How to raise your motivation levels

SUMMARY

• Motivation is not always an easy emotion to navigate and maintain high while working towards goals. One of the key reasons for that is that we forget to make success a MUST. We hope, we dream, we get excited enough to feel the initial motivation. But we don't always reach the highest levels of commitment possible to guarantee sustained motivation. And unfortunately success becomes a preference or a "nice-to-have" as we progress.
• In this article, I am sharing with you 3 ways to create higher commitment and move from "I would love to achieve that." to "I will write a success story here, this is the only option."

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Have you ever wished that you could wake up every morning super motivated, in “full SWAT team” mode, ready to get things done and move your goals forward?

I have, and if you do too, you probably also know that it is not an easy task to feel like that all the time! Sometimes, you don’t want to get out of bed. Sometimes, things have been stagnant or moving too slow for a while and it is hard to believe that what you would do that day could make a difference. Sometimes, you have already gotten discouraged and postponed working on that goal for so long that it feels like a long way to go back to the initial enthusiasm. Staying motivated, engaged and excited about what you are trying to achieve in life is rarely a breeze to navigate.

I have experienced this firsthand with my new business recently. Obviously, I was expecting the first year of entrepreneurship to be a rollercoaster, but it was more than that. I did not feel anymore the same level of motivation and inner drive to make things happen than the initial burst I felt when I launched. One thing that helped was a conversation with a fellow coach about stories and how to share more of ourselves in whatever content we put out there. This got me thinking about “What is the story I want to write about my business?”. And the answer my mind came up with was an immediate ROARING “The only story I want to write about my business is a success story.”. Not because I want to pretend that everything is easy, but because I don’t see any other outcome possible. Achieving my goal to create a successful business is not an option, not a preference. It is a MUST have. I am 100% committed to do the work, go through the struggles and make it happen no matter what.

This is the level of motivation and inner drive I want to help you bring to your life as well today because this is truly what can make the difference for your success. When success is your only option, no more fluffing around – you take actions, you take decisions, you shut down the doubting voices, you focus on the work needed to make it happen. This is what we call necessity in the High Performance. The necessity to perform and create success.

I am not going to lie, this requires some serious mindset work on a daily basis as you want to find ways to create just the right amount of pressure to keep feeling engaged and challenged, but not overwhelmed or discouraged.

These are 3 practices to start exploring if you want to bring your motivation to a whole new level and sustain it more easily.

#1 – Raise your emotional commitment

The first mistake we often make in terms of motivation is to not go deep enough in terms of emotional commitment with the outcome we are trying to achieve. We set goals without even knowing why it matters to us. Or we have a vague logical explanation for why it would be a good thing, but we barely scratch the surface. Your next level of motivation leaves on the other side of you going down the rabbit hole and dig deeper in your emotions.

The first step to do that is to peel down the layers of WHY you must achieve that goal. Try to ask yourself “Why is this important?” at least 5 times in a row. Identify clearly what benefits you would get if you were successful. Think as well of extended benefits for your relationships, other areas of your life, your future goals, etc… And also explore what emotions you are trying to create – more sense of freedom, more energy, more confidence, more peace, etc… Make the picture vivid, detailed and connected to strong feelings.

The second step is to associate your identity with success as well, current and future. Loss of motivation will come when we start doubting ourselves and our ability to figure things out to create success. And that’s when we lose the belief that we can succeed and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sometimes, we work from the angle “fake it until you make it” which is not aligned at all with our identity. Do some mindset work here – Which ones of your key skills will guarantee success? Who do you want to be? What do you know the future you is capable of? And anchor yourself on that – I am excellent, I am driven, I have done many difficult things in the past and always succeed by persistence, I am the type of person who delivers and does not stop half-way, etc…

If you need another level of emotional commitment after that, your next best tool is setting deadlines to increase the feeling of urgency to make success happen. Urgency adds an extra layer of clarity to what must happen to move forward that can do wonder for commitment!

#2 – Get healthily obsessed by success

Creating a strong emotional commitment to start with is great, but the magic will come from the daily work you do. Success requires playing full out and engaging completely in what you want to achieve. And what that means in practice is to be daily obsessed about:

1)?Emotional re-commitment > visualize your goals and your success, journal about it, share it with others, stick post-its everywhere on your fridge… Whatever way you engage will help you keep the strong WHY alive.

2)?Creating momentum > have something in your calendar every day that is helping you move things forward. One action, one decision, one conversation with someone. Whatever it is, creating momentum allows you to see progress and triggers a positive feedback loop for motivation.

3)?Continuously improving > think about what you are learning through the journey, what you can do differently next time, how it helps you grow. Witnessing your own growth helps you strengthen your sense of identity, notice some benefits you are already getting and make continuing the journey worthwhile.

Being obsessed about these 3 elements on a daily basis is a really strong foundation to keep fueling back your initial emotional commitment and have something to feed from when your patience gets tested. So get obsessed, it is okay in this case!

?#3 – Know who needs you to perform

Connecting with social accountability can be powerful to stay on track as it forces you to think outside of your own head and connect to a larger purpose.

Think about - Who needs you to be successful? Who needs you to show up every day and get things done? Who is going to be positively impacted if you achieve that goal? How would their lives improve? Maybe you are serving a bigger mission and you have a social duty to perform. Maybe there is someone you could be a role model for as a side-effect for being successful. Maybe success in your career could bring another level of enjoyment for your family.

Another angle could also be to look at people who are counting on you that you don’t want to “disappoint”. Having an accountability partner or a coach for instance can be a way to know that someone is going to expect progress from you regularly and will give you some tough love if you don’t. Or maybe you have found a peer group of people who are performing at another level than you and you need to raise your game to keep growing with them.

In all cases, knowing that your success will impact others positively and that it is expected is a powerful way to get out of your own head when doubts or motivation fluctuations start kicking in!

Did you find this article insightful? Let me know in the comments!

Clo - Your Expanded Coach