Motivation is an important factor in accomplishing your goals. Without it, it will be more difficult to find the inspiration to reach for what you initially set your heart and mind to do. Fortunately, when motivation starts to dwindle, there are ways to bring it back. 

Here are some tips to stay motivated and on track to reach your goals:

1. Visualize your goals.

   Visualization is a powerful, time-tested scientific tool that works at a subconscious level. When you set a goal, try visualizing the things you might see, feel and hear when you attain your goal (for example, the applause and the compliments of your colleagues after you delivered an excellent presentation). A lot of successful athletes use this technique to motivate themselves. They visualize their performance in advance and do this in such a detailed manner, that they can smell the sweat dripping from their face as they reach the finish line. An experiment was conducted with athletes in which some athletes were asked to run, and others were asked to visualize ‘as if’ they were running. Surprisingly the muscles of the athletes who visualized, responded in the same way as the people who actually ran, showing that the brain cannot clearly differentiate between reality and strong visualization! The brain perceives the visualized experience to be real, and organizes the body’s chemistry and physiology to respond accordingly. 

2. Scrutinize your motivators.

   Know the specific reasons you want to attain a specific goal, and write these reasons down. For instance, if you want to attain something for your loved ones, this could be a powerful motivator as you’re not just motivated by self-interest. While self-interest is a good motivator, wanting to accomplish a goal for something other than self-interest can have more impact in sustaining your motivation for a long time. Some questions to ask are:

What are the greatest benefits for me if I achieve my goal?

What all will change positively in my life?

How will my life change when I achieve this?

How will I feel and how will my future look if I achieve this?

What kind of person can I become if I achieve this?

3. Accept your mistakes.

   The path to attaining success may not be easy. There will be roadblocks along the way, and you’ll probably make mistakes in the process. Instead of beating yourself up for those mistakes, use them as learning opportunities. Don’t let them be the reasons you stop reaching for your goals. Use them as opportunities to learn what not to do in the future. Everyone makes mistakes! In fact, champions fail even more because they set higher goals than anyone else who chooses to be in the comfort zone. The only difference is how they treat their failures – champions learn from them, become stronger, and keep going. 

4. Break down your main goal into chunks.

   Break your main goal into more task-oriented, smaller goals. Set a deadline for each one. For instance, if your primary goal is re-organizing your closet, know exactly when and where you should start. It could be your shoes, then belts and accessories, then shirts, etc. Breaking down a huge task into smaller ones will make the process more manageable, and will help to prevent the levels of stress which can damage motivation. By chunking it down or creating milestones, a big goal becomes more achievable and measurable. When you can measure and document progress and small success, this will help to sustain and builds more motivation.

5. Compete with yourself.

   There are times when you tend to compare yourself with others and try to reach for perfection – making it harder to reach your goals. This can have a huge impact on your motivation, thereby sabotaging it, instead of maximizing it to push yourself forward. With that said it makes sense to compete with self and work on continuous improvement rather than getting bogged down by others or trying to race with others. It is definitely important to learn from others and their strategies, and model them if required, but remember, ‘whenever we just try to overtake people on the highway there will be always someone or the other ahead of us’.

Sustaining motivation can be tough, but with the right mindset and motivational training, you can tap into your inner motivation, harness it, and sustain it.

About the Author: Harrish Sairaman

Harrish Sairaman is a well-known motivational teacher in India, helping many to achieve which once seemed unachievable like increase motivation, leadership, Corporate Training, decrease stress etc. through Motivational Training Programs, Leadership training programs, team building training programs, Entrepreneur Coaching and Individual Coaching to name a few. His ability to deliver life changing, scientifically sound, relevant and metaphysical messages in a powerful, humorous and insightful manner integrated with high energy has earned him a reputation of bringing about a difference with a difference! 

Find out more about Harrish on www.harrishsairaman.com, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.