We all have those days where we wake up and just can’t get ourselves out of bed. Maybe you’re just tired, or maybe it’s just easier to stay under the covers rather than face the daunting tasks of the day. Knowing how to motivate yourself is a valuable skill regardless of your profession, but motivation comes more easily to some than others, and no single strategy will work for everyone. However, the following steps are general enough that they can be applied to almost anyone, and hopefully they can help you figure out how to seize the day every day.
- Set Small, Specific Goals: Looking at a task in its entirety can make it seem insurmountable, and prevent you from even starting. No matter what the problem is, it will be easier to approach if you break it down. Work at it in increments: instead of reading the entire book at once, read a few chapters at a time, but be specific about how many chapters and hold to it.
- Challenge Yourself: You may be tempted to just take care of the easy parts of your work and then call it a day, but you’ll feel a greater sense of accomplishment if you tackle something challenging. Just remember to be realistic about what you can achieve.
- Don’t Think, Just Do: Planning out your work is a great way to manage your time, but sometimes you can wind up overthinking it to the point where you don’t even know how to begin. In times like these, it’s best to just dive in and start working, letting a rhythm emerge naturally.
- Reward Yourself: Giving yourself a reward after a hard day’s work makes the hard day’s work all the more worthwhile. Just make sure the reward is suited to the work; it would be a bad idea to reward yourself for exercising with a box of doughnuts.
- Track Your Progress: This may seem tedious at first, but trust me, it will pay off in the long run. Tracking your progress helps you know how far you are from reaching your goal, and also lets you see how far you’ve come, which can be a reward in its own right.
At the end of the day, you have to figure out how to motivate yourself. Only you know what method works well for you. But, hopefully, these tips can help you find out what that method is.
-Eddie Godino
Photo Credit: donnierayjones Rise 'N Shine via photopin (license)
