Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 378 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

A Guide to Motivation (2)

Thank you for joining us for our 3 days per week, 12 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 378 of our trek, and today is Motivation Monday. Every Monday we will provide a shot of motivation to encourage and inspire you to make it a great week. Today we will finish up a two-part exploration of A Guide to Motivation.

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. We had an extremely busy weekend of restoration work. All of the woodwork and floors that we had planned to refinish at this time are completed. We also are making progress on the exterior painting and hope to finish it up by Wednesday. There are some other miscellaneous projects that we desire to complete this week, but they may have to wait until later. Before the start of the reunion, I hope to get a video capture of the renovations that we have completed so far.

Some of the Wisdom-Trek and client projects have been delayed until the middle of July when we return from the Podcast Movement conference. Our focus on the renovations, Chamberlain reunion, and conference where I will be speaking, has consumed most of our time this month. Since the conference is focused on podcasting, I am sure we will be highly motivated to make good progress when we return from Chicago on July 9^th.

As we think about motivation, let us head out on the 2^nd segment of our trek today to explore 20 ways to sustain motivation when you are struggling…

A Guide to Motivation (2)

The second half of our guide to motivation explores how to keep yourself going when you don’t feel the same excitement as you did in the beginning. Perhaps something new has come into your life, and your old goal isn’t as much of a priority anymore. Perhaps you skipped a day or two, and now you can’t get back into it. Perhaps you screwed up and got discouraged.

If you can get yourself excited again and keep going, you’ll get there eventually. But if you give up, you won’t. It’s your choice — accomplish the goal or quit. Here are 20 tips to assist you in reaching your goal:

1. Hold yourself back. When you start a new exercise program, or any new goal really, you are full of excitement, and your enthusiasm knows no boundaries. You may think you can do anything. It’s not long before you learn that you do have limitations, and your enthusiasm begins to wane. One lesson to learn and sustain motivation, even if you have a lot of energy at the beginning of a program and want to go all out — hold back slightly. Remember that any goal worth achieving will best be accomplished over an extended period of time. Don’t let yourself do everything you want to do immediately. Plan out a sensible course of action where you slowly increase over time. For example, if you want to go running, you might think you can run 3 miles at first. But instead of letting yourself do that, start by only running a mile. When you’re running that mile, you may tell yourself that you can do more, but don’t. After that workout, you will be looking forward to the next workout, when you will run 1.5 miles. Keep that energy reined in, harness it so that you can run even further long term.
2. Just start. There are some days when you don’t feel like heading out the door for a run, or figuring out your budget, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do that day for your goal. Instead of thinking about how hard it is and how long it will take, tell yourself that you just have to start. I have a practice where I lay my exercise clothes out the night before, so they are ready when I get up. It is starting that is the most difficult time. Once you start, it is never as hard as you thought it would be. This tip works for me every time.
3. Stay accountable. Commit yourself publicly, through an online forum, on a blog, in an email, or in person…Stay accountable to that group of people. Report back to them daily or weekly, and stick to it! That accountability will help because you don’t want to report that you’ve failed.
4. Squash negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. This is one of the most important motivation skills, and I suggest you practice it daily. It’s important to start monitoring your thoughts and to recognize negative self-talk. Invest a few days in becoming aware of every negative thought. Then squash those negative thoughts like you would a bug, and replace them with a corresponding positive thought. This step is imperative.
5. Think about the benefits. Over-emphasizing how difficult a task is needs to be replaced by the benefits of completing it. For example, instead of thinking about how difficult it is to wake early, focus on how good you’ll feel when you’re done exercising and how your day will be so much better. The benefits of something will help energize you.
6. Get excited again! Think about why you lost your excitement…Then think about why you were excited in the first place. Can you get that back? What made you want to do the goal? What made you passionate about it? Try to build that up again, refocus yourself, and get energized.
7. Read about it. When you lose motivation, read a book or blog about your goal. This will help to inspire and reinvigorate you. Reading helps to motivate and focus you on whatever you’re reading about. So read about your goal every day, if you can, especially when you’re not feeling motivated.
8. Find like-minded friends. Staying motivated on your own is tough. But if you find someone with similar goals (such as running, dieting, or finances), and see if they’d like to partner with you. Or partner with your spouse, sibling, or best friend on whatever goals they’re trying to achieve. You don’t have to be going after the same goals — as long as you are both pushing and encouraging each other to succeed. Other good options are groups in your area, like a running club or online forum where you can find people to talk to about your goals.
9. Read inspiring stories. Inspiration, for me, comes from others who have achieved what I want to achieve, or who are currently doing it. Stories are just one place for inspiration, not only from me but from many people who have achieved amazing things. Read success stories of others to inspire you.
10. Build on your successes. Every little step along the way is a success. Celebrate every milestone. Then take that successful feeling and build on it with another baby step. With each step (and each step should last about a week), you will feel even more successful. Make each step small, and you won’t fail. After a couple of months, your small steps will add up to a lot of progress and a lot of success.
11. Just get through the low points. Motivation is not a constant thing that is always there for you. It comes and goes, and comes and goes again, like the tide. But realize that while it may go away, it doesn’t do so permanently. It will come back. Just stick it out and wait for that motivation to come back. In the meantime, read about your goal, ask for help, and do some of the other things listed here until your motivation comes back.
12. Get help. It’s hard to accomplish something alone. Find someone who has already completed the goal that you desire, and asked them to help you. Find your support network, either in the real world or online, or both.
13. Chart your progress. This can be as simple as marking an X on your calendar, creating a simple spreadsheet, or logging your progress using Your Life Plan Blueprint. It can be vastly rewarding to look back on your progress and see how far you’ve come, and it can help you keep going. You should be able to check off your progress nearly every day. Don’t let a few missed days stop you from continuing. Strive instead to complete it the next day.
14. Reward yourself often. For every milestone along the way, celebrate your success, and give yourself a reward. Create appropriate rewards for the size of the milestone.
15. Go for mini-goals. Sometimes large or longer-term goals can be overwhelming. After a couple weeks, we may lose motivation because we still have several months or a year or more left to accomplish the goal. It’s hard to maintain motivation for a single goal for such a long time. Your Life Plan Blueprint breaks everything down into weekly tasks and daily to-dos.
16. Get a coach or take a class. These will motivate you to at least show up and to take action. It can be applied to any goal. This might be one of the more expensive ways of motivating yourself, but it works. It is proven that we are more likely to stick with something if we invest money in it.
17. Never skip two days in a row. This rule takes into account our natural tendency to miss days now and then. We are not perfect. So, you missed one day…Now the second day is upon you, and you are feeling lazy…Tell yourself NO! You will not miss two days in a row!
18. Use visualization. Visualize your successful outcome in great detail. Close your eyes, and think about exactly how your successful outcome will look, feel, smell, taste, and sound like. Where are you when you become successful? How do you look? What are you wearing? Form as clear a mental picture as possible. Now here’s the next key. Do it every day. For at least a few minutes each day. This is the only way to keep that motivation going over a long period of time.
19. Be aware of your urges to quit, and overcome them. We all have urges to stop, but they are mostly unconscious. One of the most powerful things you can do is to start being more conscious of those urges. A good exercise is to go through the day with a little piece of paper and put a tally mark for each time you get an urge to quit. Preplan how you will respond so that you can overcome the urge to quit with a strong reason to continue.
20. Find pleasure again. It is difficult to continue on if you find tasks unpleasant. Choose to enjoy the tasks, to have fun, and to find joy in the journey. Think of the long term benefits and how they outweigh the short-term desire to quit.

We are encouraged to continue on in the book of Hebrews 12:11 12:11-13, “No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward, there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.  So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.”

We have come to the end of this two-part trek on A Guide to Motivation. Let us learn and apply these instructions to our daily lives. Our next trek will be Wisdom Wednesday when we will dig for the nuggets of wisdom found in Proverbs 13. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along on Wednesday for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our trek for today. As you enjoy your dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person and invite them to come along with us each day. If you would like to listen to any of the past daily treks, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek so each trek will be downloaded to you automatically. I would like to ask you to also rate and review us on iTunes or Google Play so that others will find out about Wisdom-Trek and join us.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you on Wednesday!