“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.” —Zig Ziglar
We all have seasons in life when our motivation is waning. I personally struggle with motivation during these last few weeks of winter. I am impatient for warmer weather and sunnier days. It feels harder to get out and go after my goals when facing grey skies and frigid temperatures. I wanted to share some to the tools I use to keep my motivation up when it is waning.
Define Your Why
What are you hoping to accomplish with the behavior or goal you are working towards? Defining a quality why can help us stay motivated during challenging times.
A quality why is internally motivated, meaning that you are pursuing your goal because of the happiness, satisfaction, or sense of accomplishment it will bring you. A quality why is in alignment with your values. A quality why moves you towards the best version of yourself. For example, deciding you want to establish a daily meditation practice to be more peaceful and centered. By contrast, a not so quality why is tied to external influences like fear of rejection, a need for approval from others, or perhaps insecurity. An example of a not so quality why would be setting the goal to lose weight because we think it will gain approval from others in a smaller size.
Once you define your why you can put it to work for you. Post it, journal about it, remind yourself of your why on a daily basis. Reflecting on your why will help keep you committed to your goals when times are challenging.
Flip The Script
Pay attention to how you talk to yourself when your motivation is waning. Do you criticize yourself, make excuses, catastrophize, justify, rationalize, blame others, focus on your past failures? If you find yourself falling into any of these negative thinking traps it is time to flip your script. You can work on challenging negative self-talk by:
- Focusing on past successes.
- Reminding yourself of what you have accomplished already. It is important to celebrate all of our successes, big and small.
- Embracing discomfort. Remind yourself that if it was easy, you would have achieved your goal already. Sometimes we need to embrace discomfort in order to grow.
- Taking the next small step. It might be as small as getting dressed, going for a walk around the block, drinking one glass of water, calling a friend.
- Practicing self-compassion. Would you say the things you are saying to yourself to a friend? Learn to be a better friend to yourself. This starts with how you talk to yourself. We cannot bully ourselves into success.
Find Accountability and Support
Find someone to keep you accountable to your goal. Get the support of a coach, therapist, friend, co-worker, or online support group. Try to find support from other people who are pursuing similar goals and reach out when times are tough.
Share your goals with others. Sometimes announcing our goals to friends, family, or on social media can help keep us on track when our motivation is running thin.
Develop Daily Habits
Our mind loves to conserve energy. When something becomes a habit, we don’t spend as much energy thinking and preparing to follow through. Habits are a great way to automate daily activities that move you towards your goal. I recommend the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. He goes into depth on how you can break habits that may not be serving you and establish habits that support your goals. Here are a two of the tools he shares:
- Habit stacking- identify a habit that you already do every day and stack your new or desired habit on it. “After/before (current habit), I will (new habit).”
Examples: After I sit down to dinner, I will say one thing I am grateful for. After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes.
- Using a habit tracker. There are plenty of habit trackers available online that you can use to visually track your progress with your habits. Using a habit tracker feels like giving yourself a gold star for each step you take towards making your habits a regular part of your routine.
Visualization
A powerful way to anchor in your goal is to practice visualization. There is a reason why most top-level athletes and coaches use visualization- it works! Spend 5 minutes a day picturing yourself once you have achieved your goal. How will you be feeling? How will your life be different? Can you picture yourself making choices that support your goal? If your goal is performance based, you can visualize your self during your performance. Practice seeing yourself being successful. Our mind and body do not know the difference between what is imagined and what is real. That is why our bodies respond physiologically to our thoughts. Have you ever felt panic (heart racing, palms sweating, tummy turning) over a thought even though you were not in any actual danger? Our minds can be a powerful tool we use to set ourselves up for success.
We are not always going to be motivated. With some intention and effort, we can push past our lack of motivation to keep ourselves moving towards our goals. I hope these tools will be a resource for you to draw from in those seasons of life when your motivation lags.