Self-motivate

It is great to have a job that motivates you, in which your boss motives you with his/her words and where, within your work team, motivating others is a value. However, it is even more important for you to take the reins and be responsible for motivating yourself as, in this way, you can be motivated whenever you want as it will only depend on you!

“Self-Motivation is the ability to maintain courage, perseverance, enthusiasm as well as optimism regardless of one's circumstances. It implies having the courage to face challenges”

Self-motivation implies taking initiative and being proactive when it comes to carrying out actions aimed at achieving your goals, committing to them and making strides to achieve them. It allows you to be highly efficient.

You find this ability interesting, don't you? Well in this post we'll teach you how to work on it!

Start your day with a positive attitude

Everything that happens from the moment you get up until you start your day, will decisively influence how your day will go. So as soon as you get up, decide what kind of attitude you want to have throughout the day and think about a specific action you can take in order to maintain it. For example: if you decide to "be proactive" you could decide to "make a list of your networking contacts to send your cv to”.

Set yourself goals

Having an objective in mind is a powerful self-motivation tool as it allows you to ask yourself "for what purpose and why"” when it comes to taking action, as well as motivating you to achieve objectives. It is important for your objectives to always be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and to have a specific deadline for achieving them. If you have set yourself very big goals, break them down into small actions so they will seem more manageable and easier to achieve in stages.

“They say you have to see to create, so start seeing the great person you are and all your talents”

Boost your self-esteem

What better source of self-motivation than having a good opinion of yourself? Make a list of 10 positive things about yourself: skills and/or qualities. And make another list with all your life achievements and add ones you achieve in your daily life. Always keep these lists on hand, read them and add to them often and, in particular, on days when something has happened to you that has caused you to doubt yourself.

Always recognise your achievements

Frequently recognise everything you achieve in your day-to-day life, in any area of your life, as a result of your effort and self-management skills. Recognise things such as: that one hour work-out you did, a good presentation delivered to a client, a report you finished, those CVs you sent to various companies, a pending call you made to a contact, passing an interview, keeping calm when someone made you lose your temper, etc. It's about valuing everything you've achieved.

Look after your thoughts and develop your inner voice

Have you stopped to think whether your thoughts are positive and inspire you to take action or whether they are negative and hold you back? How do you speak to yourself? Do you appreciate when you have achieved something? Do you keep going in spite of difficulties? Do you look on the bright side? Do you know how to transform difficulties into opportunities? Negative thinking is the most destructive force for self-motivation! Apart from the fact that it doesn't change anything.

Always act using your "circle of influence”

In life, things happen to us that we cannot control, a client's demeanour, how difficult or easy a project is, your workload, the traffic jam on to way to work, the lack of replies after applying to various job offers, etc. All this constitutes your "outer circle or circle of concern" because they are things that do not depend on you and that cause you concern. But the attitude that you have in the aforementioned situations constitutes "your inner circle or circle of influence" and is what you can do to proactively and productively manage what happens to you. What's the use of complaining that a client is difficult to deal with or about your workload? Evidently they are adverse circumstances but the complaint itself will cause you discomfort and won't actually solve anything, whereas if you look at ways to interact with your client or organize your time or delegate some work or simply accept that you have a high workload, you will be much more effective and you will feel better for it.

Find the time when you have the most energy

When it comes to planning your activities, analyse the times when your energy levels are at their highest and lowest and plan your activities around them, insofar as possible. Quite often, tasks become difficult and unmanageable, because we have scheduled a difficult or complex task when our energy levels are at their lowest which makes it difficult to concentrate, leading to lack of motivation and procrastination, etc. which causes us to put off the task.

Do this simple practice; "the self-motivation jars”

Imagine you have two jars, one for motivation and one for lack of motivation. Take notice during the day of which one is filling up the most depending on the actions you carry out. If you can, do it for two weeks and observe the results. This simple practice will allow you to analyse your attitude towards life and also help you discover sources of motivation.

Are you up for giving the motivation jars a go?