11 Ways to Keep Your New Year Motivation Going – TPW278

Achieving our goals requires consistent action. Does your motivation to take productive action fade as the year goes on?

How do you keep your motivation strong as the year continues?

Many of us get inspired at the beginning of a new year to set ambitious goals or dive into projects aimed at improving our health, our career, our home, our relationships. But it usually doesn’t take long for the day-to-day of life to take over and that initial enthusiasm that propelled us starts to wear off. It’s so common as to be a joke how gyms are packed in the first week of January and nearly empty by the first week of February.

But all the best, most valuable accomplishments take consistent action over time - sometimes a lot of time.

So how can we keep going after that first-of-the-new-year motivation starts to fade?

“Motivation is not magic. It does not come in a bottle. There is no little blue pill for it. But it's something you can tap into by design then harness.”

~ Suzanne Gerber

from How to Stay Motivated and Accomplish Anything

“All motivation is self-motivation.”

~ Lolly Dascal, President and CEO of Lead from Within

from 19 Highly Effective Ways to Stay Motivated

Ways to stay motivated & refresh your motivation 

◊ Remind yourself of your why and write it down in detail. It’s easy to forget in the day-to-day bustle why we’re doing what we do; some things to journal about

* Where did the idea come from to do this thing?

* How did you feel about the idea when you first had it--what emotion? (excitement? fear? nervousness? confusion? anticipation? joy? determination?)

* What did you think you would get as a result of accomplishing this goal or completing this project?

◊ Take care of yourself - it’s hard to stay motivated if you’re exhausted. Eat food that fuels you, drink plenty of water instead of caffeinated beverages, move your body daily, and don’t sacrifice necessary rest for a few more hours of work. Be ruthless about identifying and cutting out the less important so you can make time to both take action toward your most important goals and take care of yourself.

◊ Create habits and routines that bypass your resistance and keep you taking automatic action. Habits work in a different part of our brain and become almost unconscious action.

“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.”

~ Octavia E. Butler in How are habits formed in the brain?

What actions do you need to take in order to accomplish your goal? Turn them into habits on purpose. Form the habit of doing the things you need to do

* Examples:

* Drink a glass of water as soon as you get out of bed

* Write 5 sentences or work on your new business while you’re drinking your coffee

* Make a phone call to a prospect each morning when you sit down at your desk

* Stop at the gym on your way home from work, or go up and down the stairs 3 times during your lunch break

Once you do this often enough, it will become a habit that you won’t have to think about - habits are stronger and more powerful than willpower<br /...