How To Motivate Yourself To Succeed

How To Motivate Yourself To Succeed

When it comes to work, your personal life, or even hobbies, success is a common theme. In almost every facet of your life, succeeding is based on your personal motivation. This is why it is extremely important to motivate yourself to succeed.

However, understanding how to motivate yourself can be extremely difficult. In a world where you are left to your own devices, self confidence is hard to come-by.

The first step in motivating yourself is understanding what your reward will be at the end of your motivation. If you are trying to lose weight, this might be a goal size. If you are trying to make a product, this may be a sales number or a certain amount of money. Find what it is that you are striving towards, and hold it in your mind as the most important thing in your life at that moment.

Break everything you are doing down into easy to understand steps. Each step is a portion of your goal. In this way, you will not get discouraged because the goal is so far off. Each step completed will give you a larger foundation towards your goal as well.

As an example, if you are trying to lose 30 pounds, if you set your goals in five pound increments, you will be more impressed with yourself at the 15 pound mark, than you would be if you viewed it as an aggregate goal. Instead of saying I have lost 15 pounds and have 15 pounds more to go, you can say; I have lost 15 pounds, and my next goal is five pounds, one third of that amount.

This can be applied to anything, substituting the number of steps for pounds. It also frames your accomplishments in a way that will help others understand how far you have come.

This brings us to the next point – getting others involved in your motivation. Accountability, encouragement, and support are all important when working towards a goal. If you tell your friends, family members, or acquaintances you are going to do something, you can keep them updated with your progress.

These updates give them a chance to tell you they are proud of you, to offer advice, and to give you validation during your journey. This is extremely important for your worst days. You can look back on these validations and understand that you are not the only one affected by your quest towards your goal.

You can also use their interest as motivation when you feel like giving up. The knowledge that your friends, family, or others you talk to will ask about your project, lets you know that you can’t just pretend if never existed. Instead, you can work hard knowing those questions are coming. The ability to respond positively to inquiries can make you feel like you are getting more accomplished and give you a greater sense of fulfillment.

The next step is seeing your goal completion as a reward in and of itself. Many times, people make a fatal mistake when trying to reach a goal; they give themselves rewards. While it may seem that a reward will help keep you motivated, all it does is detract from the actual goal at hand. Instead of working towards the final goal, you are working towards the first reward.

It is easy to lose motivation once you reach your goal. With rewards, you have to keep motivating yourself each time you reach a reward. You have finished out the cycle of motivation, work, and gaining a reward. This means that the end goal is not within this cycle, and lies outside of your initial motivations.

Instead, try to look at finishing each step as a reward in and of itself. You will never have to lose those five pounds again, write that code again, or make that product pitch again. Each finished step, is then able to be put completely out of your mind as you move forward.

The most important step may be believing in yourself. You are the only person standing in the way of success. So much of the modern world runs on self confidence, branding yourself, and showing others that you are worth their time. This is also one of the places you may have skimped when trying to motivate yourself to succeed.

Tell yourself every day that you are worth the goal that you are working towards. Look yourself in the face, in a mirror or in your mind, and tell yourself that you can reach your goal and that you will be able to do it with ease. If you hit a setback, tell yourself that it is temporary.

You can tape notes to your mirror, to your notes, or to your work bag. In these notes, tell yourself why you are worth the goal you are working towards. Maybe you are an amazing programmer, great at talking to people, or maybe you come from a long line of motivated individuals who will all be proud of you. No matter what the reason, you need to believe in yourself.

This will also serve to make you seem more confident during interviews, project pitches, and when networking. If you can tell people who you are worth their time, they are much more likely to help you in reaching your goals.

When it comes down to it, so much of learning to motivate yourself to succeed is self confidence. Setting your own goals, which means MAKING THE TIME FOR THEM, convincing yourself of your worth, and striving towards your goals. Good luck with your motivations, and remember that you can do whatever you turn your talents towards.