although you motivate yourself, even when you’re not by just starting, the more blocks you clear, the more resistance you work through, the more passionate you are about and the stronger your goal is the more likely to be reached - your motivation will come naturally. The more I worked on my beliefs and the reasons why I am doing what I am doing, the more motivated I felt every day even without starting. Begin anyway, even when you’re not motivated; it is a great starting point, but it isn’t the be all and end all of getting yourself motivated, there is a lot more to consider if you are willing to look deeper.
Tip 1 Following what I just said, is to just start even when you’re not motivated and start small.
Don’t wait until you are motivated or inspired, and you will appreciate yourself a lot more.
However, if that is a struggle for you, if you feel like you have a mountain to climb then start anyway, but start small. Break up your tasks into small steps that seem more manageable to you. For example, if it is something like writing a book or exercising then just start off with a time limit for different periods like five minutes a day or five minutes at night and in the morning. Find out what works for your, schedule, and figure out how you want to start. Feel comfortable about it - it will even help you feel a bit more motivated. The key is to start small and build yourself up and then you will find that the motivation will just come naturally and you will not feel overwhelmed.
Tip 2 Become aware of your thoughts and feelings around motivation issues.
Ask yourself
1. Why are you not feeling motivated?
2. What are your thoughts and feelings about starting or continuing something?
3. What is the resistance? What are your fears or negative feelings with starting something?
4. What does motivation mean to you?
5. What are your feelings around motivation? Do you need to shift your feelings around motivation?
6. What situations or circumstances are hindering you from being motivated and how can you shift that?
7. Is your environment helping or hindering you when it comes to motivation?
8. Are your thoughts helping or hindering you when it comes to motivation?
9. What beliefs to do have around motivation and are they all healthy? If not, which beliefs need to be shifted and what do they need to be shifted to?
10. What limiting beliefs are surrounding the things you what to start or continue? Whether that be fears, concerns or past experiences etc.
11. Is what I am wanting motivation for in alignment with what I really want for my soul and myself? If yes, why am I stopping or holding myself back?
Start understanding the resistance you feel and understand the reasons you lack the motivation you wish to have. When you start digging deeper into why, you can start to shift your thinking and do things that can help with the areas that you are struggling with internally. Also, sometimes not being motivated for something is a sign from you soul and body to let you know what is in alignment for you. For example, I have no motivation to become a golf pro because it is not in alignment with my interests, like, desires, or soul. Therefore, if I had to play golf for a whole week, although I could go, start, and motivate myself after if I enjoyed myself, I would still have very little motivation to do so every day, especially if I did go and didn’t enjoy it. Now if the activity was boxing, once starting, I would have a lot more motivation to continue because it is something that is in more alignment with my interests, desires and soul. It is important to identify why your motivation is low and if the things you are doing is in alignment with you in order to help with your motivation.
Another example that I have experienced and struggled with is the motivation to exercise. Although I know that exercising is in more alignment with myself, especially with the person I am becoming, I had to identify why I was struggling with this. What I discovered was that I needed a specific mode of exercise that I would enjoy that was more in alignment with me, my interests and that would bring me joy. Therefore, sometimes it isn’t that something isn’t in alignment with you because you’re not motivated but how you are approaching it and that could make such an impact to your motivation levels. Be willing to look deep and find what it is preventing your motivation and how you can shift the resistance, you are facing. It is really about identifying and seeing the reason you are struggling with motivation before you start identifying whether it is in alignment with you; or whether your approach to the thing you’re doing is in alignment with you. Because if you are already unmotivated, the easy way out would just be to say you’re not in alignment with what you’re doing and give up not wondering what the real reason as to why your motivation is lacking. Also, look less on surface level answers such as you are too tired tired, you have too much to do or you just cannot be bothered. Look deeper, be willing to see, acknowledge, understand and work through your fears, concerns, doubts, frustrations or the avoidant tendencies. Moreover, if you are struggling with this you can go to someone that can help you with this.
Tip 3 Find a new approach or direction that helps you to be more motivated.
Start identifying how you could do things differently, for example although I love reading books because of my rare eye condition, reading tires out my eyes and although I want to read, I tend to procrastinate. Nevertheless, I discovered a new direction, that is if I listened to a book I wanted to read, I would get through it a lot faster, and I would more likely read more and be excited and motivated. Same thing goes when it comes to the approach I gave about exercise and finding the right one for me. Once you are realizing the reasons for why your motivation is lacking, working on looking for different directions and approaches can help what you want to do to be fun and a rewarding learning experience. It can also dramatically change your motivation to learn as well.
Tip 4 How you talk to yourself and how you are treating yourself.
You can be very hard on yourself, especially when you are not doing what you want or are at the stage you want to be. There can be a lot of blame, judgment; self-criticism, pressure and guilt that surfaces, but it is not about making yourself feel worse when these thoughts and feelings come up. It is about showing yourself love, understanding, compassion, acknowledgment and encouragement. For example, say you are procrastinating - instead of judging and feeling guilty for it, give yourself some understanding. Say to yourself: ‘I understand it is hard for you right now to do your work but you know what would be great, no matter how long you have already procrastinated how about you right one line down now or how about you exercise for one minute now’. Continue with, ‘If that is too much for you, tell me why you feel the need to procrastinate. I am here for you, you are safe, and you don’t have to do it all right now. If you don’t want to do anything right now then how about you make a plan that you can follow and start with a date that is more suitable to your schedule’.
It is about having a conversation with yourself and showing yourself love and understanding, instead of saying things like: ‘I can’t believe you haven’t done this yet, we have some much to do, I should I have done this already, look at how much I have left’. No wonder you’re not motivated it you are saying these things to yourself. It doesn’t stop there when you do, do something, celebrate, congratulate yourself, pat yourself on the back and treat yourself with something beneficial to you, no matter how small. Even by simple saying: ‘You are doing a great job’ can lift your spirt and motivate you. How you talk and treat yourself when you fall into patterns, when you’re doing the task you wanted to do, or even in general can dramatically affect the success you can have and the motivation you can have.
Tip 5 Find someone that can keep you accountable or that can support you.
I know when I asked for help, just by someone checking in with me about what I completed at the end of the day, I was more motivated to complete these tasks. However, I do think that you can eventually be the one to be accountable to, you have your own time frame, so in order to avoid any unnecessary stress or pressure from someone else, accept the support by allowing them to check in, but eventually build it up to work on it yourself. Therefore, it is about setting goals and asking someone to check in with you every day or week to see whether you have hit your goal. Also, if you don’t have someone that you can ask, go online there are lots of group support, depending on what you need motivation with that have people who will keep you accountable. You can even create daily and weekly goals for yourself but the more you have someone that will keep you accountable for what you need to do the more motivated you will be to hit the goals you set. It is also important to have someone who is supportive, encouraging and not judgmental or prone to criticize you because you want someone to motivate you not demotivate you.
Tip 6 is to visualize, think and feel
Visualize starting to do something and how that looks and feels to you. Imagine going through the whole process of what you need to do, imagine being done with a task. For example, say you’re going to write for five minutes, imagine going to your desk, opening your laptop or notebook, getting your pen and writing. Think of the topic you want to write about, imagine writing about, visualize all you could write in five minutes, then imagine being done and start feeling how getting done with writing or whatever task you have feels, how good it feels to have completed that. If you need to, do that every time before you start. You can even imagine yourself after a small step and how you would be or feel after everything is done. I know for me when it comes to writing and I am having a hard time feeling inspired to write, I would look online for topics that interested me and do more reading. Once I found the topic I felt passionate about I became so excited to write down my own thoughts about it and the ideas just flowed. Sometimes you can just think about what you want to do and how you’re going to do it and that can motivate you and inspire you. Sometimes you need to visualize it and sometimes you need to feel it. It can depend on you as a person or a situation. For example, I know with some goals I want to complete, such as looking and feeling good, I like to visualize what I will look like if I continue exercising in the long term. Seeing how good it feels within my body really allows the juices of motivation, inspiration and joy to come from doing this tool.
Tip 7 When motivation and inspiration strikes take action!
It is easy to miss an opportunity to do something or take action towards something when you feel motivated, but you don’t act. The majority of the time it is because of circumstances, however, even taking a small action when you are motivated can make such a difference. For example, motivation to exercise - then do a few exercises in that moment, or if it is an idea or a thought about a project comes up in your mind - then write it down straight away. Everyone can take a couple of minutes when inspiration and motivation strikes but it is about what you are going to do about it when it does for you that matters. Choose to take the opportunity and make it count; you will thank yourself later!
All these tools have made such a dramatic difference to my own motivation levels and journey to achieving my goals and pursuits and I hope that they can do the same for you and inspire you to work on your motivation in different ways. I hope this blog has helped you and until next time - you are not alone!
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Question of the day: Will you choose motivation or procrastination?
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PS: I am genuinely grateful for every single one of you reading this and am sending unconditional love your way!
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