We all have lofty goals we aspire to on the way to building better lives. Working towards accomplishing those goals and creating that life requires sustained and consistent effort. Most of the time, it is fun to work on your goals, however, sometimes it can become a pain and could lead to a burn-out. The question becomes how do you motivate yourself every day?
It can be tiring. Constantly, working and seeing little pay-off, especially when it is a long-term goal like losing 20 pounds or saving for your FIRE number.
We know we are making progress towards the goal, but “success” is still a long way off. It can get a little demotivating to continue this rhythm. Below is some insight into the motivation, followed by strategies on how to motivate yourself every day.
Insight 1: Discipline > Motivation
“Don’t count on motivation. Count on discipline”
Jocko Willink
Motivation is great but, it can be fleeting. If we wait until we are motivated to pursue our goals and create the life we want, we will never get there.
Working towards goals requires consistent, sustained effort. We can’t wait for the boost of motivation and dopamine. A better strategy is to build a beneficial habit that forces you to work towards your goals unconsciously. Such as writing at the same time every day, drawing for ten minutes at night, or setting up automated finances to save $10 a day. You have to build working on your goal every day to make it happen.
Insight 2: Enjoy the Work
“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”
Lou Holtz
Motivation makes working towards our goals much more enjoyable. It can inspire us to work harder and be optimistic in the face of adversity. Cultivating a sense of discipline to execute on your goals lets those goals come closer to reality every day.
However, you need to enjoy the day to day work in the first place. That is why it is important to ask yourself, what do you want to do? Work towards goals that are authentically you, and that will build towards your ideal life.
Learning how to motivate yourself every day isn’t useful if the work you are doing isn’t working building towards a life that is authentically you. Working towards goals you want to accomplish, not goals you feel pressured to do by others, helps the day to day feel less like a chore and is instead something you can look forward to.
Insight 3: Be Positive
Positive people are more likely to accomplish their long term goals studies have found. Positive people can succeed in their goals because they can push through negative feelings like, “I am not good enough” and “I don’t want to do this” and replace them with more positive emotions. Thoughts like “I can do this” or “I am going to enjoy working towards my goals” relace those negative thoughts.
These traits: motivation (when its there), discipline, working on authentically you goals, and a positive attitude is a great recipe to motivate yourself every day.
In order to implement these traits daily, use the below tips to motivate yourself everyday!
How to Motivate Yourself Every Day
1. Write Down and Visualize Your Goals
Write down a giant bucket list of all the goals you want to accomplish, skills you want to develop, and things you want to do.
Use SMART goals when writing down this list because they make the tasks specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound.
Then go and pick the top three to five goals from that list that you want to make progress towards. Pick the ones that are the most meaningful to you. The goals that make the rest of your life fuller. Then use this one question to align your day to tackling your top priority.
Write down your top goals on a post-it note and keep the post-it note someplace you see every day, like a computer monitor or even at your coffee machine. Take a minute each morning to visualize one of the goals by taking five minutes and WOOP the goal. Visualizing every day can make the goal more tangible and can inspire you to work towards it harder.
2. Look to People Who are Already Doing What you Want to Do
Follow inspiring people on social media and research a little about them. Be careful of people who tell you to “blindly pursue your goals” while trying to sell you their motivation course. They might not be the best to emulate.
For example, if you want to be an artist, follow Instagram profiles like Inktober, contemporary art curator, or Artnet to get daily doses of people making the art you would like to learn to do. Look for people or communities that are doing what you want to do and join them. You can see how they got to where they are, learn from there, and then will generate community support that helps you reach your goal. A lot of people in those communities might have already accomplished what you are striving to get done. Meaning, they can offer you insight into how to realistically achieve your goal.
3. Celebrate the Little Wins
In pursuit of lofty goals, it can be easy to dismiss milestones along the way. Did you sit down and work towards a goal today? Celebrate that! It creates positive habits that can encourage us to keep pushing to get better.
For instance, I eventually want to design vintage style travel posters. Which means I need to vastly improve my artistic ability. I recently drew three straight lines in a row. For me, I celebrated that. It isn’t even close towards my end goal, but it is a marker on the way to that lofty goal.
4. Focus and Make the Time
Neil Gaiman’s technique for writing does not require motivation. Every morning he sits down to write, and he only allows himself two options. Either write or sit there and do nothing. Some days he will spend a while doing nothing, but once that gets boring, he will set to writing. This was the method he has used to win many award-winning fiction books, it all started by making the time.
Even prolificate writers have a hard time writing. However, writers like Gaimen have built a system that forces them to write. We can emulate this by setting ten minutes every day, “from 8:45-8:55 PM I will draw or do nothing”. That ratio can flip, some days it’s a full ten minutes of work, and other days, it could be only one minute. What matters is you take the time and focus where you can.
5. Know Which Type of Procrastinator You Are
Knowing which type of procrastinator you are is helpful because then you can tackle procrastination in a way that works for you. Do you avoid the negative feelings of doing work, or do you prioritize relaxation above all else? Knowing your procrastination habit is the first way to overcome it.
6. Take it Easy
Life is a marathon. Straining and groining every day, trying to force yourself to work on your goals can cause you needless anxiety and make you quit early.
Studies have found it better to spend twenty minutes for five days every week for the year working on a goal rather than doing crazy 12 hour days for a handful of weeks. Consistency is key to producing good quality work and realizing goal accomplishment.
If we are straining to work on your goals, then maybe that is the signal you need to relax a bit. Take time and realize that you have time ahead of you.
7. Practice Self-Compassion
Work a little bit consistently. Do not strain and force yourself to work on the goal. Remind yourself why you want to work on this area of your life, and what it means to you. Focus on the positive aspects, and if the work today sucks, that’s fine. There is no need to strain. Take the lessons learned and try again tomorrow. The world’s problems do not need to be solved today, ease up on the pressure. If the day is too hard, even take the day off and come back refreshed tomorrow. You wouldn’t yell at your friend for taking one day off after working hard consistently. Treat yourself like a friend, you shouldn’t beat yourself up either.
Main Take-Aways:
- Discipline combined with motivation and positive emotions can be a powerful force leading to positive change in our lives
- To be motivated every day, it takes constant reminders of why we are working towards this goal and seeing the benefits it will cause for us. Learning how to motivate yourself every day takes time, and consistency is the key.
- Ease up on the pressure. Putting needless pressure on ourselves will only cause anxiety and we will eventually lead to quitting the thing we wanted to achieve.
Action item
What are the three goals you want to achieve in the next six months? Use the above steps to narrow it down. Then follow five people who are doing what you want to do in each of these areas, and enjoy the journey towards self-improvement!
