How to motivate yourself and keep it going
How do you motivate yourself?
Setting a particular goal is always useful to get the inner fire stoked up but how do you keep it going?
I have a lazy Susan, and it’s not the table top turner that you use for distributing food at a party.
Although, that would be pretty cool for a cheese board.
Oh no, my lazy Susan is the inner part of myself that is lazy. You know, the voices that you hear in your head when you don’t want to do something.
I’ve named that part of me in order to recognise when it’s happening, when that inner critic voice shows up to sabotage my motivation and progress.
If Susan had her way, I wouldn’t get anything done all day and would probably stay in bed watching TV (I don’t watch a great deal of TV, or stay in bed for a long amount of time these days, so she’s really rebelling to the extreme of my usual behaviour).
Sometimes it can be difficult to recognise when she has rocked up to undo all of my good work so this is how I deal with her :) and how you can deal, and work, with your lazy Susan.
1) Goal Setting -
Ongoing little goals even if you have a bigger goal in mind.
Firstly, to get motivated about a particular thing, there needs to be something to work towards so you need a goal.
Here’s the thing though, to stay motivated it’s good to have a smaller ongoing goal.
Or smaller steps along the way to reach a bigger goal that you may be chasing, and most importantly, to continue with your smaller steps after that bigger goal has been reached.
Let me explain.
Let’s say you wanted to lose a stone in weight, that’s the big goal.
It’s not going to be a quick fix solution so it’s a long-term goal that has to be worked towards.
The big goal is to lose a stone but to achieve that goal, it’s good idea to approach the bigger goal with smaller steps.
Maybe you decide to exercise more or eat less, or both.
It’s not realistic or sustainable to go from zero exercise a week to exercising 6 times a week.
Nor is it sustainable to lose a stone in a month by eating very little food.
A few, sustainable life style changes would help to achieve your longer term goal, like eating less sugar or doing a little more exercise on a weekly basis.
And, of course, smaller sustainable steps are easier to achieve.
Once you’ve reached your bigger goal, keep up some of your smaller steps as a lifestyle change for good.
Otherwise you put the weight back on, stop all activity and the whole process proves pretty pointless.
2). Recognise your inner Susan and work with her.
To stay motivated, I have learnt to work with my inner Susan by recognising when she shows up the most.
Two of my friends and I used to run on a Monday evening.
Their bigger goal was to train for a 10K race, I joined them with a smaller goal and that was to run with the two of them, every Monday evening.
This was fine in the summer, nice weather, light evenings, us friends spurring each other on.
Running through the fields in the glorious evening sunshine like a blissful washing detergent advert.
When the weather started to change though and it began to get darker earlier… guess who made an appearance?
Yes, you’ve got it. Old lazy Susan rocked up with a hatful of excuses.
“It’s too cold”.
“It’s too dark”.
“I can’t see where I’m going”.
“We can’t run through the fields as they’re too wet”.
“The pavements are uneven and the street lighting is poor”.
“The weather is miserable, I’d rather sit on the sofa”.
My lazy Susan hates exercising in the evenings, because she has all day to think and moan about it (whilst coming up with every excuse under the sun to get out of it).
After a while, my two friends stopped running as they had ran their 10K race (and because they were only aiming for the bigger goal) so I started to run alone.
I tried another time of day, out in the light on a Saturday or Sunday morning.
And ooooooh, it was lovely.
I enjoyed it, there was no-one around, the birds were singing in the trees.
I could see the pavement and have my run completed and a tick in the box by 10am in the morning, before enjoying the rest of my weekend.
Susan was as quiet as a mouse. In fact, she didn’t even have time to come up with any excuses.
I was out running before she even knew about it.
My smaller goal now is to run once a week, anytime within a seven day period.
If the weather is rubbish, I can choose another day to run which will keep old lazy Susan at bay.
3) Ignore your inner Susan
There are times when, to get on and stay motivated, I totally ignore my inner Susan.
I go to a Zumba class every Tuesday night and once I’m there, I really love it.
I enjoy the dancing, the social aspect and how it makes me feel afterwards.
Ahead of getting there though, there is an absolute inner battle and that’s with Susan (every. single. week).
That’s because Susan, once again, has all day to come up with excuses to get out of going.
And there was a time where Susan was winning and I wasn’t going to Zumba as regularly as I would have liked to.
These days though, I have her in check because… yep, I ignore her!
I get my kit on and get ready to go to Zumba straight after I’ve finished work, and before I do anything else, on the evening of the class.
That has kept my trips to Zumba more consistent week on week.
Sure, Susan is dragged along kicking and screaming, and coming up with all of the excuses possible to get out of doing the class.
But I ignore her because I know that I will definitely regret not going to the class, more than I will.
Also, I know that I’ll feel great during, and after, the class which leads me nicely to my next point.
4) Focus on the results
If your inner Susan, or negative Nathan, is being super loud and you struggle to keep them in check, try and turn your mind to your reason “why”.
There’s a reason why you set your goal in the first place, or why you wanted to achieve something.
Let’s say you have a large project to finish and you’re struggling with the motivation to get it done.
Imagine the elation you’ll feel once it’s complete and the monkey is off your back?
Plus you’ll get rid of that nagging feeling of it weighing you down, which far outweighs the number of excuses from moaning, lazy Susan.
5) Conclusion:
So, to keep yourself motivated:
- Create yourself smaller bitesize steps to get to a much bigger goal.
- Run the smaller steps alongside, and beyond, the bigger goal to achieve a longer-term lifestyle change and stay motivated.
- Get to know the time of the day that works best for you, for whatever it is that you want to achieve.
- If you work more efficiently between 11am and 1pm, use that time of day for what you want to get done.
- Ignore your lazy, procrastinating inner self whenever necessary. Go through the motions and do it anyway.
- Focus on the positive results and how you will feel when you achieve both your smaller goals, and the main larger goal :)
That’s all for now, I’m off for a run.. with lazy Susan in tow for at least the first 2km.
Have a good rest of week and thanks for reading.
