When you’re trying to drive forward with your dreams, goals and ambitions, there is one thing that you need consistently to take action, and that, my friend, is Motivation. 

But you already know that, right? Yet it can feel so hard to keep moving forward and stay motivated. The action we sometimes take isn’t always the one that our best-self would opt for. And, being open and honest, I like things to happen immediately. That’s right, I’m a “run before I can crawl” kinda woman. 

You see, our motivation is like a muscle that we literally have to exercise every day.

And you need to exercise because your brain is not hardwired for rewards that take months and years to reach. This is why we struggle to motivate ourselves, especially without a bag full of tools, tips, tricks and techniques to guide you on your journey to success (whatever that may be for you).

So, what do you need to motivate yourself?

What are these tools, tips, tricks, and techniques?

There are two main things to consider always, when you need to find your Mojo!

1. Knowing What Drives You
2. Fighting the Pain of Progress

Knowing What Drives You

Here’s where we ask: What’s your reason for doing what you do? Your “why” to get up? Your mission? 

The object of your goal needs to be rewarding enough to push you through hard times. And times do get hard, as it’s part of the journey of growth. 

Trust me, your struggle is my struggle! I feel every frustration, as I’ve been there, daily. 

Make goals that inspire you. 

That when you close your eyes, you can see, smell, and feel your dream future. If it doesn’t resonate with you anymore, no matter how much weightlifting you try, nothing will motivate a non-interested brain, my friend.  

Fight the Pain of Progress

With every new step, there will be a new obstacle and challenge that will demand just that little bit more of you. When you’re learning something new you’re supposed to feel frustrated, fearful, annoyed. 

That’s a great sign that you’re learning. I agree, it doesn’t feel good when you’re grinding through problems, but I have great news: this too shall pass!

This means that to keep and stay motivated you need a goal that is desirable and compelling. A goal that resonates with your soul, your heart and makes you feel enthusiastic each day (especially through the hard times). 

Because times get hard. 

I learned to build sales pages, websites, blogs, emails and all the behind strategies to keep my biz afloat. My mission, vision and goals keep me moving forward: they are my light in the darkest hours. 

The doubt, fear, and negative emotions try to sneak in, but the light burns brightly, dimming that worry and guiding me forward. 

It can guide you too!

Goals: The Best Way to Stay Motivated?

Goals help you stay motivated by reinforcing your growth mindset. They will help you shape your future events and continue moving towards action.

In their pioneering work, Edward Ryan and Richard Deci, developed an experiment that contradicted decades of previous research on motivation.

This experiment led the duo to propose the self-determination theory as a more sophisticated model for human motivation. This theory says that it isn’t simply the rewards that count—our sense of autonomy over the actions we take matters too.

So what does this mean for a lack of drive? Ryan and Deci explain this elegantly too. In their system, externally motivated behaviour operates on a spectrum. From purely instrumental activity (what we only do to get a particular reward) to all of the partially-internalized motivators we feel guilty about when we don’t always reach them, to those which are fully authentic and integrated into our personality.

This explains why goals can sometimes fail to motivate. If the impetus for a goal is a socially internalized norm “I need to get good grades” or “I should really exercise daily”, but doesn’t feel entirely self-generated, it can often provide only inconsistent motivation. 

Essentially, we’ll work at it enough to meet our appearance in the eyes of others, but often fail to pursue it vigorously enough to actually make real progress. This is because it’s an external, not internal, goal that we value.

Can you spot the problem? 

If motivation isn’t fully internalized, you can either:
• Work to make it more fully congruent with your beliefs and bring it into alignment with your values;
• Or you can push it back to work on something else.

The idea of taking action can cause us to procrastinate

The other reason we fail to motivate ourselves is because the pain of taking action can be too great. This may not always be literal pain, but fear, boredom, frustration, or overwhelm. This leads to an unhealthy procrastination.

Researcher Piers Steel notes in his literature review that task unpleasantness is one of the biggest associated factors with procrastination.

While this isn’t earth-shatteringly surprising to realise, it too suggests ways we can improve progress on our goals:

1. Simply to redesign them to make them less unpleasant. 
2. If the problem is that your goal requires moving forward with something you really don’t like to do, maybe you can start with something you like more instead and source help with the task that aren’t your key strengths.

And then you have the fear paradox. 

This is where actually facing what you fear over and over again, helps reduce it and ease the anxiety associated with it. For example, going live, pitching to clients, selling your services, showing up on social media. The more you do it the easier it gets!

It’s just getting past the first hurdle; I believe you can do it!

I absolutely love sharing motivational strategies to help you achieve your goals, so this is just the beginning! Success really does come from self-awareness. Being true and honest with who you are, what you want, and don’t want is the path to transformation and growth. If you can get to grips with what’s holding you back, you can start to see and get results a lot faster!

And if you’re really having a hard time with your motivation? I find having a go-to playlist is perfect for getting you going! I love this MOJO playlist on Spotify: after yoga, I blast it out and dance around the house, ready for my first coaching or sales call. 

Boom, I’m on fire!