„Your limitation – it’s only your imagination” or „Make your life a masterpiece; imagine no limitations on what you can be, have or do” Do you feel more motivated right now? Perhaps… but what are the most important factors that motivate us? Is there any golden mean which fits for most people? We are different and each person could motivate various factors. In this article I would like to show you a few techniques you can apply into your daily life. Try them all and then decide what motivates you the most!
First, we should start from a physical well-being. It is crucial if you are heathy and your body is in a good condition; a lot of people totally forget about it. One of the most popular theory in psychology – Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – is a motivational theory comprising a five-tier model of human needs. The point is that needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. If you want to achieve more in sport or in your personal life, first you should take care of all lower levels. Further, you will be able to focus on the self-actualization need.
Eat, Sleep and Repeat
People often ignore the need for sleep. Sometimes they are proud that they sleep just five or six hours and they feel good with it. The truth is that adult people need seven hours of sleep at least. Every sleepless night is a huge burden for our body, and chronic insomnia destroys our health. The second thing is a healthy nutrition. You should take care of what you eat. It is not easy to take control of your motivation when you feel hungry or contrary you are full because you ate too much. During the meal you consume the energy that stored within the food. Eat high quality carbs, especially when you work out regularly. It is a fuel for your body. A lot of fatigue in workout is because of tired Nervous System. Provide to your body the right level of blood-glucose amount to keep your Nervous System healthy.
Set an Exciting Goal
Probably you heard about the S.M.A.R.T rule. We use it when we are going to set a new goal in our life. I wrote more about it HERE. The rule tells us that goal should be: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. Is it enough? My practice work showed me that people need something more. So what is the secret to achieving goals? I spent plenty hours with my clients and it made me realize that the ideal situation is when the goal is exciting for a person who sets it. Moreover, it should be created by that person. I think you agree with me that you are more into the goals designed by yourself. You have that energy and excitement inside that push you for action. The research showed that intrinsic motivation is much more stronger than extrinsic. Therefore, we are able to maintain this energy and be involved longer in what we do. The inner passion is beautiful and it gives us a strong motivation. Thus, there’s many ways to create exciting goals, but what we should do when our daily routine makes it boring? In that case, just change it a little. The changes cause that we could see old things in totally new light. It depends on what you do, but anyway you can change the place when you train, add new exercises, work out with friends, take a new path for jogging or try a new gym. Not only in sport but also in personal life you can change the techniques e.g. when you study foreign languages (watch movies, listen to the radio, sing a song, talk with friends, write a blog or you can try one of many language apps). On the one hand the routine helps us to achieve our goals and it doesn’t overload our head, but on the other hand our brain doesn’t like routine. The good solution would be to keep your routine where it works and diversify those areas when you feel like burnt out.
Involvement
I wanna share one motivational secret with you. Usually the biggest problem is to start. How many times you told yourself that you’ll start train from tomorrow? I think you may know it. Remember it – tomorrow is not better than today! When you feel that you really wanna something, definitely you should start working on it today! The good news is when you start then it would be easier to maintain your activity. It’s harder to resign when we repeat something through weeks or months. We know that we put a lot of effort in that activity and it’s more difficult to give up. Anyway, there’s a strong physical pleasure in working out. The more we train, the most we are motivated to workout. Simple, right? What does push us to work out so much? Your body secrets hormones (e.g. dopamine) that makes you feel happy. It gives you more energy and you repeat it because it brings a lot of pleasure.
In conclusion, when you have no life energy and you need to arouse your motivation level, first you need to set a clear and fascinating goal. Then just move yourself from the couch and take an action! If you’ll be repeating this regularly, I am sure you notice it’s easier to work on your purpose. I also believe that you will make your life more satisfying as well.
Motivational Techniques
What you should do when you set an exciting goals but… the weather is bad, you feel tired or just you can’t move out from the couch? Here you are a few methods you can try when you feel out of power:
- motivational videos – there’s planty of motivation videos on YouTube. Watch it and after a couple of minutes maybe you change your mind about your laziness.
- write down your goals – this is a good solution when you want to increase the involvement. Write it down and then stick it somewhere when you can see it. When we write down our purposes then we work on them all the time and our subconscious helps us.
- turn on an energetic music – there’s nothing worse than melancholy music when you feel depressed. Don’t do this for your brain! You can always break the scheme and try to help yourself. Your favorite energetic music should bring you more energy.
- talk with people – friends with the same passion – it would be the best option for you. It’s also a good idea to motivate each other. How do you feel when your training partner did the workout today and you didn’t?
- stay positive and make more fun – set your mind positively and remember that all what you do is just for you. This is your life and you should feel satisfaction. Make more fun when you work on your goals!