6 Tips to Get Yourself Motivated
Have you ever noticed that one of the weird things about tasks you hate is that they often aren’t as bad as you thought once you start them? So what is it that makes you think they are so bad beforehand? Find out here how to motivate yourself and get over these problems.
Often it’s the way you are thinking about the task. You imagine how boring, stressful or unpleasant it’s going to be. You spend ages building the picture in your head.
You imagine how dreadful the other people involved will be and how painful the experience is going to be. You imagine being treated badly and not being able to respond effectively.
Is it surprising that you don’t feel motivated? Here are a few techniques to make it easier.
Some Things Just Aren’t Fun so it's Hard to be Motivated
This is undeniably the case, so why dwell on them? It’s much more motivating to think about how nice life will be when they are finished. That’s what people who find it easy to be motivated do. You can do the same.
It sounds obvious, but it’s worth a go.
Focus on what the improvements will be when you have finished the unpleasant task. Build a rosy picture in your mind of what that will be like. Imagine exactly what you will see, what you will feel and what you will hear.
Make it clear and bright; make the sounds loud and the feelings strong.
Make The Task More Pleasant to Motivate Yourself
There are often ways that unpleasant tasks can be made more pleasant. One may be doing them in more pleasant surroundings, or listening to your favourite music while you do them.
I don’t really like running, but I get over that by listening to thrillers on my iPod while I do it. When I have a particularly good one (at the moment I’m listening to Dracula) I find I can hardly wait to get out and hear the next instalment.
Think carefully about what you could do to make the task enjoyable. This can be hard at first because when you are contemplating unpleasant things your brain tends to shut down and just look on the dark side, refusing to admit there are opportunities for improvement.
However, those opportunities are always there. So talk it through with a friend and ask him or her for suggestions and how they do the same task.
Break it Down for Easier Motivation
Sometimes you make life difficult for yourself by planning to do a huge, gigantic horrible task all in one go. No wonder it’s no fun. An easy thing to do here is to break it into smaller parts and then make sure you do something you enjoy immediately after completing each part.
Check Your Attention Span
This is easy to do. Take a stopwatch and start it going as you embark on the dreadful task. Stop it as soon as you find your mind wandering. Do this a few times and you’ll find the time is pretty consistent.
Now break the task up into sections that are just a bit shorter than your concentration span for that task.
Do something else between the sections.
Keep A Progress Chart
If you were a kid in the 70s you’ll remember the “Blue Peter” charts for raising money from milk bottle tops and other unlikely revenue sources.
What’s interesting about these charts is that they really motivate you. They don’t have to be complicated. Just a thermometer on the wall that you colour in is good enough.
Find Out How Someone Else Does It
One of the reasons you are not motivated sometimes is because you are not doing the task properly and are making it more difficult than necessary. I discovered this when I worked with Penny Wing on our booklet Cold Calling For Hot Leads.
One of the reasons I found it so hard and hated it so much was because I was doing it in a way that made it even more difficult than it had to be. Penny loves cold calling. So she does it in much more enjoyable way. She has a system for doing it and is much more effective than people who don’t.
How to Motivate Yourself and Others
In this simple, step by step guide you will discover:
- What motivation is
- The easy first step that really helps in every situation
- Examples of different kinds of motivation and how to work with them
- How to keep people motivated once you’ve got them going
- How to deal with negativity and complaints
- How to motivate ‘negative’ people
- How to motivate highly creative people
- How to motivate people to be more proactive
- How to motivate people to do mundane jobs
- How to motivate people when you can’t increase their pay
- How to motivate people in redundancy situations
- How to motivate people to improve quality and accuracy
- How to motivate people to work well in teams
- How to motivate people to accept change
- How to motivate yourself when you lose interest
- How to motivate yourself to complete unpleasant tasks
- How to motivate yourself when you are stressed
You can get this booklet now for just £6.25