How to Stay Motivated

[matthewferry]

There are times when you are up and times when you are down. As a life coach, so often my clients try to push through the times that they are down. They try to motivate themselves. Unfortunately this extends the period of time that they feel unmotivated. When you resist where you are, you amplify it and make it worse.

They key is to relax into it and ride the waves of energy and they rise and fall. There will be times when you are hot and times when you are not. Times of great creativity and energy and times of no inspiration and you feel totally blah.

If you will honor the times of blah and just rest, inspiration will come back sooner. If you panic and try to GET MOTIVATED, then you will just get more frustrated.

What’s the moral of the story? Chill out, relax and rest when the body is going in that direction. Don’t worry. The waves of energy will return and you will soon be riding high again.

[David Hurley]

Hi Matthew,

This is good advice.

Last week was definitely a low-energy time for me and I did indeed chill out and wait for the bounce, as we have been discussing on this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4086

I recommend that you lie down with a good book and fall asleep while reading it!

[Trevorlawrence]

Thanks for posting this, Matthew. Keeping the motivation strong is something I've really been struggling with. Donna, I think I was just not pushing as hard as I need to and getting maintenance instead of progress.

[Ringo So]

Staying motivated is definitely hard.
Especially when things get overwhelming and there are no immediate results.

This is my personal approach.

1) Use a big white dry-erase board / piece of paper.
2) Pen down everything you need to do or in the process of doing. Point forms with dates. No need for excessive details.
3) Schedule a definitive period of time to relax (i.e. for the next hour and a half)
4) Jump back to working starting with number 1 on the white board!


The best way is stay motivated to be organized, re-group then jump back in!

[Ryann]

Thanks for this post.

A while ago, I took a personality test on this website: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp. It may not be 100% accurate, but it gives you a pretty good idea of who you are. The test did tell me that I value relationships and they are the ultimate resource of my motivation and inspiration.

It is true. When I am down and feeling unmotivated, I turn to my friends, family and mentors. When I have a goal, I share with them just to make it official. That way, everyone including myself is counting on me to achieve the goal. The biggest advantage of doing this is that they will support you and encourage you, and make sure that you stay on track!

[Kamna]

I think this topic is crucial because often, at least with me, if I'm feeling unmotivated I also feel frustrated. For me, the best way to deal with this is to take a step back and ask myself why I'm feeling this way? And when I'm frustrated I often retreat to the gym, where I can work it all out and surprisingly afterwards I feel calmer, reenergized and I'm able to confront the feelings.
What about motivating others, how would you go about doing that?

[Ryann]

Thanks for this post.

A while ago, I took a personality test on this website: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp. It may not be 100% accurate, but it gives you a pretty good idea of who you are. The test did tell me that I value relationships and they are the ultimate resource of my motivation and inspiration.

It is true. When I am down and feeling unmotivated, I turn to my friends, family and mentors. When I have a goal, I share with them just to make it official. That way, everyone including myself is counting on me to achieve the goal.