Do you frequently find yourself putting off important tasks and finding it difficult to maintain motivation? If the answer is yes, you are lacking the self-motivation to move forward with your goals.
Self-motivation is the inner desire to pursue your objectives, or you could say it is an internal force that motivates you to act, maintain focus, and overcome challenges in order to achieve your objectives, even in the lack of benefits from the outside world.
In this article, I will go through 10 effective strategies for sparking the flame of intrinsic desire or self-motivation in yourself. Without any outside reward, you can use these 10 ways to keep moving in the direction of your goals.
Are you prepared to overcome self-doubt and harness the strength of inner force? Let’s get started…
Table of Contents
What is Self-motivation?
Imagine you set a goal to do the exercise every day at least for 30 minutes, but one day you feel exhausted after 20 minutes and you want to stop exercising for that day. But you push yourself to finish the remaining 10 min exercise which is nothing but the self-motivation to be disciplined in doing exercise.
Self-motivation comes from within, the internal hidden force that pushes you to take action and complete your set goals with consistent effort and not give up becasue of obstacles.
In simple words, it is the inner voice in your mind ( like you can do it keep going) that constantly pushes you to keep going even if the odds are coming in your path while achieving your goals.
It just acts like a muscle, you can say a mental muscle, the more you exercise and nurture your self-motivation, the stronger it becomes. I believe this is a superpower that sets ordinary people on an extraordinary journey to achieve their goals.
Those who use this inner superpower face all the challenges, obstacles, and setbacks in their life with courage. The beauty of this superpower is it does not rely on external reward, it comes from internal inspirational factors like your values, desires, and dreams.
Self-motivation not only helps you achieve personal goals but also professional goals. Any goal that is attached to your values can be achievable with the help of this inner force. Sometimes in professional life, we set rewards like promotions, and salary hikes to motivate people.
That’s a good way to motivate people to achieve their professional goals but along with that, you can use internal motivation to push them toward achieving long-term professional goals.
You know one thing if you are motivated by external rewards, you might not feel as much passion or drive as you would feel when you are motivated internally to do things. Becasue with internal motivation, you feel satisfied, happy, and interested in working toward your goals.
See, you can use both types of motivation to achieve great things in your life but for the long term focus more on how you can generate that flame of self-motivation within yourself to achieve your long-term goals becasue this will give you permanent satisfaction in life.
Some examples of Self-motivation:
This superpower you can use to achieve goals in any area of your life, Whether it is a fitness goal, career goal, relationship goal, or financial goals this superpower you can use to achieve goal in any area of your life. Let’s see some easy-to-understand examples:
- Let’s say you are preparing for a competitive exam while preparing you don’t need to rely on external motivation to keep your preparation going on even if you are not getting the expected results.
- Becasue you clearly know WHY you are preparing for that exam and that strong WHY gives you self-motivation to prepare for the exam even in the difficult time.
- Let’s say you are working on your business, instead of waiting for others to encourage you, you stay focused on overcoming all the obstacles on your path and working towards building a successful business.
- You know why you started the business and how to achieve growth in business by learning and collaborating with the right people. That’s how your internal force pushes you toward building your business.
- Your family members never have to push you to go to the gym for exercise becasue you believe that exercise helps you keep mentally and physically fit.
- You go to the gym on your own every day by maintaining proper discipline. That’s self-motivation pushing you to the gym every day.
Benefits of this superpower:
- Self-motivated individuals have a positive mindset which means they focus more on solutions instead of worrying about problems.
- They have a strong sense of resilience which makes them bounce back from any setbacks in life and face any challenge with courage.
- Self-motivated people are self-starters means they are always ready to take initiative and responsibility in their life.
- They are always ready to learn new things and explore new opportunities.
- The most important benefit is, Self-motivated people, feel a deep sense of happiness and fulfillment in their lives.
These are some of the main benefits that I personally feel and observe in a lot of self-motivated people. Alright, now you have a basic idea of what self-motivation is and how it can help you achieve your goals in life. It’s time to learn the practical ways to develop this superpower within you.
10 Ways to Get Self-Motivation
Here let’s understand the 10 practical ways to motivate yourself for success and use the power of self-motivation to achieve any goals.
1. Know your ‘WHY’
When was the last time you asked yourself while working on any goal i.e. Why is this goal important for you? What is the reason behind working toward this goal? What is the reason that keeps you pushing and working towards this goal?
I am sure you have not asked such type of questions while working on your goals. Generally, you get attracted more towards the external reward for any goal, and in that attraction, you completely forget the reason behind why you want to achieve a particular goal.
Then you complain that you don’t feel motivated towards achieving that goal and this happens with almost everyone. To overcome this and get the inner motivation you need to work towards finding WHY you do what you do.
Simply ask yourself, Why am I doing What I am doing? Why do I want to achieve What I want to achieve? Why the end result of the goal is important to me? etc. Get the answer to these questions whenever you start working on any new goal.
Then remind these answers every time you feel down on the journey toward achieving that goal. This required some inner work and self-reflection, this process takes time but the rewards you get are amazing.
Your ‘WHY’ helps you connect to your purpose and core values. This connection pushes you to take action toward your goal effortlessly. Becasue Knowing your WHY acts as the ignition switch that sparks self-motivation within you.
2. Always Set SMART goals
99% of your motivation-related problems get solved when you set SMART goals. Becasue setting a SMART goal gives you more clarity about how you are going to achieve your goal. Your mind loves clarity and you know clarity leads to self-motivation which then pushes you to take action toward a goal.
To get super clarity while working on any goal you must use the powerful method called SMART goal. This method is popular in the corporate world to motivate employees or teams while working on any new big projects.
Many times managers or team leaders use this method to set project goals for their team and this actually helped them get good results. Same method you can use for setting personal goals like health goals, career goals, relationship goals, etc.
The SMART goal simply means setting smart, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals. This way of setting your goal provides you extreme level of clarity and helps you work towards your goal effortlessly with inner drive.
Let’s see some examples to set goals using this method:-
- S- Specific: Your goal must be specific becasue it clearly defines what you want to achieve like running a 5 KM race.
- M-Measurable: You can measure your progress and success by tracking your running distances, times, and improvements in endurance over the 5-month period.
- A-Achievable: This depends on your fitness level. If you are a consistent runner then aiming for 5 KM in 5 month time period can be achievable with proper training and commitment.
- R-Relevant: If improving your fitness and physical health is your priority then training for it and completing a 5 km race aligns with your priority or is relevant to your priorities.
- T-Time bound: The goal has a clear time frame that you have to achieve within 5 5-month period. Setting a proper deadline for a goal creates a sense of urgency to work hard toward achieving it.
3. Break your goals into manageable steps
The number one reason why you feel demotivated towards achieving your goal is you set a goal that is beyond your capability in terms of action-taking. You set a very big goal and from day one, you remind yourself that you want to achieve that goal.
This creates overwhelming pressure on you which reduces your self-motivation and paralyzes your progress. So breaking your big goal into manageable steps helps you reduce the pressure or burden of a big goal.
When you focus on achieving small steps your brain feels it is achievable and this boosts your confidence. Simply take a pen and paper or notebook and write down your SMARTLY-defined big goal. Break down your goal into at least 4 to 5 manageable steps or milestones.
Break each milestone or mini-goal further into actionable tasks. Shift your complete focus on finishing these small actionable tasks. After you finish every task you come close to achieving the milestone or mini-goal that you set for yourself.
This simple process builds momentum and when you achieve the mini-goals you start feeling motivated towards achieving a big goal. So, breaking down big goals into tiny actionable tasks is the best way to motivate yourself because big goals are achieved with a series of small tasks together.
4. Develop Good habits
“People don’t decide their future, they decide their habits and their habits decide their future” I am sure you come across this powerful thought somewhere. This thought simply focuses on the importance of building good habits for success in life.
Habits simply mean the routines or behavior you follow consistently and this affects your motivation level. For example, suppose you wake up in the morning and waste your time with things like scrolling on your mobile phone and staying in bed for a long time.
If you follow such routines with these habits like mobile scrolling, how do you feel throughout the day? Definitely, the outcome of such habits is worse. You feel less energetic and demotivated toward your work or goal.
On the other hand, after waking up in the morning if your routine starts with daily exercise and a good breakfast then your outcome is different. You feel energetic and motivated throughout the day to work towards your goal.
Good habits create a structured framework for your consistent action and when you repeatedly engage in good behavior, with time it becomes a part of your routine. This consistency helps you finish small daily tasks easily and after completing such tasks you feel a sense of accomplishment.
You see your progress that after following certain good behavior you are getting good results. These small positive results reinforce your belief in your ability to achieve bigger goals and this positive reinforcement boosts your self-motivation.
That means Good habits set the foundation for self-motivation. Habits help you build momentum even if you are not getting the results and feeling down, irrespective of how you feel good habits always push you to work toward your goal.
5. Create a vision board:
A vision board is simply a visual representation of the goals and dreams you want to achieve. I created this many times, see to create this you need to use images, quotes, or some powerful words and add these things to the board and place it where you can see this board every day.
Keep this in mind, those images and quotes must reflect the goal that you are working on. So when every day you will see that board it reminds you what you are working towards. This visual reminder of goals helps you stay focused and motivated toward your goal.
You know world-class athletes, performers, and entrepreneurs use a vision board on a daily basis. This powerful tool allows you to visualize your goal every single day. This visualization process stimulates your mind with positive emotions.
This makes you feel that the goal you are working on is achievable. When you see that vision board every day, you get clarity in which direction you need to work and what actions you need to take to achieve your goal.
For example, Let’s say you want to become an entrepreneur then your vision board includes images and thoughts of world-class entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Sir Ratan Tata, Steve Jobs, etc. This board provides you with daily inspiration and positive emotions which fuels self-motivation.
So whenever you start working on a new goal start creating a vision board first that includes powerful images and positive statements which reflect your goal. With this board, you will never feel a lack of self-motivation.
6. Work on Reducing the fear and internal resistance:
Internal resistance means your own self-doubt that stands between your goal and motivation level. You know reducing internal resistance is not that difficult, you can reduce it by taking small steps towards your goal.
After completing every small step you feel motivated and your internal resistance automatically goes down. The real problem is fear which is one of the strong emotions everyone feels. This generally comes when you start working on any new goal.
Fear can be anything like fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of success, fear of being judged, etc. Any of the given types of fear affects your mindset and motivation level negatively and stops you from taking action.
To deal with fear and get strong self-motivation, you need to analyze your goal from all angles. You need to think about the worst-case scenario like what will happen if you fail to achieve that goal. Write that worst-case scenario on paper.
Then think about what you need to do to prevent that worst-case scenario and write it down on paper. Even after all this planning if you fail then how do you deal with that worst-case scenario and minimize its impact, write an answer to this question on the paper.
At the end of this process, you will get crystal clarity to deal with any negative outcome. This level of clarity helps you reduce your fear and increase self-motivation within you to work toward your goal with a neutral mindset.
7. Surround yourself with the right people:
This is a proven fact that the people you spend most of your time with will have a significant impact on your mindset, behavior, energy level, and motivation. That’s why to active internal motivation you need to focus on surrounding yourself with people who are motivated, optimistic, and energetic.
Their positive energy and optimistic mindset positively affect you in terms of your motivation level, when you are constantly in touch with them. The constant support of your family members and trusted friends is super useful to get the self-motivation to work toward your goal.
If you have an accountability partner like a coach or mentor, who holds you accountable for your daily actions toward a goal and provides you with the necessary feedback to improve yourself on a daily basis and track your progress then you feel self-motivated to work towards your goal sincerely.
The right kind of people in your surrounding creates a positive atmosphere that nurtures your motivation and helps you move toward your goal. On the other hand, negative people drain your energy and motivation level. So, be careful with whom you are spending most of your time.
8. Be Grateful for what you got:
I love practicing gratitude every day for 3 to 5 minutes. See generally when you are not getting the expected results you start feeling down and you start seeing every aspect of life from a negative lens. This makes you feel bad about yourself and drains your energy.
In such a situation instead of appreciating what you have, you start thinking of what you don’t have and this affects you negatively. In fact, during such a situation, you need to focus on things that you are grateful for.
This shift in focus gives you self-motivation and energy to work towards your goal even in tough times. Practicing Gratitude shifts your focus from what you don’t have to what you already have. This shift helps you realize the abundance in your life and your true potential.
Gratitude practice is the best way to recharge yourself mentally. You can simply create a gratitude journal and in that write for what are the things you are grateful for and your blessings in life. Remind those things every day.
When you practice this regularly it changes your mindset, increases your energy level, and trust in your ability to achieve anything. This automatically motivates you to work towards your goal.
9. Develop a Growth Mindset, not fixed:
This is the long-term and best way to get self-motivation. See sometimes even after working hard on your goal you fail and that failure time makes you feel bad about yourself and you lose complete trust in your abilities and intelligence.
In that tough situation, it becomes very difficult for you to restart working again with a positive attitude. Because the negative belief in your mind stops you from restarting again. These beliefs are like I am not good enough, I can’t achieve that goal, etc.
These beliefs represent the fixed mindset and this type of mindset never pushes you to work toward your goal. With this mindset, you give too much importance to talent, you believe that people are born with knowledge and skill.
Well, with such a mindset it’s next to impossible to feel motivated in life. That is where you need Growth Mindset, Growth Mindset means you believe that your abilities and talent are developed through effort and continuous learning.
With Growth Mindset, you see failure as one of the events in life, you give more importance to efforts instead of talent, and you see challenges and setbacks as a learning experience, and your focus is always on constant improvement.
Developing a Growth Mindset is a long-term process, you need to work on yourself a lot. You need to practice positive self-talk and affirmation, you need to explore yourself and push yourself out of your comfort zone.
These things help you develop a growth mindset in the long term. So, a growth mindset not only helps you grow in life but also helps you get self-motivation in tough times by seeing tough times in a positive way.
10. Adopt a healthy way of living:
The most important aspect of self-motivation is energy, how much energy you have will decide how dedicatedly you work toward your goal. The higher the energy, the higher the dedication, and there is a high chance of achieving any goal irrespective of any obstacles or challenges in the path.
To have that level of energy you need to work on both your body and mind. You need an active brain to complete your daily tasks and objectives and for that working on your physical as well as mental health is super important.
For physical health, do simple things like exercise 5 days a week (gym, Yoga, running whatever you like), get enough sleep, eat healthy food, and avoid sugar-content food as much as possible. To keep yourself physically fit only three things are important proper diet, sleep, and daily exercise.
On the other hand, to keep yourself mentally fit you need to practice mindfulness meditation which helps you focus in the prsent moment and that is very important when you are working on your goal. You need to also focus on reading quality inspirational books this is like your mental diet.
Consume inspirational and life-changing content on the internet because the thoughts you are feeding in your mind affect a lot on your energy and motivation level. Read great books and blogs, and listen to great podcasts and success stories, these things feed powerful thoughts in your mind.
When you spend at least 2 hrs daily on making yourself physically and mentally fit you will see a difference in your energy level and motivation. This daily effort helps you stay motivated when you feel down while working toward your goal.
Conclusion:
Self-motivation is an inner fire that burns without any external spark, it just needs support from your mind and body. When your body is healthy and your mind has complete clarity about what you want to do in life, this inner fire pushes you to take action toward your goal.
In this article, I have discussed 10 practical strategies that can help you get self-motivation and work towards your goal irrespective of obstacles and challenges in the path. So use this internal superpower to achieve your biggest and most difficult goal in life and set yourself up for success.
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