People fall in love with achieving goals because it changes them and teaches them what they value. As you work, you start to really learn who you are at your core. Who are you and what do you value? What makes you tick and what isn’t conducive to your success?
Have you ever considered what role you believe motivation plays in reaching your goals?
It’s probably an important question to know the answer to, because it will help you to stay consistent on the path to your goals. Each of us is motivated in a different way, and what works right now might not work this time next year. Like most things related to achievement, it’s a constantly evolving and dynamic process.
How willing you are to endure and adapt to new circumstances determines if you will win or not.
Take motivation for example. At the risk of generalizing, most people are usually in 1 of 3 boats when it comes to motivation:
- Motivation is the key to being successful and reaching my goals.
- Motivation is one of many small components of what determines my success.
- Motivation is something that I don’t have, but others do.
The most important takeaway of this writing is that these are perspectives, not facts. I can’t understate this enough because your perspective plays a large part in you achieving your goals. With perspectives that serve you, you become unstoppable.
Perspectives can change just as easily as they can ingrain so deeply that they become values.
If you identify with any of these perspectives on motivation, you are creating a reality where you are forced to adhere to the parameters of their perception. This can be either good or bad.
For example:
People in the first boat put a lot of stock in motivation by saying that it is the key to being successful. They are essentially telling their psyche that without motivation, they cannot be successful and reach their goals.
Perspective #1 puts motivation at a premium. If you’re in this boat, it’s important to know this so that you are constantly finding ways to feed the beast. In all likelihood, you will start searching for it the moment you stop feeling it. This mechanism is based off your perception. Because you believe it to be an essential part of your process, you’ll be willing to drop everything in an effort to find it.
Because motivation comes from inside ourselves, you may also find yourself regularly auditing your surroundings as you search for answers.
You might ask questions like, “What is missing that’s leaving me unmotivated?” or “what needs to change about my surrounding to get more motivated?”
Perspective #2 is different because it’s perceived as a piece of the puzzle. keeps Motivation is an important piece of a larger whole.
The larger whole is the project in front of you- the weight you need to lose or the business you need to build. Motivation, like time management or networking with people that will help you be successful, is there to help you achieve your goals.
The premium with the second perspective is placed on the work in front of you, because hard work is what keeps the engine moving. Things like motivation, time management, and having good people in your life are the cogs in the engine that you constantly test and evaluate to ensure they are serving you on the path to your goals.
The first two perspectives are ideal. If you consider yourself in either of those boats, you’re probably in a good place and consistently working towards your goals. I would give the nod to the second perspective as the “best”, because it’s the most sustainable and has more balance. Balance always contributes to longevity, and without a consistent effort, you won’t reach any goal worthy of your time.
Perspective #3, on the other hand, is not good. It puts motivation entirely outside of your control. You may believe that you have been handed the short end of the stick, and it probably beats you up inside. When the pressure to succeed feels too great, you give up, feeling like there is no chance for success.
The individual that holds the third perspective close is the same one that sets goals, gets really motivated for about 4 days, and then crashes and burns. They likely go through the same cycle every 2 months and get no results.
There is nothing flawed about you. You are entirely capable of changing your life in any way that you desire if you begin looking at the world differently.
To do this, you must put motivation back within your control by doing something tangible that will change your perspective.
How?
- Audit your environment. What can you change about your work environment? Is the gym you’re going to fun enough to warrant you going there on a regular basis?
- Audit your list of goals. Is this something you still want to achieve? Why should you get up at 5am to workout? Why should you care about having or doing the thing you supposedly so badly want? In the same way that you hold a perspective on your motivation, you also hold one on your goals. Make sure your goals are still worthy of who you want to become.
- Surround yourself with people better than you. The holy grail of finding motivation is to put yourself in a room full of people that make it look like you have no idea what you’re doing. Find people better than you and start learning from them.
In Short:
If you struggle to stay motivated, it’s because you’re placing your sense of motivation outside of your control. Changing up your circumstances, goals, or the people around you is the fast track, tangible action step that you can take back control of your motivation.
