Get Off Your Butt: Ways to Get Motivated When You’re in a Slump
From Leo Babauta's ZenHabit.net website: One Goal. Whenever I’ve been in a slump, I’ve discovered that it’s often because I have too much going on in my life. I’m trying to do too much. You have to choose one goal, for now, and focus on it completely. Find inspiration. Inspiration, for me, comes from others who have achieved what I want to achieve, or who are currently doing it. I read other blogs, books, magazines. I Google my goal, and read success stories. Get excited. This sounds obvious, but most people don’t think about it much: if you want to break out of a slump, get yourself excited about a goal. For me, I’ve learned that by talking to my wife about it, and to others, and reading as much about it as possible, and visualizing what it would be like to be successful, I get excited about a goal. Build anticipation. If you find inspiration and want to do a goal, don’t start right away. Many of us will get excited and want to start today. That’s a mistake. Set a date in the future — a week or two, or even a month — and make that your Start Date. Mark it on the calendar. Get excited about that date. Make it the most important date in your life. Think about it daily. If you think about your goal every day, it is much more likely to become true. And if you can commit to doing one small thing to further your goal (even just 5 minutes) every single day, your goal will almost certainly come true. Get support. It’s hard to accomplish something alone. Find your support network, either in the real world or online, or both. Realize that there’s an ebb and flow. 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. Read about it daily. When I lose motivation, I just read a book or blog about my goal. It inspires me and reinvigorates me. For some reason, reading helps motivate and focus you on whatever you’re reading about. Think about the benefits, not the difficulties. For example, instead of thinking about how tiring exercise can be, focus on how good you’ll feel when you’re done, and how you’ll be healthier and slimmer over the long run. The benefits of something will help energize you. Squash negative thoughts; replace them with positive ones. Just spend a few days becoming aware of every negative thought. Then, after a few days, try squashing those negative thoughts like a bug, and then replacing them with a corresponding positive thought. Squash, “This is too hard!” and replace it with, “I can do this! If that wimp Leo can do it, so can I!” It sounds corny, but it works. Really.
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The Un-Comfort Zone
This Month: What's Pushing Your Buttons?
What motivates you? That's the question I'd like to ask in this inaugural column on motivation. Are you motivated by fame, fortune or fear? Or is it something deeper that fans the flames inside of you?Perhaps you are like Jeanne Louise Calment whose burning desire enabled her to do something that no other human being has done before. A feat so spectacular that it generated headlines around the globe, got her a role in a motion picture, and landed her in the Guinness Book of World Records. A record that has yet to be beaten.
Jeanne Louise, however, did not initially motivate herself. It was someone else who drew the line in the sand. But, it became a line she was determined to cross.
In motivation we talk about getting outside of one's comfort zone. It is only when we are uncomfortable that we begin to get motivated. Usually to get back into our comfort zone as quickly as possible.
Born into the family of a middle-class store owner, Calment was firmly entrenched in her comfort zone. At age 21 she married a wealthy store owner and lived a life of leisure. She pursued her hobbies of tennis, the opera, and sampling France's famous wines.
Over the years she met Impressionist painter Van Gogh; watched the erection of the Eiffel Tower; and attended the funeral of The Hunchback of Notre Dame author, Victor Hugo.
Twenty years after her husband passed away, Calment had reached a stage in life where she had pretty much achieved everything that she was going to achieve. Then along came a lawyer. The lawyer made Jeanne Louise a proposition. She accepted it. He thought he was simply making a smart business deal. Inadvertently he gave her a goal. It took her 30 years to achieve it, but achieve it she did.
Are you willing to keep your goals alive for 30 years? At what point do you give up? Thomas Edison never gave up, instead he said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Winston Churchill during the bleakest hours of World War II kept an entire country motivated with this die-hard conviction: "We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches... in the fields and in the streets... we shall never surrender."
Many of us give up too soon because we set limits on our goals.
Achieving a goal begins with determination. Then it's just a matter of our giving them attention and energy.
When Jeanne Louise was 92 years old, attorney François Raffray, age 47, offered to pay her $500 per month (a fortune in 1967) for the rest of her life, if she would leave her house to him in her will.
According to the actuarial tables it was a great deal. Here was an heir-less woman who had survived her husband, children, and grandchildren. A woman who was just biding her time with nothing to live for. That is until Raffray came along and offered up the "sucker-bet" that she would soon die. It was motivation enough for Jeanne, who was determined to beat the lawyer. Thirty years later, Raffray became the "sucker" when he passed away first at age 77.
When asked about this by the press, Calment simply said, "In life, one sometimes make bad deals." Having met her goal, Jeanne passed away five months later. But on her way to this end, she achieved something else: at 122 years old, she became the oldest person to have ever lived.
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In future articles we'll examine further the ways in which motivation works. How to motivate ourselves, our employees, customers, volunteers, friends, loved ones and children. I would like to get your feedback on which of these areas of motivation are of most interest to you. I’d also like to hear your stories of how you may have overcome adversity and what pushed you to go the distance. Please email me your suggestions and stories.
Robert Evans Wilson, Jr. is a motivational speaker and humorist. He works with companies that want to be more competitive and with people who want to think like innovators. For more information on Robert's programs please visit www.jumpstartyourmeeting.com.