Have you ever had a day when you had a lot of things to do,
but didn't have the motivation? I live
plenty of those days. Sometimes, I am so
unmotivated that I allow my work to pile up like crazy. And then the next few days are spent in the
great agony of running to complete deadlines, with no time for fun or enjoyment
of any kind.
7. Write a letter to self: Use the days when there is not much action around to go into a journey within. Word it around the strong set of core values that define you and allow it to cover your hopes and ambitions. Use it to cultivate a sense of identity, re-evaluate your current friendships or how to take better care of yourself.
8. Write your contribution to the universe: Sometimes, you need to expand your point of view to see what value-addition you are doing to the universe. It can be something as small as sending vibrations of peace, praying for a friend or feeding a poor.
9. Do a model runway walk: Put on some peppy music and get your modeling figure into action. Go nuts with your outfit, put on some bangles/jewelry/high heels and groove with the tone of music set by your system.
10. Try poetry: Poetry teaches us to live. Random words, verses, sentences bring in rhythm, shedding a sideways light on the world around us.
11. Do it for 5 seconds: Sometimes, a moment lasting as short as 5 seconds is what you need to get up and go. If you have any thought or instinct to do something, do it within 5 seconds or your brain will cut it out.
12. Let go of the waste: Waste thoughts, emotions, habits make it overwhelmingly hard to move on. Create a list of actions and chunk out the stuff that is not needed, including memories of previous hurts. Let them go.
13. Get your groove going: Play funky music, get into the beats, let the rhythm of it take you over. Listen to the lyrics, allow them to speak to you as if the song was made especially for you.
14. Visualise your goals: This is one of the oldest tricks in the sack. Write down your short-term and long term goals, visualize the satisfaction that you will feel after achieving them and use that feeling to get past your fears and doubts.
15. Reward yourself: Every kind of motivation works well then there is a reward attached to it. The reward can be something as small as a cookie or something big like buying a new car. Regardless of whether you are at the half-line or have already finished the marathon, reward yourself with something that motivates you to carry on.
16. By psyched up about yourself: You are unique. You can search the entire universe, but will not find anyone else exactly like you. God gave you life for a reason, and it is your duty to find it, live it and be psyched about it.
17. Do an inner dialogue: Inner dialogues and positive self-talk can have surprising benefits. When you say things like "I am the best", "I like myself", "I can do it" or "I deserve this", you tend to reinforce the positivity around you which matters better by creating an aura of hopefulness.
18. Call someone: Your mom, buddy or neighbor next door – speaking to someone who makes you feel better about yourself is an instant motivator. Sometimes somebody else, a different person, can see what you are good at rather than you yourself. When you get such kind of positive people, even if it is for 2-minutes, their positivity tends to impact you too.
19. Read: A seemingly unrelated article/book/note can push you to do something that you have been trying to do. To make it better, develop a daily reading habit. It is going to put a long-lasting impact on your personality as well as how you perceive yourself.
20. Positive quotes go a long way: Sometimes reading the right kind of quote is just the motivation that you need to get up and get going. Read it on your phone, laptop or get a book. Read.
21. Find a visual motivator: It can be a photograph of self when you didn’t have that much weight around your waist, a stack of books that you want to read along your study table or a list of new healthy recipes that you want to try on. When you walk by your visual motivator every morning and night at least 10-20 times a day, the thought of it starts to get reinforced in your mind unconsciously. Find one thing, one big impact that you should focus on, and get a visual motivator to put it by your study table or near the place you sleep at.
22. Investigate: Why to keep a clear outlook right, why you should do that work or why you should lose the weight or why it is important for you to close the credit card debt? This physical activity builds in motivation for long term behavior.
23. Make a list of what makes you smile: Those little moments in your day that really brought you joy or made you feel excited. It sometimes makes it better to write them down so that you can instantly feel that rush of being happy.
24. Practice gratitude: From the moment we open eyes in the morning, we run towards what is important in the day. In the process, we sometimes forget to be thankful. Practice gratitude, say thanks to God, to nature, to your higher energy and use that gratitude to build up the motivation to get along with the day.
25. Face your fears: Think of the last moment when you decided to procrastinate something and how it made you feel. Use that guilt to get up now and get moving.
26: 20 seconds rule: Get just 20 seconds of insane courage to do something. Be bold about it, get ahead and do it. Be it about sending an email to a prospective client or going out for a jog, just use those 20 seconds to focus on one idea. Have the courage to go about it, and keep on doing it again and again and again.
Motivation means different things to different people. To
some, it starts with getting up on time in the morning and running their day
like a clock. While to others, it could just be that extra cup of coffee that
keeps them going. Over the last year, I have observed people around me and
have come up with a list of things that keeps them self-motivated.
26 Ways You Can Motivate Yourself
1. Start small: Big is dangerous. It needs
preparation - both physically and mentally, whereas small can be done with only
a minute change. You want to leave sugar, don't go from soda and ice creams to
buying non-sugary fruits in one day. Give your body some time to adjust. Start
small, but keep it consistent.
2. Remove distractions: It works big time. I, for
example, like to read witty comments in my Twitter feed. So the
moment I allow myself to switch it on for a moment, other things attract me and
soon I find myself looking at latest shoes or cute buns for short hair that I
know I am never going to be perfect at. Your distractions will not be many if you can make a list and
dedicate time towards them out of your work hours.
3. Engage in small dares: Sometimes, a little
adrenaline is what is needed to move us out of our comfort zone. You can dare
yourself to face your fear, play like a kid, take a dance class, wave hello to
random strangers, drink 5 glasses of water without stopping, try a sexier dress
(even if you don’t want to buy, try it at least!) – do something that makes you
live in the moment.
4. Try makeup: A new hairdo, eyeliner or a plain cherry color for lips – a change in how you look sometimes boosts mood and makes one feel happy. Focusing on self-care produces good feelings about the self and the nearby environment.
6. Declutter your life: Simplify your surroundings, weed out the activities that do not add anything positive to your routine/life. In her book Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks, Marilyn vos Savant notes that effective living is simple living. To strengthen intelligence and expand positivity of mood to carry on with a task, go easy on what you do and focus on doing only one thing at a time.4. Try makeup: A new hairdo, eyeliner or a plain cherry color for lips – a change in how you look sometimes boosts mood and makes one feel happy. Focusing on self-care produces good feelings about the self and the nearby environment.
Read: 10 Commandments to Be Happy
5. Tell yourself why you are wonderful: This was a creative writing exercise that my language teacher used to make us do in the class. We were given an hour to write wonderful things about ourselves in a poem and create a vision of the future. It sort-of made us touch our motivational resources and invited us to express ourselves.
7. Write a letter to self: Use the days when there is not much action around to go into a journey within. Word it around the strong set of core values that define you and allow it to cover your hopes and ambitions. Use it to cultivate a sense of identity, re-evaluate your current friendships or how to take better care of yourself.
8. Write your contribution to the universe: Sometimes, you need to expand your point of view to see what value-addition you are doing to the universe. It can be something as small as sending vibrations of peace, praying for a friend or feeding a poor.
9. Do a model runway walk: Put on some peppy music and get your modeling figure into action. Go nuts with your outfit, put on some bangles/jewelry/high heels and groove with the tone of music set by your system.
10. Try poetry: Poetry teaches us to live. Random words, verses, sentences bring in rhythm, shedding a sideways light on the world around us.
11. Do it for 5 seconds: Sometimes, a moment lasting as short as 5 seconds is what you need to get up and go. If you have any thought or instinct to do something, do it within 5 seconds or your brain will cut it out.
12. Let go of the waste: Waste thoughts, emotions, habits make it overwhelmingly hard to move on. Create a list of actions and chunk out the stuff that is not needed, including memories of previous hurts. Let them go.
13. Get your groove going: Play funky music, get into the beats, let the rhythm of it take you over. Listen to the lyrics, allow them to speak to you as if the song was made especially for you.
14. Visualise your goals: This is one of the oldest tricks in the sack. Write down your short-term and long term goals, visualize the satisfaction that you will feel after achieving them and use that feeling to get past your fears and doubts.
15. Reward yourself: Every kind of motivation works well then there is a reward attached to it. The reward can be something as small as a cookie or something big like buying a new car. Regardless of whether you are at the half-line or have already finished the marathon, reward yourself with something that motivates you to carry on.
16. By psyched up about yourself: You are unique. You can search the entire universe, but will not find anyone else exactly like you. God gave you life for a reason, and it is your duty to find it, live it and be psyched about it.
17. Do an inner dialogue: Inner dialogues and positive self-talk can have surprising benefits. When you say things like "I am the best", "I like myself", "I can do it" or "I deserve this", you tend to reinforce the positivity around you which matters better by creating an aura of hopefulness.
18. Call someone: Your mom, buddy or neighbor next door – speaking to someone who makes you feel better about yourself is an instant motivator. Sometimes somebody else, a different person, can see what you are good at rather than you yourself. When you get such kind of positive people, even if it is for 2-minutes, their positivity tends to impact you too.
19. Read: A seemingly unrelated article/book/note can push you to do something that you have been trying to do. To make it better, develop a daily reading habit. It is going to put a long-lasting impact on your personality as well as how you perceive yourself.
20. Positive quotes go a long way: Sometimes reading the right kind of quote is just the motivation that you need to get up and get going. Read it on your phone, laptop or get a book. Read.
21. Find a visual motivator: It can be a photograph of self when you didn’t have that much weight around your waist, a stack of books that you want to read along your study table or a list of new healthy recipes that you want to try on. When you walk by your visual motivator every morning and night at least 10-20 times a day, the thought of it starts to get reinforced in your mind unconsciously. Find one thing, one big impact that you should focus on, and get a visual motivator to put it by your study table or near the place you sleep at.
22. Investigate: Why to keep a clear outlook right, why you should do that work or why you should lose the weight or why it is important for you to close the credit card debt? This physical activity builds in motivation for long term behavior.
23. Make a list of what makes you smile: Those little moments in your day that really brought you joy or made you feel excited. It sometimes makes it better to write them down so that you can instantly feel that rush of being happy.
24. Practice gratitude: From the moment we open eyes in the morning, we run towards what is important in the day. In the process, we sometimes forget to be thankful. Practice gratitude, say thanks to God, to nature, to your higher energy and use that gratitude to build up the motivation to get along with the day.
25. Face your fears: Think of the last moment when you decided to procrastinate something and how it made you feel. Use that guilt to get up now and get moving.
26: 20 seconds rule: Get just 20 seconds of insane courage to do something. Be bold about it, get ahead and do it. Be it about sending an email to a prospective client or going out for a jog, just use those 20 seconds to focus on one idea. Have the courage to go about it, and keep on doing it again and again and again.
