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Motivation is one of the most powerful tools to reach your goals. On day two, you determined your "why," one of the biggest motivators that will keep you pushing, grinding and working, even on the days when you are not feeling it. But that reason for your health isn't your only impetus to stay motivated along your journey. When you build other techniques and motivators into your journey, in addition to your primary "why," it's like always having a coach there to guide you when you need it most. The more motivators you embed into your lifestyle, the more likely you are to stay on your path and not stray into danger zones.
Sometimes it can truly take courage to admit you need help, receive feedback from others like in job evaluations and even to seek out help from others. But if you make the tough decision and practice letting others coach you, being open to coaching from others actually makes you a better coach to yourself because you can then choose how to use that feedback to improve. I have seen this point hold many people back, particularly those with some form of anxiety. On the other hand, I had a young employee who was reluctant to listen to feedback at first, but later embraced this attitude and eventually became a successful entrepreneur in part from this trait. Learning how to self-motivate can be one of the most challenging aspects of ingraining healthy habits as part of your life, but with a few motivational tactics, you can learn how to be the best version of yourself every single day. 1. Positive Self-Talk: The literal definition of being your own best coach, positive self-talk has the power to change your life. Do you ever bring yourself down with negative self-talk, such as telling yourself that something was a stupid decision? Often, we talk worse to ourselves than we’d ever consider treating other people. Instead of beating yourself up for slip-ups, turn this around and encourage yourself whenever you need. If it helps, you can literally visualize yourself as a different person and give yourself a pep talk. This 90-second video is a bit silly, but it helps you visualize how pep-talks really can positively change your behavior: 2. Motivational Moments: Sometimes when we are feeling down or need to be reminded of our goals, a "motivational moment" can bring us right back to where we need to be. Motivational moments include:
3. Journal Writing: Writing journal entries either about your day or about some specific topic is a great way to develop your thoughts on a topic. I’ll never forget teaching a college course and assigning the class the task of writing a journal entry. As I read one young woman’s submission, it was initially clear she didn’t really care about the assignment and was just trying to check this off her to-do list. But as she wrote, she figured out some important things about herself and really got into her writing. By the end, she said, "Wow, I’m so happy you had us write about this topic because I’ve never really thought about this before and now I see myself in a different way." As a coach, these are the big wins that drive you to get out of bed each day . Another type of journal writing I like is to ask people to write down their highlight of the day. I find when people think they have to write a highlight at the end of their day, it serves as a motivator to go out and do tasks that can be considered a highlight! 4. Rewards: Setting up rewards for reaching specific goals is a motivational strategy to help push you to go out and achieve what you set out to do. We find this works particularly well both when people are just starting out and when a goal might be particularly challenging to reach. 5. Vision Collage: A vision collage is simply a group of images and/or words that represent your goals. I made a vision collage early in developing the SparkPeople program when I was working in corporate America. I put it on my office wall just next to my computer. Sometimes I’d get fatigued during the day and would look at the vision collage for an instant pick-me-up. Often I would look at this before going to lunch and it would change my food choices. In all cases, just looking at the vision collage would remind me, "Those goals are what you are working for!" I’d remember that I was on a mission and would get back to work toward reaching those goals. 6. Visualization: Similar to a vision collage, it’s truly unbelievable how well visualization works. I remember reading about a study that involved three groups of people shooting basketball free throws. The first group actually practiced shooting free throws, the second group did nothing and the third group only visualized shooting free throws in their mind. Astonishingly, the group that only visualized shooting free throws did nearly as well as the group that actually practiced shooting free throws. Your mind is incredibly powerful and you may have only tapped a small percentage of your mind’s ability to help coach you to reach your most important goals in life! In the end, use the best motivational techniques that will propel you to hit the gym after a bad day at work and guide you to the healthy veggie snack over a bag of chips. It is what determines who reaches the finish line and who quits midway through. Focusing on building your motivation early on is key in learning to make healthy living part of your life. |