How to Enhance Your Motivation

If only there was an easy and concrete answer to that, but fear not! I did the research for you and I will give you the knowledge needed to increase your motivation and make it a safe bet in your life.

Let's begin by acknowledging your own definition of being motivated. You believe — and rightfully so — that?motivation?is the secret ingredient you need to accomplish certain tasks, to wake up early in the morning, to learn new stuff, to read, to train, to study, to work, or simply to move forward with your day. But you also know that talking about motivation is one thing, whereas being genuinely motivated is another completely!

So what do you do? You ask Google or YouTube for help in the hope of finding a set of instructions that makes sense to you and that you can test right away. But once again you get deceived by the solutions given; the first information you stumble upon tells you to change your mindset (no s**t), the second tells you that increasing your energy will help (really nice advice but how do you do that exactly?), and the last one will tell you to spend more time doing the things you love (someone needs to tell this last author that we usually want to be motivated to do the things we don't usually feel like doing).

Don't get me wrong, it is perfectly possible for an individual to be enlightened after reading a certain article, and be able to cultivate some degree of the change he or she seeks in their life. But in most cases, this would only happen when the author and the reader/viewer are similar in character, therefore being able to relate to each other. And as you can imagine, not all Humans are the same!

That being said, let's get down to why you’re really here, and focus on the question you ask yourself every now and then…

How can I increase my motivation so I can improve my personal and professional life?

A question to which I will try and give you a set of information to absorb, and a plan of action to adopt…

1. Without a solid foundation, nothing of value can be built

Here when we talk about?foundation,?we talk about your physical and mental self. A common misconception is to think that after reading and asking extensively about the tricks of the trade behind building up motivation, you can implement it right away in your daily life. You have to understand that not everyone is prepared the same. As an analogy; if you are a character in a game, and “motivation” is an ability, you would need to reach a certain level of training to be able to use the aforementioned ability.

• First, you train the physical…

Motivation needs a positive and nutrient-rich brain, and exercising does just that; feeding the brain with what it requires to be strong and healthy. When you exercise, your heart pumps more blood into your head, therefore, exposing your brain to more oxygen and nutrient. Also, exercising will release a set of beneficial proteins such as?Cathepsin B?that will contribute to the growth of new and healthy neurons. It doesn't stop there! Training regularly will make your brain release?Dopamine?and?Endorphine?chemicals that have one major job; to make you feel happy and reduce your stress level.

Some of you might say:

Hey Jon, all this is quite nice, but I came to you in the hopes of finding a way to be motivated to exercise and not the other way around !

My answer to you would be:

I feel you, but you need to begin with exercising because motivation is one of it’s after-effect.

What I would recommend is a minimum of 3 workouts a week of 30 to 45 min each for a period of 3 to 4 months. The workout can be anything from a run on a treadmill to a Crossfit training.

Another important factor that would contribute to the well-being of your thoughts is?eating healthy, but this will be a subject for another time.

• … then, you train the mental

Once your brain is healthy and chemically positive enough, comes the interesting part: Mindset hacking.

Regardless of whether we like it or not, we as humans are?social creatures,?so our behaviors — more or less — influence and are influenced by our surroundings. So you have two outcomes to choose from here; the first is letting the judgments of people around you shackle your ideas, and the other is embracing the same judgment factor by using it as?positive stress.?Let me explain; setting and sharing the deadline of any projects you have out in the open for everyone to hear (easier nowadays with the rise of social apps), will push you to act thanks to a kind of pressure that is beneficial for you. Then, you have?positive?reinforcements?that will feed your motivation every time you get complimented on your endeavors or when your work is shared and liked on any traditional and/or digital platform.

Another action that will help your case is to affirm your life objectives/goals out loud every time you have the occasion to do it; psychologically, this will convey your affirmations from the conscious to the subconscious, therefore programming your autonomous self to act ambitious and motivated without you being consciously aware of it.

Acting like the person you want to become will help you become that person.

And of course, Motivation 101: Being surrounded by motivated people will play a big part in the increase of your own motivation. How? By having?Mirror neurons?that allows us to understand other’s feelings and — if strong enough — simulate the said feelings in ourselves.

2.?Be mindful of how your mind operates

Acknowledging what’s inside your psyche will fight your moments of weakness and your drops in motivation. Let me introduce to you two of the many psychological effects that I found invaluable in my quest toward reaching a higher level of motivation and productivity:

• Ego depletion:?I stumbled upon this phenomenon while reading a book titled?Thinking fast and slow?by Daniel Kahneman?(can’t recommend this book enough) and got amazed by it. Long story short, every time you make a cognitive, emotional, or physical effort, you drain mental energy that will make you liable to quit faster the next action you take. Indeed, after an effortful mental activity, your nervous system drains a great amount of Glucose, without which it cannot help you sustain focus and self-control. What to do? Ingest glucose (bread, fruits, vegetables, dairy products…) at the end of every emotionally, cognitively, and physically draining activity, so you can fight ego depletion and keep your focus and your motivation high.
• Ideomotor effect: Another invaluable by-product of our amazing mind. This effect literally tells you that your ideas influence your actions without you being aware of it. Let me give you an example via an experiment that was conducted in the past (Florida effect); a set of 5 words associated with the elderly were given to a set of young participants so they can make up phrases, then those same participants were asked to walk back to another room on another floor. What was measured is the time the group took to get to the other room and guess what! They moved slower than usual. Thinking about words associated with old age influenced their behavior into adopting a slower pace, which is a common denominator amongst the elderly. The interesting part is that this phenomenon works the other way around as well! Our actions influence our ideas the same way our ideas influence our actions. This means that if you frown, for example, the thoughts that will follow will be more negative than if you smile. What an incredible piece of information! Because it tells you that every time you’re sad or demotivated, physically smiling will help infuse positive thoughts and contribute to your healing process.

3.?Easier said than done

All the information I have shared with you through this article is true, but it doesn't make the journey of building and increasing motivation any less difficult. I remain a firm believer in educated decisions and informed actions because once you understand how things operate; you become more confident and more patient.

I will end by saying that nothing of value can last in our minds unless it is given the test of time, pain, and effort. So take what I told you in this article, test it for a certain period, and embrace the change you’re looking for once it knocks on your door.

I’ll be waiting for your testimonies!

Published on Feb 15, 2021 on Medium