Motivation! How To Create It and Keep It

By Angeli Marie Shaw

We all have our moments, even days where we feel stuck, unfocused, and uninspired. It could be due to overwhelm, stress, physical illness, or poor mental health, and like me, you’re probably looking at ways to increase your motivation, and keep it.

For many, we get stuck in the ‘getting ready’ process, and simply never actually get started. Then there’s some of us that continuously get shit done, and the more we get done, the more it motivates us to keep going. So why are some of us constantly motivated, while others are not?

The thing is, motivation isn’t something you just have. It’s something you must create, some of us have just mastered it better than others. If you are one of those who is struggling to find motivation, don’t give up! There are several things you can do to transform feeling stuck into energy and motivation!

So what strategies are there to help increase self-motivation? Here are my suggestions to ignite that fire!

1. Firstly, reduce that to do list and increase motivation by simplifying things – I’m a sucker for a to-do list. In fact, in the past, if you looked at my notes section in my phone, there were quite a few lists in there that I’d written over time, many of which were incomplete or unfinished. I’d tend to leave them there for a while to remind me to stop creating such lengthy lists, then they’d eventually go into the trash.

A lot of things on my lists were so small and insignificant, that they didn’t need to be written down at all, I just simply needed to delegate and eliminate activities that didn’t motivate me to ensure I maximised my time. Once I started to do this, I could then focus my energy on the more important tasks, therefore achieving more of my goals. It can be so hard to stay motivated with all the confusion and clutter I would create with my old way of writing lists, so I transformed complexity into simplicity by doing less, but essentially accomplishing more! And it worked! Try it!

2. Combine the smaller tasks - Instead of putting off all the small tasks, combine them and fuse your smaller tasks together. Instead of listing ‘do stock control’ and ‘place stock order’ try listing ‘stock’. You still know what you need to get done, but your list becomes smaller and less overwhelming. Also, by simplifying your list, you can have a focused blitz, dedicating a morning, afternoon, or day to completing all the small stuff, but completing it all at once! Doing it this way actually frees up at lot of time and gives us a sense of accomplishment, which helps increase motivation.

3. Focus on what you HAVE achieved: Focusing on what we haven’t done or how far away we are from our goals is a sure way to kill motivation. In fact it can also cause procrastination! Increase your motivation by celebrating your success. Think about what you have achieved from a certain starting point such as for the day, week, maybe month.

For example, you may have set yourself a goal of updating your policies & procedures manual and aimed to get it done within the month. After 3 weeks you’ve completed around half of the manual. Now there’s 2 ways you could look at this. One, is that you still need to complete the other half, or two, focus on the fact that you got half done. The second option allows you to celebrate what you’ve done so far, thus increasing motivation and keeping focus on what’s left to finish off.

4. Set S.M.A.R.T goals: a common term used by a lot of coaches, S.M.A.R.T goals really are just that, smart! (and for those that may need a refresh, S – Specific, M – Measurable, A – Achievable, R – Realistic/relevant, T – Timely). Regarding goal setting, you can increase your motivation by making them ‘smart’ ones. This creates carefully planned, clear and objective goals and also sets up a framework to follow.

S.M.A.R.T goals mean you can clarify your ideas, focus your efforts, use your time/resources more productively and increase your chances of achieving what you want. How motivating is that! similar mindset, or one you would like to have and maintain.

Think about your network and how you feel when you’re around certain people or groups. Now think about those that make you feel motivated and inspire you. Surround yourself with more of those! It becomes much easier to stay focused and motivated when around people like this. You’ll feel better about yourself, more energised and find it much easier to stay focused on your end goals.

Upon your own self-reflection, there are some things I’d like you to consider… - Are you as inspired as you’d like to be? - Are you continually learning new and better ways to do things? - What have you learnt that you could put into practice? - What’s self-motivating to you right now?

As previously mentioned, motivation isn’t something you just have. It’s something you must create. Believe in yourself and your ability to change, grow and make positive choices on your quest to be better, do better and live better. Test, experiment, try new things, believe that it’s possible to make new things work, to form new healthy habits and to create what you want in life. Believe this is possible, but most of all believe in YOURSELF, you’ve got this!

Love & Bliss, Angeli xxoo

Angeli is a Holistic Empowerment Coach, Mindset Mentor and founder of The Bliss Coach. To work with me in 2022, get in touch by visiting www.theblisscoach.com.au or follow us on our socials @theblisscoach to find out more.