Five Ways to Increase Self-Motivation

While self-motivation is a simple concept, we all know that it’s one of the hardest things to attain.  Despite purely good intentions, most of us are better at slacking off than getting motivated.  But, no matter what your attention span it is possible for you to motivate yourself and reach your goals; you just need to follow a few simple steps.

Know what you’re doing

A to-do list is nice to have to help you get things done, but it doesn’t do much to help you stay motivated.  Before you can make your to-do list, you need to set goals and priorities.  They may be short term like “finish this project to attain more work” or more general like “increase workload to attain promotion”.  If you give yourself a goal or vision to work for, you’re going to be more motivated to finish things than if you’re simply completing tasks.

Stay positive

A positive attitude can go a long way.  People have probably told you this over and over, but you’re still not inclined to believe it.  Take a little extra time each day to remind yourself of your accomplishments.  It is also a good idea to try to surround yourself with positive and encouraging people.  If you don’t have any at work, find positive and encouraging statements from successful people and post them around your office. 

Set mini-goals

Finishing a project can be a daunting task.  If it’s a large amount of work, you’re likely to look at it, get overwhelmed, and give up or put it off before you even get started.  An easier way to accomplish a project is to break it up into smaller tasks.  This way you’ll be looking at a bunch of small goals instead of one great big one.  While it’s the same amount of work, it helps to keep you from getting overwhelmed.  Plus, each time you accomplish one of your tasks, you’ll feel successful and motivated to keep trekking on through the rest.

Reward yourself

To help keep yourself going, set up rewards for each task you complete.  They don’t have to be anything big; they could be going to see a movie over the weekend or spending 15 minutes on the phone with a friend you haven’t talked to in a while.  It’s just something positive to help encourage you.  You can also set small rewards for your mini goals and have a large reward for when you finish a large project.

You can also punish yourself to achieve goals.  For example, set up a mini-punishment, like snapping a rubber band on your wrist.  Every time you find yourself drifting off and not paying attention, or doing something counter-productive, snap the rubber band.  This will help train your mind to stay on track. 

Have a backup

While we may have the best of intentions, most of us really aren’t that good at sticking with our self-motivating methods.  If this seems like you, you may be in need of some backup.  This is a friend, co-worker, or associate - anyone who is dependable and trustworthy.  Let them know what your goals are (and even your rewards and punishments) and set up a plan for them to check up on you. 

It could be as simple as giving you a call to see how much you’ve gotten done, or maybe have them be the keeper of some reward and administer it when you reach your goal.  This way, if your resolution wavers, you’ll have someone else there to help out.

Comments

[Luc Reid]

Good article! For my money, you hit most of the major points.

I'd recommend people use the reward/punishment approach only with caution. It can tend to have side effects that can get a person off course. With that said, I wouldn't suggest that it can't be useful in moderation.

You touch on two major elements of motivation in your last item--establishing a feedback loop and getting support from other people--that could be profitably teased out into two separate items. Other people can be useful to hash ideas out, provide inspiration, and offer moral support as well as helping to keep one on track. And there are other good ways to keep yourself focused in addition to having another person help, such as journaling or joining a group (which is one reason Weight Watchers can be as effective as it is).

There's more material on these topics at http://www.willpowerengine.com .

In any case, nice job; there is a lot of confusion out in the world about how self-motivation works, and this is one of the most well-thought-out posts on the subject I've seen.