Now that summer is here, I figure we could all use a little dose of self motivation. It’s not always easy to be motivated to get your work done, even I as a long time entrepeneur sometimes tend to get either bored or lack self motivation to get my own work done.
So I figured, I’d share some ways to increase and grow our self motivation.
While self-motivation is a simple concept, we all know that it’s one of the hardest things to attain. Despite purely good intentions, most of us are better at slacking off than getting motivated. But, no matter what your attention span it is possible for you to motivate yourself and reach your goals; you just need to follow a few simple steps.
Know what you’re doing
A to-do list is nice to have to help you get things done, but it doesn’t do much to help you stay motivated. Before you can make your to-do list, you need to set goals and priorities. They may be short term like “finish this project to attain more work†or more general like “increase workload to attain promotionâ€. If you give yourself a goal or vision to work for, you’re going to be more motivated to finish things than if you’re simply completing tasks.
Stay positive
A positive attitude can go a long way. People have probably told you this over and over, but you’re still not inclined to believe it. Take a little extra time each day to remind yourself of your accomplishments. It is also a good idea to try to surround yourself with positive and encouraging people. If you don’t have any at work, find positive and encouraging statements from successful people and post them around your office.
Set mini-goals
Finishing a project can be a daunting task. If it’s a large amount of work, you’re likely to look at it, get overwhelmed, and give up or put it off before you even get started. An easier way to accomplish a project is to break it up into smaller tasks. This way you’ll be looking at a bunch of small goals instead of one great big one. While it’s the same amount of work, it helps to keep you from getting overwhelmed. Plus, each time you accomplish one of your tasks, you’ll feel successful and motivated to keep trekking on through the rest.
Reward yourself
To help keep yourself going, set up rewards for each task you complete. They don’t have to be anything big; they could be going to see a movie over the weekend or spending 15 minutes on the phone with a friend you haven’t talked to in a while. It’s just something positive to help encourage you. You can also set small rewards for your mini goals and have a large reward for when you finish a large project.
Have a backup
While we may have the best of intentions, most of us really aren’t that good at sticking with our self-motivating methods. If this seems like you, you may be in need of some backup. This is a friend, co-worker, or associate – anyone who is dependable and trustworthy. Let them know what your goals are (and even your rewards) and set up a plan for them to check up on you.
It could be as simple as giving you a call to see how much you’ve gotten done, or maybe have them be the keeper of some reward and administer it when you reach your goal. This way, if your resolution wavers, you’ll have someone else there to help out.
The first two are big on my list Vera. You might also add, Tell someone. This one may spur you on for fear of looking stupid having to explain why you didn’t follow thru. You don’t need to give your buddy more ammo to denigrate your good name:)
Vera, you wrote: “A to-do list is nice to have to help you get things done, but it doesn’t do much to help you stay motivated.”
I fully agree with this. One thing to add here is that mainaining these lists on a day-to-day basis is also time consuming and tiresome. I tried this at a too detailed level some years ago and now I only maitain a very crude list.
OTOH, if I have a big project running, I create big, very detailed plans with begin and target dates, status flags etc.
Regarding “Reward yourself”, I only say one word: Chocolate!
My motivation comes from seeing my list get smaller as I cross things off and knowing that I’ve almost completed my entire goal.
I like the “Reward yourself” point, it gives me the motivation to go forward. Thanks for this good article.
I agree that a to-do list is very important, but doesn’t do much to keep you motivated. It will help you set out your goals, but you need to remain positive in order to accomplish these tasks. This post nails the fact that you need to consistently remind yourself of your accomplishments and reward yourself in order to stay motivated. Positivity is number one!
Vera, I agree many of these are important points in staying motivated…
I also think that something as simple as sending an email about what you did to an accountability partner is a good idea
Rank your to do list with most important and least important task.
Set blocks of time out for working on each task
Add daily, weekly, monthly… goals
Ed – good point, having that could help too.
Sprachreisen – I have my monthly items that need to get done each month and then flesh out the details prior to each month. Oh yes, chocolate is a good thing!
Ber2 – Awesome. 🙂
Ryan – I often outsource tasks I don’t like as well.
J – I like the blocks of time, I usually try to work like that but it doesn’t always work out for me.
You’re absolutely right about staying positive. You have to feel good about what you’re doing. That’s why I always start off my day with something that I know can I accomplish and not leave hanging – something like writing an article.
I find by doing this I’m anchored into writing even more or accomplishing more throughout the day. But if I do something that wastes time and feel bad, it sets a bad precedent that I can’t list myself out of.
Thanks for this good article. I think it gives me the motivation to go forward.
If you are not properly motivated enough to run your business, it seems like financial ruin might be a good motivator. Maybe you are bored with your business because it has not grown as much as you had hoped. Perhaps you could sell it and move on to something else. Like the poster above suggested, work for someone else perhaps. Maybe you just need a little forced structure in your life.
Thanks for sharing the steps. I’m sure it really helps.. Very nice post!
Self motivation is known as the most important factor in your life. Self motivation plays an important role in enhancing your self esteem. It provides a new sense of purpose and direction to your life. You can empower and encourage yourself to face tough times and competition in life with the help of self motivation.
From those 5 ways for increase and grow our self motivation, the best way for me is “make a tiny goal”, just by dividing the big goal into several tin goal, it makes me feel so easy to reach the big goal.
I enjoyed reading your self motivation tips. Related to the mini-goals, when trying to work on a particularly difficult project I focus on working for a specific period of time (like 30 minutes) rather than completing a specific task. This way I still gain the feeling of accomplishment in completing something even if the overall project is not yet finished.
All of those are great ways to stay motivated. Part of being a successful speaker for me means having a list of key points I want to hit to help me stay on topic and get my thougths across well. And I make sure to reward myself after I do a good presentation. Though truthfully, nothing makes me feel better and get me more motivated then when I get laughs during my talks. I like to see people having fun while they learn something. Great post!
Hi Vera,
Good post about self motivation. Well, I think the first thing to grow our self-motivation is make sure we have an environment that is conducive. I mean a very comfortable environment.
Then, ask ourself: “How much better would I feel and would my attitude change if I worked in a place that I actually liked to spend time in?”
The moment you sort out your work environment and make it comfortable for yourself and content with your needs, you’ll instantly take action, find the motivation to get started and follow through.
Stay positive and set up mini goals are very difficult to me because for some period of time I can stay as positive but when anything is not to happen then I lost my positiveness and point is that I manage my whole work at the same time instead of dividing it into smaller parts. So this two points are really help to to grow my self motivation. I shall try my best.
I want to achieve the success that I want, one way that I use to motivate myself is to read motivational books and stories of successful entrepreneurs. Your article gave me a new way to motivate myself. Thank you
Rewarding yourself is very important- everyone that does anything is looking for some payoff- I clean my garage because the payoff is my stuff is organized. When we are looking to achieve more abstract or longer term goals it is important to reward ourselves as benchmarks are reached- I have a friend who is trying to stop smoking- he rewards himself each week of not smoking by buying something for himself with the money he saved that week of not buying cigarettes.