Motivation can be a difficult state to achieve. Even if we’re lucky to experience periods of increased drive, our energy can easily disappear without much warning.
It’s important to have the right mental frameworks in place when we’re trying to motivate ourselves.
This is an important topic for me personally right now, because lately I haven’t been as productive with the Mind & Practice blog as I hoped.
In this post, we’ll discuss how we can get and stay motivated. I’ll also give my own take on why I’ve not been as motivated lately and what I’m doing to improve.
Get Motivated & Build New Habits
We need to have a solid foundation when we try to get motivated and build new habits.
Set SMART Goals
Before we can be fully motivated, we need to know what really motivates us. Now set a SMART goal, ensuring the goal is specific and actionable.
We need to clarify what we need to do to achieve the goal. Then, we put a timeframe on it.
Focus on Individual Actions
Break goals into small, easy tasks is a good way to start building momentum. We we have an action plan, it’s easier to execute. A common cause of motivation loss is focusing on outcomes rather than actions.
For example, it’s relatively easy to motivate yourself to write if you focus on a single page or chapter. If you try to become a best-selling author, on the other hand, it becomes difficult to keep up the habit.
We should use the advice of our Stoic mentors to focus on what we can control. Our conscious thoughts and actions are in our control. Anything else, such as specific outcomes and other people’s opinions, are outside our control.
That’s why we motivate ourselves best by focusing on individual actions.
We can even set regular reminders to complete these actions in our calendars or ideal week.
Find an Accountability Partner
Another foundational element is leveraging our social network. We can use our family and friends to help motivate ourselves. By telling the people close to us about our goals, we can encourage them to help keep us motivated.
If you know someone else who is trying to get motivated, you might suggest becoming each other’s accountability partners.
In my experience, accountability partners work best when we have a regular weekly call or meeting to discuss our progress. It’s important to be honest here. This meeting should help motivate us to progress towards our long-term goals each week.
Stay Motivated & Maintain Habits
Once we have these foundational elements, we can focus more on keeping up our momentum.
The Locus of Control
The locus of control is a useful productivity concept, especially when we find ourselves losing motivation for whatever reason. The idea is that with a stronger sense of control, we feel more motivated to perform tasks.
This is applicable in all walks of life. Whether we’re responding to email at work, starting a side hustle or enjoying our free time – the locus of control affects our motivation.
For example, we might find it easier to exercise if we pick an activity we enjoy, such as football, hiking or climbing.
When I think of my least favourite activities, these include classic sit-ups and push-ups. The reason for that is I just think of these as the exercises I do to get in shape. I don’t enjoy doing them, so I don’t feel in control.
Really, I prefer HIIT exercise videos, especially because I get to pick the video I want each day. I feel much more in control when I select a video.
Picking an exercise we enjoy is more motivating because we feel in control. And this sense of control is what makes us more motivated to exercise.
Systems work better than goals
To stay motivated we need more systems, not more goals. Systems are goal-oriented and break down the process’s individual tasks.
For example, our goal might be to create a profitable blog or YouTube channel. A simple system here would be to create a routine where we create two content pieces each week. So if we designate each Monday and Thursday to content creation, that’s our system.
This simplification helps us achieve our goals.
Identity Shapes our Habits
One of the easiest ways to maintain a habit is to alter our identity around it.
For example, I developed several new identities since I started working on this website. Whether as writer, teacher or content creator, identities help simplify my motivation.
When I identify with these different labels, I find it easier to carry out the activities. After all, a writer writes. Teachers teach. Content creators create. That’s what we do.
These identities are like a bridge between my ego and mindfulness. They help me focus on the moment, while also distilling an element of the kind of person I want to be.
Create a Motivation Ritual
We’re also more likely to complete a habit when we associate it with positive emotions.
Motivation rituals are a technique where we do something we enjoy before we start performing the habit. This tactic works particularly well with important habits that we don’t enjoy.
For example, we can grab a coffee or listen to our favourite song before reviewing a fresh batch of email. This dopamine hit should give us the energy we need to find the habit more enjoyable.
Of course, you can use anything for your own personal reward system!
Why Did My Motivation Drop?
Now to move onto my own personal experience with motivation, I started this blog a year ago. Since August 2020, I’ve had both productive periods and not-so-productive periods. I’ve noticed a few reasons why my motivation drops.
Below are my key takeaways on motivation from the past year.
Missing the Trees for the Forest
My main takeaway has been the effect of losing sight of individual tasks, when I focus on the wider vision. I’ve found it’s hard to focus on both the details and the strategy. Focusing on strategy means that the execution, the daily progress toward my goals, comes to a halt.
For example, my first goal with this site was to reach 90 posts. This will be my 81st, so I’m nearly there now! But each article is a tree that I need to grow. And each time I see the forest, I lose sight of new trees.
I noticed that once I started closing in on my initial goal, I stopped looking at individual actions. I started thinking about the next steps after reaching this goal, which delayed my progress.
I’ve written 4 posts over the last 2 months (which is pretty slow), because I’ve focused on getting to the next stage. Instead of writing the final 10 posts, I’ve been obsessed with studying YouTube success factors. I found it exciting, because YouTube is next step in my plan.
But I need to finish my first goal before I can make any progress toward a new goal. And for that I need to focus on the individual tasks.
Each post is a tree and my long-term strategy is the forest, and I benefit from focusing on the trees each day, not the forest.
Change of Environment
I’ve also gone through a few environmental changes over the past year. First of all, I moved to Stockholm for a few months during the pandemic.
I found it easy to focus on writing when I didn’t have anywhere I needed to go. At that time, I actually looked forward to writing each evening, because that’s how I broke up the day. I published 17 posts in March 2021, because my environment allowed me to focus intensely on this goal.
Then when I had to isolate after coming back to London, I found myself surprisingly productive. Again, I didn’t have much else to do at the time. I literally couldn’t go anywhere, so I found writing quite easy. It was after my isolation period that I noticed my motivation drop.
Balancing Work & Life
Being back in London, I’m free to meet friends and go into the office again, which has shaken up my routine again. I’m now spending less time at home and having regular plans for the first time in nearly 18 months.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having a life outside this website and my full-time job. After all, I’m not just a writing robot. I need to have a life outside work and productive hobbies. After all, a key component of productivity is effective rejuvenation.
Spending less time at home meant I had less time to write. But I also lost motivation when I actually was home because of a particularly unproductive habit.
Identify & Eliminate Unproductive Habits
I’ve spent an unproductive amount of time rewatching TV series over the past two months, because it’s an easy, low-effort activity I know I’ll enjoy.
On further reflection and journaling, I noticed I wasn’t getting anything out of rewatching TV series. Also, once I put on an episode, it’s likely I’ll keep watching until it’s time for bed.
I realised I’d benefit more from doing nothing. Because of this, I’m making conscious decisions to not turn on the TV or watch any series.
Then if I just open my writing notebook in Notion, there’s a much larger chance I actually motivate myself to write. The hardest part is sometimes just setting up the environment and waiting for motivation to appear.
Staying Motivated in a Nutshell
Motivation is a key aspect of productivity. After all, motivation is what drives us to take action toward our goals.
We can increase our motivation when we’re starting a new habit by setting relevant goals, focusing on individual actions and finding an accountability partner. Each of these techniques aims to propel us toward the actions we need to take to achieve our goals.
Then once we’re in the habit, we can stay motivated by increasing our feeling of control, developing systems and leveraging productive identities and motivation rituals.
Increase your motivation and stay motivated with Mind & Practice today.