Self-motivation: 5 Practical steps to motivate yourself

Self-motivation is something all the successful people have in common. Self-motivated people

are aware that they have to motivate themselves as no one else is going to do it for them.

WHAT’S IN IT

What is self-motivation?

Self-motivation is the internal feeling that drives your actions towards your goals without any

external force. It is the art of motivating yourself to accomplish your tasks. As it is an art so

everyone can and should master it.

How to motivate yourself?

Okay so you all know how important it is to stay self-motivated, but the question is how to

motivate yourself? Here I will share with you some tried and tested practical ways to become

motivated. You have to keep in mind that if you will not implement these strategies then you

might not see results as expected.

Strategies to motivate yourself

5 Step Process

• Write yourself a letter of gratitude
• Know your WHY
• Prepare an ACTION PLAN
• Visualization
• Create a reward system

Bonus Tips

• Change your surrounding
• Every day do one thing that you are afraid of
• Read inspirational stories
• Write a letter to your future self
• Dress accordingly
• Join a group with same goals as your
• Build a habit and maintain a streak

Write yourself a letter of gratitude

Writing a letter to yourself reminding how much proud you are of yourself, your strengths,

blessings and your accomplishments, basically write down everything you are grateful for. It will

give you a sense of gratitude that you might be missing.

You can even write down some beautiful memories that bring a smile on your face every time

you remember them. But remember it that you should write down on a paper, not on you mobile

or computer.

Now you might be thinking how it can help you motivate yourself. The answer is that the

negativity in your mind blurs your vision to see how amazing you are and as a result it damages

your belief system. You have to remind yourself that you have and you can accomplish all your

goals, it will help you eliminate the fear that stops you from taking the first step. So every once

in a while write down everything you are grateful for.

Know your WHY

Knowing your WHY means knowing your purpose behind doing something. The stronger the

purpose you have for doing something, the stronger your motivation will be to do it. But the

question is how you can find your purpose. The answer is really simple; JUST ASK “WHY I SHOULD DO IT?”

Let’s take an example, imagine you have an exam next week but you don’t feel like studying. So

ask yourself, why should I study? I should study because the knowledge I will gain from

studying will help me become a better person and eventually I can make this world a better

place.

Ask the same question again. Why should I make this world a better place? Because God gave

you the privilege to be able to study in a school, while a lot of children don't have enough

resources to study. So if you study and work hard you could change the lives of thousands of

children.

How would you feel after changing so many people's lives? You will feel so good and proud of

yourself. This feeling should help you motivate yourself. Keep asking yourself why I should do

it till you get a strong purpose and strong motivation.

Prepare an ACTION PLAN

If you are aware of your roles and what actions are expected from you, it keeps you motivated.

So always right down an action plan on a sheet of paper describing every step you need to take.

Steps to make an action plan:

Set SMART goals

SMART goal stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and

Time based. Let’s understand the concept of smart goals with the help of an example.

Let’s say your company’s goal is to increase sales. Do you think it’s a SMART goal? It’s not, as

you can see it’s not specific, time bound and measurable.

How to set a SMART goal? Write down the goal in the most specific manner as you can. Here,

the SMART goal would be – To increase sales, by 15% of the last 3 months sales, within the

time frame of the next 3 months.

Now as you can see this goal is specific, can be measured, can be achieved, is relevant and is

time bound. A goal should always have a deadline.

Learn more about SMART goals (INTERNAL LINKING)

Identify all tasks and actions to be done

List down all the tasks to be done, depending on the tasks nature of the task decide what should be done immediately, what task to be done later and what task to be delegated.

Priorities tasks

Before you begin with prioritising just check are there any tasks that can be

done in just 2 to 5 minutes. If yes, then do these tasks first.

So after finishing these tasks you should prioritize the remaining task on the basis of its

importance and the deadline attached to it.

Set short-term goals

Taking the previous example, as you have to increase sales by 15% in

the next 3 months you might not be continuously motivated throughout these 3 months. So to

overcome this challenge you should set short term goals like increasing the sales by 5% within

the next month. These short term goals will keep you motivated throughout the 3 months. So

setting short term goals is also a great way of self-motivation.

Implementation

Now that the goal is set, tasks are decided and prioritised; it’s time to take

action. So take the first step towards your goal and keep a record of your accomplishments.

Keeping a record of your progress will help you stay motivated.

Visualization

Sometimes what happens is that you have made a good action plan with SMART goals but in

your mind you still believe that you cannot accomplish this goal as it is really hard to do.

Now here, your belief system is not supporting you and as a result you will not feel self-

motivated. So to overcome this challenge you have to start visualising yourself where you want

to be. Start living the life you want to create. Imagine yourself as an achiever.

By imagining that you have already achieved your goals your mind starts to believe it. The mind

doesn’t recognise the truth and the lie so it believes what we picture all the time. That’s the

reason visualisation techniques work so well. So use it to attain self-motivation.

By visualization you develop positive thought that you can achieve your goals. After that these

thoughts develop a good and positive belief system. Which in turn develops a great attitude for

success, and a great attitude leads to a great feeling about your goals and yourself. And finally a

great feeling leads to great action and behaviour.

Visualization will help you in staying hungry.

Create a reward system

Reward yourself every time you accomplish a task, it will keep you motivated.

For example, assuming you were able to achieve the goal of increasing the sales by 5% within

the first month, throw yourself a party, by yourself some new shirts or attend a concert. Just

reward yourself for every small or big accomplishment. You deserve it. Rewarding yourself will

always help you stay self-motivated.

Bonus Tips on Motivating Yourself

Change your surrounding

● Keep your surrounding clean; sometimes the surrounding is more influential than the

willingness of a person.

• Make your bed every day just after waking up.
• Hang motivational quotes in the office or where you work at home.
• Keep things organized so that it becomes easier to find the right thing at the right time.

Every day do one thing that you are afraid of

• See problems as a challenge and no matter how much afraid you are to do it just take the first small step.
• Doing this will develop self-belief and will keep you self-motivated throughout your journey. So given below are a few things that you can start with:
• You can talk to strangers every day.
• Volunteer to speak on the stage.
• Decide whom you have to get rid of to make your life peaceful.
• Call the friend that you haven’t talked in a long time.
• Apply for that course, training, classes you thought you couldn’t do.

Read inspirational stories

● You sometimes lack motivation because you believe these few things are impossible to

be done.

● Reading how a person who had nothing in his/her hands accomplished the same tasks that

you think is impossible to be done, will open your mind and show you that it’s possible.

● Just type in Google and read one every few days.

● Sometimes you need external motivation to help you in self-motivation. Therefore, watch

motivational videos and listen to motivational songs etc.

Write a letter to your future self

• Write a letter to the person you want to become in the next 5 years.
• In that letter promise yourself that after 5 year you will become this person.
• Mention the hard work it will take to become that person.
• This will always help in self-motivation as you will be aware of what you want to become.
• You can also write a letter to your past self, thanking him/her for making you who you are today.

Dress accordingly

● How you dress has a strong influence on how you feel.

● For example, you are working from home, yes you don’t have to show you face to

anyone so you wear whatever you feel like. It’s wrong, where exactly what you would

have worn if you were supposed to go to the office.

● It will keep you highly motivated.

Join a group with same goals as yours

● Surround yourself with people who have the same goals as yours. As a result you will be

highly engaged in achieving your goals.

● So join a group of people you share your goals with.

● When you will see everyone working towards their goal, which is your goal too, you will

push yourself to work harder than before.

● Believe it’s one of the best ways of self-motivation.

Build a habit and maintain a streak

● Make accomplishing a task an everyday habit.

● Try to maintain the streak as a result it will help you in motivating yourself.

Conclusion

To conclude we can say that self-motivation is an art everyone should master to become a

successful person. I recommend you to follow each and every step effectively. Write yourself a

letter of gratitude, write every task down, prepare an action plan, visualize and give yourself a

reward every time you accomplish a task.

Thanks for reading the article. I hope you have learned how to motivate yourself.

Also you can read our blog on 9 life lessons that you can learn from sports

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