Seeing Progress
It’s important to educate yourself before being successful at anything. There are two types of motivation: ‘towards’ and ‘away from’. The former involves motivating oneself to move towards a desirable place, while the latter involves situations where one is desperate to distance oneself from, or get ‘away from’ an undesirable place. For example, trying to work towards a promotion would be ‘towards’, and attempting to quit smoking or lose weight would be ‘away from’ motivation.
Both these techniques work, but ‘towards’ motivation lasts longer and is empowering as you are focusing on what you want rather than what you don’t want.
Step One: Declare Your Wants
Envison this. I ask you not to think of a blue ball, yet the first image that pops into your mind is one of a blue ball! It’s basically impossible to avoid thinking about something without thinking of it first. Therefore, you should realize that your thoughts will always work towards bringing what you think about the most into your reality–even if you are thinking about not wanting that particular thing or state of being.
And so we come to the first step: always declare what you want. This is usually simple, because it is most often the exact opposite of what you don’t want.
Why This Works
For ‘towards’ motivation to work, you have to be able to see and monitor your progress. If you feel like you are working very hard and running very fast, but it still looks like everything around you is the same, you will feel a bit like a hamster running in a wheel, only to come out and see that it hasn’t moved at all. This can be extremely demotivating.
So what can you do to access your progress?
Step Two: Track Your Progress
-Pick three things that you want to achieve in the next three months. Break these into small tasks that can be achieved on a daily basis and will ensure that you reach your ultimate goal. For example, if you want to increase your client base from 20 to 30 in three months, you need to add about 3 every month. Break that down to include some strategies that you have used in the past that have clearly worked and can be done daily.
-Set up a timetable and a daily checklist. Work through it and tick the checklist when you have completed each task. The idea is to form a daily routine that will keep you on track to getting where you want to be.
Why This Works
What you are doing here is making your progress measurable. This will surely boost your confidence, which in turn will motivate you as you will see yourself getting closer to your goals.
It’s Not Easy
In conclusion, I would like to make it clear that all of the steps above are easier said than done, yet entirely possible.
“I started learning to swim recently and my instructor made me wear flippers. They were great, because they helped me move really fast. When he finally got me to swim without them, I felt so incompetent–like I was not moving at all–that this disheartened me. I needed to SEE that I was indeed moving. So he got me to look at my reflection in the window and reminded me to turn around and look back to see how far I had indeed traveled.”
Getting and staying motivated to always keep growing, learning, and evolving is easy as soon as you have your desires clear in front of you.
When you know what you want out of your life, what experiences you want to taste, what you want to do for the people around you, and what you want to enjoy yourself, you will be able to dangle that carrot in front of yourself and keep the ‘towards’ motivation activated.
Seeing progress, however small at first–from ticking the checkboxes to seeing the weight go down on the scales–is visual evidence that you are indeed making headway. Plus, you’ll enjoy the small benefits of completing all these little tasks–and they do all add up!
If you find it challenging to do this yourself, declare your desires to a friend, or better yet, a coach. Then have them hold you accountable to do the things you need to every single day in order to ultimately have what you want. Follow these simple steps and you’ll be on your way to achieving everything you’ve ever dreamed of!
Watch out for Part 2 of Malti’s post, featuring even more tips…
