Maintaining your motivation in your journey to achieving your goals and success is one of the most difficult tasks you must handle. People give up because they lost interest in the goals that they set out to achieve in the beginning. And because success will not come to you overnight, learning the techniques to stay motivated and maintain the drive until you achieve what you want is in important. And this is what this article is all about.
Let’s face it, the loss of motivation is common. I believe that everyone has experienced a time when they feel totally no motivation at all.
They feel like giving up and they don’t have the drive to take action. I experience this moment from time to time. And I believe you have these moments too.
The important thing is to understand that the loss of motivation is normal. It is inevitable. We will get distracted, naysayers can talk us out of our dreams, and the grass always seems to be greener on the other side.
However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t maintain your motivation and keep your drive high.
Highly successful people like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, etc., too, have times when they lost their motivation and wanted to give up.
The difference is that they know how to handle and manage this moment when it comes. In other words, they know how to maintain their motivation.
Luckily, you can learn to do this as well.
Here are 7 ways how you can keep your motivation high and maintain your momentum even when you feel like giving up:
Well, I bet you have heard about this a gazillion times. The truth is that people give up because they have lost their purpose for their goals.
They have forgotten or lost the connection that they once had with their goals. This is why they don’t feel as motivated as when they first started out.
When you first set to achieve a goal or start a project, you are so excited and motivated. You can take massive action and stay up late just to work more on it.
However, as times pass by, and when you don’t see the result after you have poured in your effort, slowly, you started to doubt about yourself and what you do.
Eventually, the motivation fades and you lose the connection between you and your goals. You forgot why you want to achieve your goals.
This is why people fail to maintain their motivation for long.
If you want to keep your motivation going for the long-term, you must constantly remind yourself of your purpose.
Why do you want to achieve your goals and live your dreams? Why are they important to you? How can they change your life?
Write down your answers on a piece of paper and then review them daily.
Constantly remind yourself of your purpose. Never lose the connection between you and why you want to achieve what you want.
And remember, the stronger and the more emotional your purpose, the stronger the motivation.
I know that you already know this, but do you really take time and be serious about your purpose? Do you really write down your “why” and review them daily? Do you constantly remind yourself of your purpose?
Highly successful people always think about their goal and they know exactly why they want to achieve it.
This is why they are able to stay motivated and maintain their drive for the long-term. And you have to do so as well.
How can you maintain your motivation when the work is boring and you have no fun doing it?
This is one of the biggest reasons people lose motivation and give up.
I have seen a lot of bloggers started strong, but it doesn’t last. They don’t find blogging as something exciting and something that is rewarding.
They feel stressed and find it boring to write and to publish an article on their blogs. This is why they don’t have the motivation to do it.
When something becomes painful to do, you will choose to procrastinate. Here’s a great quote from Dr. Henry Cloud:
“We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change.”
When taking action and doing the work becomes painful, you will avoid doing it.
This is why you have to make the work fun and rewarding.
According to Men’s Journal, Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time with a total of 28 medals, listen to his favorite songs while he was training in the water.
Yes, Phelps wore a waterproof headphone as he trained. Somehow, listening to his favorite music cures his boredom and motivates him to workout longer in the water.
So how can you make your work fun and rewarding?
When your work becomes your play, you will never have to worry about having the motivation to do it.
You don’t need very much motivation to watch TV or to play games, right?
So turn your work into your play.
First, learn to love your work. Have a passion for what you do. Second, find ways to enjoy it. You can do it with a partner, listen to your favorite songs when you work like Phelps, or give yourself an exciting reward once you get the work done.
Just be creative, my friend.
If you want to maintain your motivation, you need the support and help from others. There is no way you can build a successful business or achieve outstanding results in life on your own.
You need friends, partners, and a team of people who can support you, especially during tough times.
It is better to go through difficult times with a group of people than to go through it all by yourself.
When you study how successful people started, you will notice that they all started with the help and support of someone.
Not only that you need the help from others, you also need the support from others as well.
This article from VirginStartUp.org gave a couple of examples of how people started with the support from their friends and family.
Prashant Lagisetti is the founder of Localoids, an international community with the aim of bringing together like-minded people, creating international friendships, and bringing together skills, knowledge, and languages. He borrowed money from his family in order to help start his business.
James Royall is the founder of Propeller Bikes, selling electric bikes that are a cleaner and cheaper alternative to mopeds. He borrowed £6,500 from a friend to help startups.
Even Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, said it in his autobiography, Losing My Virginity, that he once borrowed money from his aunt to build and grow his business.
Thus, if you have the thought that you have to do everything on your own, ditch that thinking. It is not going to work.
You need to maintain your motivation. And to do that, you need the help and support from others.
If you are doing everything by yourself, highly likely, you will have given up long before you reach your goals.
However, if you have someone who is with you, at least you have him or her to rely on, to talk to, and to encourage each other when the times are tough.
Therefore, find people who can help and support you. This is how you can maintain your motivation and go for the long run.
Another way to keep your motivation going for the long-term is to immerse yourself with inspiration.
What you do each day will greatly affect your level of motivation.
For instance, if your goal is to build a successful blog but all you do is to watch TV, play games, read the latest news in the entertainment industry, and talk about sports, guess what, your motivation will fade.
You have to do something that is related to your goals and something that can inspire you.
For example:
These are the activities that can reignite your passion and maintain your drive.
The key is that you have to do something that is related to what you want.
When you do something that is related to your goals, you recharge yourself and keep the momentum going.
So immerse yourself with inspiration. Involve yourself deeply into the things that you want to achieve.
This is why successful people read a lot. They immersed themselves in the subject and draw motivation from there.
If you want to maintain your motivation for the long-term, you must change your self-talk.
One reason people lose their drive to achieve their goals is due to their self-talk. They criticise and doubt themselves.
When you don’t believe in your dreams and goals, you started to lose interest.
Most of the time, we are the ones who make ourselves feel miserable by thinking and talking to ourselves in a negative way.
For example, whenever you think and act from the self-talk of “I have to”, you are telling yourself that you have to do it, but if there are options, you won’t want to do it.
When you say so, you operate from a mindset where you lack choices. And if you have other choices available, you will choose not to do it.
If you keep telling yourself that you have to write a blog post, you are saying as though you are forced to do so. And if you can, you will not want to do it.
This kind of self-talk operates on negative thinking and it is what makes you procrastinate.
I suggest you read this book, The Now Habit, written by Neil Fiore. It is a great book about overcoming procrastination and one of the methods shared by Fiore is handling your self-talk.
What you say to yourself will become your reality.
When you face a tough situation and you tell yourself that things are going to change and you just have to press on, it is a good way to inspire yourself to move on.
However, if you say to yourself that you are inferior and there is no way you can do it, you are defeated even before you overcome the problem.
This is why self-talk is important. It can drive you and motivate you to take action, or it can destroy your motivation and make you feel lousy.
Hence, change your self-talk.
Suggested reading: 6 Ways To Talk To Yourself More Positively
In order to keep your motivation going, you must maintain your momentum. So how can you do that?
It is simple, just recognize your hard work and acknowledge your progress.
As long as you have taken action and made some progress, no matter how small they are, feel good and acknowledge your effort.
Even if it is just a phone call or replying to an email, feel good that you are getting things done and are moving one step closer to your goals.
Making yourself feel good is the key to maintaining your motivation.
Practice the “reverse gap” thinking.
Most people gauge their success by the results they get. In other words, they can only celebrate and feel happy when they reached their goals.
In fact, you don’t have to.
You don’t have to wait until you achieve your goals only to celebrate and to feel happy or successful.
You just need to look back and measure how far you have come. Even if it is just a small step or progress, acknowledge your effort and feel good about it.
You don’t have to say, “Once I lost 5 pounds, I will be happy”, or “Once I am financially successful, then I’ll be happy”.
No, you don’t want to build your happiness and fulfillment on the goals. Instead, you want to feel happy and successful right now so that you will perform better and achieve better results.
Therefore, look back and reflect on your life right now.
Where were you 3 years ago? What was your career like and how were you?
Most people think only about the future that they want, but they forget to reflect and acknowledge how far they have come.
This is how you can maintain your motivation and keep your momentum going.
In one of my previous articles, I said that motivation comes and goes, and we cannot depend solely on motivation if we want to get things done.
Yes, there will be days when you feel like a slump and you don’t have the drive to do anything. You just want to lie on your couch and play games on your phone.
There are also days you feel totally motivated and you feel like you are unstoppable.
Thus, what you need to do is to rely on habits. Build good habits that will make you successful.
Turn your work into your habits.
For example, I want to be a successful blogger. And one of the key actions for a blogger is to publish good content.
And thus, I build the habit of writing articles each day.
Every day, I write about 2,000 words. Regardless of whether I feel like it or not, I will just do it.
After a few months, this has become my habit. I have no problem writing articles.
More importantly, I don’t need to wait to get motivated to write. Because it has become my habit, I will just dive in and write. I don’t need motivation.
Therefore, you can do the same.
Transform the work that you want to get done on a daily basis into your habits.
It’s like how you brush your teeth and how you eat. You do it in the same way each day. And you don’t need much motivation to brush your teeth, right?
When an action becomes a habit, the resistance will be lowered and you don’t need much willpower to execute it.
If you want to learn how to build a habit, read this:
How to Form a New Success Habit and Make It Stick
Motivation is important. People who say that motivation is not important is a liar.
Without motivation, you will never take action. And without action, you can never be successful.
Zig Ziglar said it well:
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
You have to do something to motivate yourself and maintain your motivation.
Follow the 7 suggestions above to keep your motivation going.
So, do you find this article interesting and helpful? Do leave your comment below and let me know what you think. Cheers.
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