Why Motivation is Important and 10 Ways How to Get More of It

Motivation is a huge topic and it is something that everyone talks about when it comes to creating remarkable success regardless of whether it is in life or at work.

I believe that motivation is extremely important. No matter what you want to achieve in life, it all starts with your desire and motivation. You need the motivation to take action and to build habits.

While it is true that we cannot solely rely on motivation to reach our goals and to act on our dreams, motivation is still very much needed when it comes to taking initiative and achieving overall success in life.

Here are 7 reasons why motivation is important:

1. Motivation increases your effort

Yes, motivation increases your effort. Without motivation, you may feel lazy and stay in a slumpy mood. You don’t feel like taking action at all and you just want to waste time and do nothing.

When you have the motivation, you feel driven and you want to take massive actions. It increases your effort and at the end of the day, you will discover that you took more action during days when you are absolutely motivated than days when you are not.

So motivation helps increase the effort that we put in.

If you are supposed to write a 1,000 words article a day, when you have the motivation, highly likely, you are going to complete the article and even get more done.

On the other hand, when you don’t have the motivation, you will find it difficult to write even write the first paragraph.

Thus, motivation is important because it increases your effort and helps you take more action.

2. Motivation boosts productivity

The second benefit of motivation is that it boosts your productivity. Motivation doesn’t just make you work harder, but faster as well.

And because you are in a motivated state, you are able to get into the “flow state” easier.

Read: Flow State: What It Is and How to Achieve It

And when you are in the flow state, you are able to perform better and complete more than when you don’t.

When I’m feeling absolutely motivated, I’m able to write an article with over 2,000 words in one go. Compare to when I’m not feeling motivated, it is difficult for me to chunk out even 1,000 words.

Hence, motivation influences our states and as a result, directly impact our productivity.

When we are motivated, we become more productive and able to get more done.

3. Motivation helps you go against all odds and see the possibilities

You need the motivation to go through tough times. It is easy to take action, be happy, and enjoy life when everything is smooth and going according to your plan.

The real challenge comes when things are going against you. When everything you do doesn’t work out and you fail to achieve all your goals, these are the times when you need motivation the most.

You have to understand that we are easily affected by our emotions. And motivation is a state that can influence our emotions.

When you are motivated, you are feeling driven and you will feel positive even when things are not working out. You tell yourself that you will work it out and it is just a test from God that you need to learn.

On the contrary, when you are not motivated, you feel gloom and tend to think more negatively.

Read: 7 Effective Techniques How To Conquer Negative Thoughts

You tell yourself that you are unlucky and everything you touch turns into a failure. And even when there is a possibility, you may still look at it from a negative view and regard the opportunity as not possible.

Just like this quote below:

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

– Winston Churchill

4. Motivation can influence others

We all know that energy is contagious. And you want to be around someone who is highly motivated and positive rather than with someone who always complains, blames, is negative and lacks of motivation, isn’t it?

Motivation can influence others. Your energy can impact others who are around you.

Imagine working in a negative environment where everyone is back-stabbing each other and where everyone’s level of motivation is low, do you want to work in this kind of environment?

I bet you know the answer. People love to be with others who are motivated and positive.

Therefore, commit to staying motivated and positive all the time. It can influence people around you, including your spouse, your children, partners, co-workers, friends, and more.

5. Motivation builds your habits

For those who say that motivation is not as important as habits, think again. You need the motivation to build the habits, especially in the beginning.

When an action becomes a habit, we still require some motivation to execute the habit, just that the energy required will be much lower.

However, in the beginning, when you first wanted to develop the habit, it requires a lot of motivation.

Think about building the habit of writing 1,000 words a day or getting up at 5 AM daily.

It is extremely difficult in the beginning because you are not used to doing these things. If you used to wake up at 7 AM every day and now you want to make it a habit to get up at 5 AM, it requires a lot of willpower and motivation in the beginning.

In the early stage, you will feel tired and very reluctant to wake up. However, as you make progress and as you train your mind to get used to this new habit, eventually, you will require less effort to do so.

This is why motivation is still important when it comes to building habits.

6. Motivation makes the process and journey fun

Yes, without motivation, things are going to be boring. Just like reading this article, if you are not feeling motivated to read, highly likely, you are going to just read the sub-headings and maybe even stop reading at some point.

Motivation gives you the drive and the zest in doing things.

When I’m motivated, after I did my work like writing an article, I feel absolutely fulfilled and satisfied.

However, when I’m not motivated, I don’t feel the zest or very much enjoy doing the work. I just want to get the work done rather than enjoying the process.

Motivation makes the process fun. It makes the hard things look easy to achieve and more importantly, it gives you a sense of fulfillment as you work on the task.

7. Motivation gets you to your goals and dreams

This is obvious, isn’t it? You need the motivation to get things done. You need the motivation to go through tough times. And of course, motivation gets you to your goals and helps you live your dreams.

We all need some form of motivation to act on our goals and the things that we want to achieve in life.

Without motivation, we aren’t going to accomplish much. It is the motivation that boosts our drive and put us into making the decision and taking the necessary action.

Read: Do You Really Need Motivation to Succeed?

10 Quick Motivational Tips to Fire You Up

Now that you understand the importance of motivation, what if you don’t feel motivated? What can you do? Here are 10 quick motivational tips you can consider:

1. Walk around and move your body

Feeling no motivation to work? Don’t worry, just walk around and move your body. Motions create emotions.

You will never feel sleepy when your body is in an active mood. Think about it, do you feel sleepy when you play sports? So move your body to get rid of your sleepiness and your lack of motivation.

Try to walk around, do a little jumping, or do some push-ups. You can jump on the ground a few times and do some simple stretching to refresh your body and mind. You will notice that after you do that, you feel more alert and energetic.

2. Review your goals and purpose and why you want to achieve them

One of the main reasons we are not feeling motivated is that we lose the connection between the work and why we want to do the work. Thus, a great way to overcome this is to review your goals and your purpose.

What are the goals you want to achieve? Your goals can work as a trigger that inspires you. Plus, knowing why you want to achieve what you want allows you to gain clarity and a sense of purpose in doing the work.

The clearer you are with why you want to achieve your goals, the more motivated you will be.

I suggest you read this article to understand more about why having a clear sense of purpose is important to your success:

Why Having a Sense of Purpose is Important to Succeed in Life

3. Play with your mental image

Run some mental images in your head when you are not feeling motivated. What you can do is imagine all the positive things that you are going to receive if you get the work done and accomplish your goals.

For instance, imagine your boss praises you, you close the sale, you become richer, you feel proud, and you are living your dream life.

On the other hand, you can also run negative mental images like what will happen if you fail to take action.

Perhaps, you let your partner down, you got fired from your company, you’re stressed and worried about having no money to pay the bills, etc.

What you think in your head can influence your mood, and hence, your level of motivation. So, choose to always place the right mental images in your head so that you will get motivated instantly.

Here’s a good article from UnfinishedSuccess.com that you should check out:

The Importance of Visualizing Your Goals

4. Create a small reward for yourself

Another great way to get motivated instantly is to create a small reward for yourself. Here’s what you can do the next time when you are not feeling motivated to work:

Make a deal with yourself that if you get the work done, you will reward yourself.

The reward can be anything like watching a movie, playing an hour of computer games, dining in your favorite restaurant, etc.

The key is to create a reward that you look forward to. A reward that pulls you and motivates you into taking action.

I have published a good guide about how to reward yourself in the right way so that you can motivate yourself to get more things done, check out the article below:

How to Reward Yourself for Your Hard Work and Effort

5. Stimulate your environment

Do you know that the environment you are in can greatly impact your level of motivation?

For instance, you can create a motivating environment by playing some background music. The white noise in the office can boost your productivity too.

Putting up some motivational posters and vision boards in your workspace can motivate you to work harder as well. Hence, create an environment where you become motivated to work.

When I write articles, sometimes I will play some soft music or some fast-paced background music. It helps put me in the mood to write and write faster.

Remember, set yourself up to win. Use your environment and your surroundings to motivate you to do more.

Read: 10 Tips How to Change Your Environment for Greater Motivation

6. Start with an easy task

Every big success once started small. The key is that you want to lower the resistance by tackling small and easy tasks so that you will have the motivation to do it.

Most people fail to take action because they try to do everything all at once.

Rather than focusing on how to make their first $100, they choose to focus on making $100,000. The bigger the task or project, the more willpower, and motivation you need to work on it.

Do you think that it is easier to write a 100 words article or it is easier to write a 30,000 words short book? The answer is obvious, to get things done, you must start small.

Read: Success Cycle: How to Leverage Small Success to Build Bigger Ones

The point is that to write a 30,000 words book, you will need to learn how to write the first 100 words, and then another 100 words, and so on and so forth.

The same goes for everything you want to achieve in life. Therefore, break down your goals into smaller and actionable tasks, and then work on those tasks.

7. Enjoy a cup of coffee

If you hate coffee, just skip this method. There are nine other methods you can choose from.

Personally, I love coffee. It wakes me up and gets me motivated to work. Even while writing this article, I’m having my coffee.

Of course, I don’t recommend you drink 5 cups of coffee a day, all I’m suggesting is a cup of coffee in the morning as you work on your most important work.

Plenty of studies have been done on the effect of coffee. It is said that coffee can make you feel more alert, increase your productivity, and of course, increase your energy so that you can get the work done.

Read: 9 Ways Coffee Boosts Your Productivity

8. Talk to someone positive

Talking is another good way to get motivated, however, you have to make sure you talk to the right person.

If you talk to someone who is not motivated and negative, guess what, you will end up feeling even less motivated after that.

Energy is contagious. When you talk to someone who is highly driven and positive, you will be influenced by his or her energy. Similarly, if you talk to someone who has low energy and is negative you will feel the same too.

Talk to someone positive and motivated. When you discuss your goals and dreams with someone else, the conversation helps you focus your thoughts on what you want and thus, makes you motivated.

So choose to talk to people who are positive and with higher energy levels.

9. Create a to-do list and schedule your tasks

Sometimes the reason we are not feeling motivated is that we simply have too much to do and we feel overwhelmed.

When this happens, simply start with a to-do list and schedule your most important tasks. What you want to do is to put down everything into writing so that you can clear your mind to refocus better.

Take a look at your to-do list and you know what you need to get done. All you need to do then is to follow your list and get the first thing done.

Read: 10 Tips How to Plan Your Day and Live a More Successful Life

10. Dive straight in

Feeling no motivation to work? Just dive in and do it. As you take action and as you work, you build up momentum and the motivation will come automatically.

Imagine you are pushing a car. In the beginning, you need a lot of energy to push the car, but once it started to move, you will require less energy. This is momentum at work, my friend.

The more you take action, the more actions you are going to take. Similarly, if you continue to slack off and do nothing, the more likely you’re going to just sit there, do nothing, and waste time. Momentum can be your friend or it can be your foe. Use it wisely.

Dive straight in even if you don’t feel motivated. Act like you are motivated and just work. And eventually, the motivation will come because you have built up the momentum.

Conclusion

Let’s face it, motivation is important. But it is also difficult to stay motivated and keep the motivation going every day.

The number one reason we fail to achieve our goals and make our dreams a reality is that we lack the motivation to maintain our work and fail to achieve consistency in what we do.

Therefore, you need to do something each day to stay motivated. Like what Zig Ziglar famously said:

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

You have to do something on a daily basis to keep your fire burning.