Habit 2: Find Motivation

Finding the Motivation to Turn Your Resolutions Into Habits

“According to recent polls, 45% of Americans make some sort of New Year's resolution. By far and away the most popular resolution is to lose weight and get healthy. Out of this group, 25% drop out and no longer pursue their goals after the first week of January. The polls indicate that only 8% find success with their resolutions by the end of the year.”

                                        -NaturalNews.com

I usually fall into that 25% above.  My biggest obstacle to completing a goal is my own motivation (or the lack thereof).  I am always eager to start a new health or exercise program, but seem unable to maintain motivation for any real length of time.  Heck, if 25% of people gave up their resolution after the very first week…that alone should be enough to convince anyone that motivation is a large and legitimate hurdle.  So why make resolutions at all?  According to StatisticBrain.com, people who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don't explicitly make resolutions.

I'm sure you've heard the Confucius saying in the picture below.  There are multiple lessons hidden within the story of the man who moved mountains, and they speak volumes about finding motivation.  The first lesson seems obvious.  He started by carrying away small stones, which implies that goals should be broken down into smaller, more doable chunks.  Logic tells us if we fix our eyes on the enormous mountain, it will seem like an overwhelming and impossible task.  People are much more willing to make changes that are small.  Baby steps.  Focusing on just one small stone at a time means making tiny, daily changes.  

The deeper lesson that can be learned through this adage is about persistence.  Moving one rock at a time may be a simple action, but that one action needs to be repeated a thousand times, or maybe even a hundred thousand times, to attain the goal of moving an entire mountain.  I don’t know about you, but I’m the type of person who gets bored real quick if I'm doing anything repetitive.  I do not like structure or routine and I struggle with perseverance.  Yet, perseverance is the building block that resolutions are made of.  The word ‘resolve,’ in its noun form, is defined by determination (a firmness of purpose) and by decision (a firm decision to do something).  Perseverance is defined as “a determined continuation with something; steady and continued action or belief, usually over a long period and especially despite difficulties or setbacks.”  That’s the kind of action it takes to reach goals.  It doesn’t matter if your goal is weight loss or writing a book or learning to play the piano.  The same principles apply.  Practice mixed with perseverance will get you there.  

So, how can we turn our small changes into habits?  The answer is by finding the motivation to continue making small steps towards the direction of our goal, over and over again.

"True life is lived when tiny choices are made.  Tiny choices mean tiny changes.  But it is only with infinitesimal change, changes so small no one else even realizes you're making them, that you have any hope for transformation."

-Leo Tolstoy

Challenge For This Week:
This week, focus on finding what motivates you.  Start with these 10 steps 

10 Steps to Get Motivated

Step 1: Define Your Goal

“I want to be healthy,” is way too vague.  Be more specific.  For example, instead of saying “I want to lose weight,” write how much weight you want to lose and the timeframe in which you want to do it, such as “I want to lose 30 lbs by the end of the year.”  Similarly, instead of saying “I want to be a better mom,” define what that means to you.  What would it take to be a better mom in your mind?  Perhaps “I want to spend 30 minutes of individual, quality time with each child every day” better describes your objective.  Or maybe, "I want to see how many days I can go without yelling."  Make your goal concrete and tangible.  It also needs to be something within your control.  “Win a million dollars” is not something within your control, and neither is “Fix my marriage.”  There are things you can do to improve your chances of winning a million dollars, just like there are things you can do to improve your relationship with your spouse, but ultimately you do not have control over the end results of those things.  One is pure chance.  The other depends partly on the actions and habits of another person.  Pick a goal that is within your own personal control to accomplish.

Step 2: Break It Down

Here’s where you divide up the mountain into smaller, more movable stones.  If your goal is to lose 30 lbs in 52 weeks that means you would have to lose approximately a half of a pound per week.  If your goal is to spend 30 minutes of quality time with each kid and you have 3 kids, you need to find 1 1/2 hours somewhere in your daily schedule and plan for it.  If your goal is to learn to play the piano, try practicing 30 minutes a day and getting one professional lesson each week.  Maybe your goal doesn’t have natural increments.  Let’s say your goal is to get your book published.  You can still chunk it up into smaller tasks to accomplish each day and each week.  Make a list of all of the steps necessary to reach your goal.

Step 3: Be Realistic

Evaluate Step 2 and ask yourself “is this really possible?”  If the answer is no, go back to step one and modify the goal.  For instance, if your schedule is too packed to squeeze 1.5 hrs of quality kid-time in there, then that goal isn’t realistic or doable.  What can you change to make it possible?  Instead of 30 minutes, try scaling it back to 15 or 20 minutes per kid.  Perhaps do this 3 or 4 days out of the week instead of every day.

Step 4: Identify the Obstacles

What things stand in the way of completing your goal?  In the parenting example, if you have a hard time making room in your schedule, are there things you can skip or change in order to free up some additional time?  Perhaps time is not the issue.  Maybe it’s the “one-on-one” part that’s proving to be difficult.  Maybe other family members are interrupting the time you’ve set aside to spend with your child.   Maybe you keep getting distracted by phone calls or text messages or Facebook.  Whatever is holding you back, write it down.  The easiest way to identify obstacles is to think of all the excuses you commonly use to get out of doing whatever you need to do to reach that goal.  Whatever hinders your progress…write it down. 

Step 5: Plan to Overcome

Once you’ve identified all the barriers, brainstorm potential solutions.  Take the exercising example.  If your obstacle is lack of time, what can you do to make more time for exercise?  If you lack energy, what are some ways to improve your energy levels?  If exercise is too boring, how can you make it more fun?  Try to find 3 to 5 ideas to counter every obstacle you listed.  Write them down.  When you start to make an excuse, look it up and apply one of the tactics you’ve already planned.  Strategy is half the battle.

Step 6: Find Inspiration

I’m really good at starting new projects.  I would even go so far as to say that I excel at starting new projects.  However, I am terrible at finishing them.  Even after I have gone through all of the above steps, I still have trouble staying motivated.  I take my eye off the prize.  I lose the desire to achieve my goal.  Sometimes I switch to a different goal that seems easier or more appealing at the moment.  If this is one of your shortcomings, take some time to dig deep and find motivation that really works for you.  Think about WHY your goal is so important to you.  What would it mean to you to accomplish your goal?  How would your life change for the better?  What areas of your life would be improved? Write down all the reasons you chose this goal and the benefits for completing it.  

Here are some simple ideas to build motivation:

• If you are a visual person, place some visual reminders around your house.  These can be as simple as writing the reasons for doing it or the benefits you'll gain onto index cards.  Then, tape them to your mirror, your closet wall, or the backside of the door on your cabinets. 
• Maybe you would be more inspired by buying and hanging framed posters with motivational quotes.  Make your own poster by taking a photo and using a photo-editing program like Picasa or Canva.  Add your favorite quote or text.  Print it, frame it, and hang it somewhere special.  Here’s a website filled with inspirational quotes you can choose from.
• Find a meaningful object and make it your symbol for change.  For example: find a rock or stone that has a flat part, which would be suitable for writing on.  Use a fine permanent marker to write “one small stone at a time…” or another phrase that is meaningful to you.  Put it somewhere you can see it every day.  My nephew, Justin, wore a rubber bracelet around his wrist to remind him of his commitment towards his goals.  Experiment with one or more objects that have significance to you.
• Perhaps try reading a book or magazine article about others who have achieved similar goals as yours.  For example, if you have a dream of being an Olympic athlete, reading the success stories of other Olympians may help you dig deeper and go for it.  Here’s an article I really like: If You Need a Push...8 Top Coaches Offer Irresistible Motivation. 
• If you are an audio person, find some audio recordings of motivational speakers and listen to them while you get ready in the morning, while driving in the car, while you are waiting for your kid’s practice or meeting to end, or 15 minutes before you fall asleep.  Surround yourself with positive and uplifting words that will help keep you on track.  (See Shia LaBeouf's video below)
• Research.  Find out what makes you tick by taking this quiz from Oprah.com: What’s Your Motivation Style? 

The real trick is to find what motivates you before you actually need motivation.  Whenever you find yourself struggling and your resolve failing, having that reserve of inspiration will give you the strength you need to keep moving forward.  

My children's favorite method for getting motivated is watching a little motivational speech on YouTube (embedded below).  In fact, my kids have been walking around for weeks now, shouting "Just do it!  Nothing is impossible!" at every opportunity.  I hadn't seen the video yet, so I had no idea why they were saying these words with such intensity and drama.  I asked them, what in the world is that from?  They said, "Shia LaBeouf, of course," as in, duh, mom, don't you know anything??  When I finally watched it, I couldn't stop laughing, because they truly had nailed their impersonations of Shia.  It's a little intense, but it's straight to the point...."Stop procrastinating and just do it!!"

Watch that every time you are feeling unmotivated, and perhaps your excuses will start to melt away.  If you enjoyed the short clip, there's supposedly a longer version, but I have not watched it.  One and a half minutes might be all I can handle... ;)

Step 7: Create a Support Network

My parents used to say “no man is an island.”  Usually they said this when I was being stubbornly independent.  No matter how self-sufficient we become, most of us still crave human connection.  That is the whole reason Facebook and other social networking sites are so popular.  Yes, we are individuals.  Yes, we are each unique and different, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing in common.  Most humans desire a sense of community and a sense of belonging.  We seem to need a network of friends and family and desire to share our life journeys with others.  Yet, when it comes to our personal goals, many people attempt to accomplish those goals completely on our own.  Sometimes we even keep our goals a secret.  This might be a defense mechanism (because if we fail, at least no one will know we failed).  However, we will find more success by sharing our goals and committing to be accountable to at least one other person.  According to the American Society of Training & Development, there’s a much higher rate of success towards accomplishing a goal if you have a support network or an accountability partner.  They  provided the following statistics:

The probability of completing a goal:
-if you hear about an idea is only a10% likelihood
-if you consciously decide to adopt the idea it becomes a 25% likelihood
-if you decide when you will do it it's 40%
-if you plan how you will do it it's 50%
-if you tell someone else you will do it it's 65%
-if you report back to the person you've committed to you reach a 95% likelihood!!

Having an effective accountability partner can fill in the gap between simply setting goal and actually accomplishing it.  These statistics suggest it's absolutely imperative to find an accountability partner if you want to succeed.  That's one of the big reasons I decided to start this blog...to create a community of accountability partners. 

Here are some tips: Choose a group or community of people who share the same goal and connects in way that fits into your existing lifestyle.  Choose an accountability partner who cares about your success, who has time to devote towards keeping you on task, and where there is mutual honesty and respect.  Communicate with that person or group on a regular basis.  Make a weekly appointment on your calendar if necessary.  It doesn’t have to be in person.  You could connect over the phone or even online, but do it often, especially on days when you are struggling.

Step 8: Track Your Progress

Keeping a journal or scrapbook along the way can be an important step towards discovering what works for you and what doesn’t.  Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” So true, and you can’t connect the dots at all if there are no dots to connect.  Record what you do each day, regardless of whether you think it is moving you towards your goals or not.  Examining it later can help you find patterns that are either helping you or sabotaging you, which you probably weren't even aware of.  Be brutally honest with your record keeping. 

Step 9: Fix the Flaws

If you are not making as much progress as you initially hoped, looking through your journal may provide insight and point you towards those things you need to do differently.  You might also stumble upon an idea or breakthrough that you hadn’t thought of before.  New obstacles will emerge along the way…tackle them in the same manner as before and keep moving forward.  Don’t be too hard on yourself when you stumble or stall; just keep trying.  If you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, adjust accordingly.  Remind yourself to take smaller bites in the future.  Always think about the lesson behind the mistake.  Rather than beating yourself up over the failure, think "what can I learn from this?"  Go back to your initial plan, re-evaluate, and make adjustments as needed.  

Step 10: Reward Your Progress

Make sure to celebrate the small successes along the way.  Acknowledge how far you’ve come and reward yourself not only for the outcome, but for the process and the journey.  My only caution here is to use rewards that don’t inadvertently thwart your progress.  For example, if your goal is to lose weight, rewarding yourself with a big slice of cheesecake or a basket of fries is counter-productive.  Buy yourself some new lipstick or get that book that’s been on your wish list.  Build a system of rewards into the plan.  Example, if your goal is to lose a pound a week, make it part of your plan to get something every week you reach your goal, such as getting to watch one episode of your favorite TV series, or spending time with a favorite friend.  Give yourself bigger rewards when you reach larger goals, like when you lose 5, 10, or 15 lbs.  Make sure the rewards are big enough to provide some real incentive.  For me, it’s a sexy, red dress that’s hanging in my closet.  I bought it back in 1999 and have never worn it.  It has been folded up in my “too-small” box for nearly 15 years.  I go through this box periodically.  I weed out anything that is out of style and the stuff I know, in my heart of hearts, that I will never wear again.  But I can’t seem to get rid of that dress.  There must be some hope that still lingers in me; a hope which prevents me from parting with that dress.  To get rid of it would seem like the death of a dream.  Recently, I dug it out of it's little resting spot and hung it up with the rest of my clothes in a very visible place within my closet.  The thought of finally fitting into that dress might be just the spark I need to ignite the commitment inside me; a passion that will propel me forward and provide just enough motivation to keep me working hard, with consistency, towards my dreams.

I sincerely hope you will will have time this week to work through this exercise, whatever your goals may be.  May it be a blessing in your life and help you form new, healthy habits.

Sincerely,
Sarah

P.S.  Join the conversation!  What sabotages your goals?  What helps you stay motivated towards your goals?  What one thing do you plan to implement this week?  Please comment below!