Self motivation can be one of the hardest things to achieve, especially when you are not looking forward to something such as looking for a job or overcoming old habits that have become ingrained over time. Finding a way to motivate yourself is a difficult demon that originates from things you were taught to believe at a time in your life when you were shaping your thoughts and who you are.
Whether intentional or not on the part of your upbringing, self motivation is all about fighting habits that were ingrained at a very early stage in your life, which is the primary reason that self motivation can be very difficult. The good news is that although self motivation can be difficult, it is not impossible if you understand its roots and a few techniques on how to re-motivate yourself and stay that way. If you have been self motivated in the past and for one reason or another are in a slump, this cycle is not impossible to break. If you have never been self motivated and have the desire to make a change, you CAN begin to motivate yourself to achieve a higher quality of life.
1Motivation Techniques: Break Out of Your Comfort Zone
Just the thought of mentioning “break out of your comfort zone” can scare some people to death. This is because the comfort zone is the primary reason you stay stuck where you are in life. Although it may not be healthy, you stay there because it is “familiar” and venturing into unfamiliar territory takes a certain amount of faith and courage.
If you have been self motivated and have fallen into a slump, the slump can subconsciously become your comfort zone which makes it difficult to break out of. If you have never been self motivated, your comfort zone has become well ingrained and it will take some persistency and effort to overcome.
Either way you must be willing to leave your comfort zone and begin to become familiar with your “discomfort” zone. Once you do, you will discover that some of the things you were afraid of when you were in your comfort zone were highly unrealistic and this will provide you with the strength to move forward with your goals.
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Motivation Techniques: Begin with the End in Mind
If you are not enthusiastic about something you must do such as searching for a job, you will find yourself procrastinating. Try to picture the end result of what will happen once you have a job. You will be able to pay your bills, stop worrying, take time to enjoy your life, and many other benefits that will come from landing a job.
If you make it a practice to keep visualizing the end result and then compare it to where you are now, this will help you find the motivation to begin moving toward your goal.
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Motivation Techniques: Anticipate the Setbacks
When you begin to move toward achieving your goals, picture the worst thing that can happen and then come up with a backup plan. By envisioning the worst, you can prepare yourself for setbacks which will inevitably occur when you are venturing outside of your comfort zone. Setbacks are a natural part of moving forward but a major obstacle for some people when it comes to self motivation.
When you are trying to motivate yourself there is that little voice in your subconscious mind that keeps arguing with you saying, “Well if I stay in my comfort zone I will not have to worry about any setbacks.” The idea is to argue back and overcome the thoughts that are in your subconscious mind and forge ahead anyway.
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Motivation Techniques: Finish What You Start
Sometimes when you fall into a slump it is because you feel overwhelmed by all of the unfinished business around you which you have started and failed to complete. This is also one of the biggest roadblocks to re-motivating yourself. Instead, make a list of all of the unfinished business you have started and then create a plan for tackling each task one by one.
If the task is really unnecessary, then eliminate it but the important thing is to remember to finish one task before you begin the next. If you do this repeatedly it will become a well conditioned habit and you will no longer have all of these unfinished projects in your life which make things appear to be too overwhelming to take care of.
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Motivation Techniques: Let Go of the Past
The past may have more control over self motivation then you think. If you have been self motivated and have fallen into a slump, pay close attention to your thought patterns. Do they tend to revert to a past event where you were told you would never amount to anything? Do your thoughts tend to focus on a time that you may have failed?
These thoughts can be preventing self motivation because subconsciously you are listening to voices from your past and it is preventing you from moving forward. Also, if you have been self motivated, you may have fallen into a slump because you let voices of the past get the best of you. In order to re-motivate yourself you have to let go of the past and start thinking about where you are in the present and what you need to achieve.
Once you achieve self motivation it will be a feeling that is foreign to you if you have had to overcome demons from your past to get to where you are going. Allow yourself to feel differently and realize that this is part of making a change. If you let the ghosts of the past creep in you will fall back into your old patterns.
If you have been self motivated in the past and have simply fallen into a slump, you must realize what is driving your feelings and then it will be easier to block them out and stay self motivated. Understanding the cause is an essential part of staying out of the trap.
