How to stay motivated

Deadlines are often a way that people get motivated to finish something difficult or tedious. However, this is the kind of motivation that people feel forced to do anything, which means if you keep motivating yourself in this way for a longer time, most likely, you will crush down at some point. If you want to stay motivated and do your work on time, your mindset is an essential part of the motivation. In this post, I want to give an overview of how I keep myself motivated forever.

1. Set your goals

Even it seems obvious, many people often forget the ultimate goal of finishing a task, project, or any educational activity. They follow a schedule or instructions, but they might not be goal-oriented. However, craving to reach the desired goal can keep you motivated and even up at night.

For example, if you are in the middle of the studies, but you feel like you don’t want to do it anymore, think of the graduation results. You will get a degree, and finally, you can look for your dream job. If you already have a job, but it is not interesting enough for you, consider reaching the main goal as a team at work. For example, if you are building a software solution, think of how your customers will be happy using your team’s solution. If you are in the middle of training for new skills at work and yet not excited about learning new things, think of using those skills and having a good time at work, being faster and more efficient.

2. Make sure your goals are important to you

We talked about goals, but what if you do not like doing what you do and those goals are not indispensable for you? You need either find a way to enjoy what you do or change your plans. If reaching the graduation goal wouldn’t satisfy you, either find strong reasons why you still want to do it or try another way, like changing study directions if you think it pays off to throw away the already invested time. If you do not like your job, an excellent idea is to get creative in some way to make your job more joyful or easier. For example, you can try doing a course on time management or any other related to your job, and then try to implement those skills at work. This way, your job can get exciting, and also, your goals might get more important to you because you want to prove that those newly learned skills work and make your job easier.

3. Focus on the most important thing

Usually, people lose motivation because they are too overwhelmed. Not only at work but also in private life. If this is you, then try to set priorities for the things you do—for example, priority number one in the family. No matter what happens, you must always be there for your family. Priority number two is your job. No matter how many friends invite you to a party, you want to stick with your stuff at work until you finish everything. And the list goes on. After you have made the priorities list, make sure you respect it and always focus on the most important thing to finish it faster and then start with the next thing. You don’t want to do more than one thing at a time because human beings are not designed to do multitasking. Otherwise, everything will get overwhelming and unenjoyable.

4. Be patient in difficult times

Okay, this doesn’t seem so motivational, but unfortunately, difficult times sometimes have to happen. All you want to do in such situations is to be patient because such cases usually come and go. For example, you failed an exam, and now you need to repeat the whole study material to pass it. No matter how well you were prepared, or how bad the teacher was, think of this as an excellent opportunity to learn the subject even more in-depth. Be patient, and one day you will make it. If you are working and stick to some challenging tasks requiring more effort than the usual work, make sure you put all the effort you can and then enjoy your results once this challenging time is over.

5. Always do your best

If any of the tips above don’t seem helpful for your situations and you have no better idea, then the last thing I can advise you is to give your maximum effort and hope for the best results. In that case, even if you fail at your goal, then at least you know you have given your best. You have to accept that sometimes some things are impossible. But keep in mind that this is the worst-case scenario, and I don’t want to discourage you at something by saying this. My goal here is to prepare you for a failure in case it happens. A failure is not the end of the world, but it is just another lesson of understanding that certain things do not work the way you expected.

Summary

Thinking positive has always been my theory of motivation. No matter how challenging a situation can be, try to get a lesson out of it, so you know how to behave in the next similar challenge. This fact has always been my way out of any situation.

Please share your experience in the cometns if this post was a way out of your challenging situation. Feel free to share it also with your friends.