Get back your Motivation Mojo!
Motivation is a familiar word, and procrastination is one of those words you often hear on your first training session in Time Management skills. Is it a skill or an art form? In order to be a good procrastinator one must ensure that there is an end goal in mind, usually doing something completely unrelated to the task in hand such as going on Facebook, Twittering, checking the daily news or even the weather depending on the scale of escapism.
What is it that stops us from getting things done? In my case it’s usually the fact that I get easily distracted by everything else, what the world is up to, what am I missing out on? Are we likely to see a spec of snow on the roof top at any point during the week, and could we get anymore occupied with hearing repeats about how much VAT is going up and that impulsive buy seems so much more important. Or perhaps it might be something to do with having a hard day at work, therefore as a reward, one must sit on the couch for the rest of the evening and soak up the wintry darkness with the heating on full blast. Surely it’s far too cold to go to the gym, and work has been so full on, time to go home and relax. Sound familiar?
Motivation is the state that naturally occurs when our desire for something, or to do something overrides our desire to stay still. When that happens, we find ourselves moving forward effortlessly in a natural flow of action, often accompanied by feelings of excitement, expectation, and pleasure.
Motivation isn’t something we find on the floor or on a shelf, it’s a state we become. Motivation is you, moving forward. In fact, looking around for motivation – when it isn’t there – is a way of making ourselves feel woefully de-motivated. This fruitless quest usually just makes us painfully aware of the fact that we’re not in action yet. When we feel that we should be in action and we’re not, there are feelings of discomfort (guilt, frustration, depression, anger….) as a result.
Fear of failure is very common and can often be deeply rooted in the unconscious. When we are set to do a task that means we have to stretch ourselves, we think of all the different problems and weakness we have and how complex the work may be. What may leave us vulnerable, at a loss but often the feeling of fear is essentially worse than the task in itself!
I can tell you now that it has taken me a few weeks to write this blog, I couldn’t work out how to upload it onto my site but in the end I organized myself some training because this year for me is about taking action!
If you find yourself a bit stuck, think about what it is stopping you, write these questions down if it helps;
- What would happen if you did do it?
- What would happen if you didn’t do it?
- How is not doing it having an impact on you?
- What will be different if you did do it?
Visualisation
Visualisation is an excellent technique and one that Athletes use. You can change your state any time you need to by following these simple steps:
- Close your eyes and go back to a time when you were really motivated; this could be when you were in a gym, writing up an excellent presentation at work, organising a holiday you have been looking forward to.
- Notice the feelings of motivation you had and connect to them, make them stronger, see what you see, feel what you feel, hear what you hear.
- Once you are in a real state of motivation imagine yourself doing the task you want motivation for and ensure that the feelings remain whilst visualising yourself undertaking the task.
- What do you notice after you have completed the task in your mind? How do you feel?
- Repeat the process several times.
