How to Keep Yourself Motivated

Motivation is important in our lives. We use it for our daily tasks and for our future plans. Some days we get up in the morning feeling ready to take on the day and some days we struggle to get out of bed.

What factors affect motivation?

● How much do you want your goal? Think on a scale of 1-10

● What are you envisioning yourself to experience when you reach this goal? How do you want to feel?

● What are the limitations of getting to this goal? How can I work with them to reach it?

We all experience times where motivation seems out of reach.

How do I stay motivated?

● Set yourself one goal that is measurable and achievable.

● Ask yourself: why is this goal important to me?

● Break your goal down into small tasks

● Set reminders of the small tasks

● Tell someone you trust about your goal and ask them to help encourage you to keep motivated

● Be kind to yourself and focus on one thing at a time

An example scenario can look like:

● My goal is to journal 2x a week.

● This goal is important to me because it allows me to process my experiences and understand myself better.

● I can write down questions about what I’d like to write about. I’ll think about what situations and feelings I would like to explore.

● I’ll set a reminder on my phone on Wednesday and Friday to respond to my journal responses.

● Call my sister and tell her about my goal of journaling and share that this is an important goal for me to understand my emotions and thoughts better. I’ll ask her to check-in with me about this goal to show her support.

● I can think about how this is going to help my future self and my hopes to understand my emotional and logical experiences more.

● I’ll tell myself it takes time to build consistency and that progress is not linear if I make mistakes. I’ll remind myself of my “why?”.

Motivation plays into most aspects of our lives, whether it’s getting out of the bed in the morning, saving (x amount of money) to buy (phone, car, home, etc), or applying to new jobs for a career change. No matter how small or big your goals are, motivation plays a role in reaching them. It’s okay to lose motivation at times and know that’s a part of the human experience. We are capable of finding motivation again when we lose it. It starts with exploring our own wants and needs to find the drive to reach the ideas we want to come alive.

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