How often do you feel excited, really juiced to get out of bed each and every morning to work on your goal? Do you habitually feel motivated, every single day, to do whatever it takes to make your goal or objective happen?
If you don’t feel excited and motivated, don’t want to get started, don’t itch to get down and put every effort you possess, to do what it takes to make it happen, then the goal that you set yourself may be a weak one.
Or, perhaps on this occasion you hit an obstacle, a complication, and it gradually drained your motivation. It happens, we’re human after all. I don’t think we can be highly motivated every single day of our lives.
In such circumstances, even when you’re faced with an inconvenience or discomfort, such as having to do a particular task, one that you think is a pain, one that you hate doing, find boring, or find difficult, you still need to get it done.
It could be that sales call you’ve been dreading, that person you don’t want to meet, or that sales copy that you have to write. Whatever it may be you see a big wall in front of you with a big red cross over the word ‘motivation’.
Yet you still need to get it done. So what do you do?
I ask you to sit back and remember the times when you raced through a project that you hated so you can leave on time on a Friday night to meet up with your friends, or the time when you made all the ten dreaded phone calls one after the other, with no coffee break in between, so you can tick them off your to do list so you can arrive early at the restaurant to get the best table.
What happened?
You were strongly motivated to get out of work on time or to arrive at the restaurant to book the best table, no matter what. You had a goal in mind. As much as you hated and dreaded the project and phone calls, for you to achieve your goal they had to get done.
You did whatever it took to make them happen. You motivated yourself to get them done. Somehow you found a way to get all the motivation you wanted.
Here are two fun and mighty ways you can bring into play to inject added clout to your motivation level when you are faced with a bothersome task:
1. Have fun along the way. Don’t take everything so seriously. If you view working towards your goal a chore or an unpleasant and laborious task, you will fall short of completing the task, or if you did finish it off, you will have had an awful time getting there.
Your goal then becomes a pain, one that you will not want to achieve. You won’t find it fun anymore and you will lose your motivation. The journey to fulfilment should be pleasurable and entertaining.
For you to keep the momentum going it’s important for you to have fun while working on your goal. There will be some things that you will have to do on the way that you do not like doing. I think it’s fair to say that it’s a given fact. Yet, if these so-called chores have to be done anyway, why not make them fun and enjoy doing them?
Spend some time to come up with ways to make the road to success and fulfilment fun and enjoyable, amusing and exciting.
When I have to do things that I don’t enjoy doing yet realize their true worth and value, I gear myself up. What do I do? I act like a fun-loving child for a few minutes (or more).
I have a scrapbook of my favourite cartoon illustrations in my top drawer. I flick through the pages to lighten up. I look at the cartoons, then the work I have to do, and then back to the cartoons. I switch back and forth until I see the humour in the work that I have to do. In the end, the ‘was’ chore has now become a ‘fun’ task that I do happily with a firm smile on my face.
Effective? You bet!
2. Believe you can! Now you might be thinking, Oh, I can’t do that. I can’t take my scrapbook out and have a whale of a time, giggling and laughing. Who says you can’t? You say!
Change that limiting thought. Sure you can have fun. Sure you can flick through your pages of jokes and have a good laugh.
Steer clear of your self-doubt, or any thoughts that you have designed to stop you from having the attitude of a self-motivated and happy person to achieve what you want.
What’s the worst that can happen? Your boss will tell you off for turning the pages of a joke book? Fine. Take a break and take the scrapbook with you!
You see, having motivation and remaining motivated in the long-term can be achieved. You just have to figure out how to remain motivated, especially when things get in the way.
Now you know a fun way of keeping the momentum going. And by the way, not only will you remain motivated, you will enjoy life more by laughing more.
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7 Ways to Grow the Action Habit
Overcoming the Loss of Motivation
Wonderful post! I think believing in yourself is SO importand and I recently wrote a post about this on my own site. I also think having fun is a great point to make too because I usually (sadly) forget about that one!
It’s good to be positive about these things. I need more motivation to keep me going to work, currently that motivation comes from the thought it’s not forever. But I’m trying new things and experimenting with my life. Me and my boy are looking into business ventures we could start and we both like writing so are making our own blogs, this is really exciting at the moment. We need to remind each other to believe in ourselves all the time, it really helps when you have someone that loves you being so encouraging.
Your posts are so uniformly uplifting and filled with great advice that I have added you to the Feed Your Good Dog blogroll. The ideas you put forth in this post – believe you can and have fun – are such simple things, but so many people forget to do them. We are always in charge of our own brains, after all…thanks for the great reminder to hold the reins well.
Thank You, Sandy! We really appreciate it! Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, too! twitter.com/pickthebrain
I really liked this post. It’s amazing the amount of success people receive when they are enjoying the entire process.
Thank you for your comments. We need to remember, as Sandy has pointed out, that we are always in charge of our minds. And since we are, there’s a lot that we can achieve in our lives – much more than we presently think.
Continue to believe in yourselves and have fun all the way to the top.
[...] thoroughly motivated to work on your personal project, don’t forget this quintessential rule from Pick the Brain: lighten up and have fun. Life Design Wiki: Perseverance; Planning Your [...]
Thanks for the motivation. This is a current topic of study for me. The concrete tip you give (cartoon book) is helpful, and would make a nice Think, Try, Learn experiment. Happy working!