How to Stay Motivated When Things Get Hard

What are you supposed to do when you just don't feel like it anymore?

Have you lost the motivation you once had?  Maybe you've been pursuing a goal for years and are starting to feel some doubt.

You might even be questioning your ability.  Self-doubt begins to creep into your mind and it further demotivates you.

You're wondering to yourself, "should I even be pursuing this?" 

If this has ever been you, then you'll find this helpful to encourage yourself when adversity strikes.

Here are two simple practices you can do to stay motivated when things get hard.

In this video, I'll show you two practices to increase your motivation.

You'll learn ways to...

1. Strengthen your reasons to keep going

2. Weaken your reasons to quit

As you do, you'll clear a path for yourself to go after what you want most in life and create the results you desire.

How to Stay Motivated When Things Get Hard

Transcript - February 13, 2020

How do you stay motivated when things get hard? That's a question that we often ask ourselves, right? Because motivation comes and it goes, right. But when we have it, everything seems to just flow more effortlessly. And if we can figure out how to maintain that motivation for longer periods of time, all the better, right? So how do you stay motivated when things get hard?

I want to talk a little bit about motivation in general, first of all, because sometimes people wait for motivation before they get into action. And what a lot of research studies have found is, motivation oftentimes comes as a result of taking action comes from a result of taking your first step. Maybe when you feel like not doing it, but yet still moving into it. The motivation comes only later. Right?

But that's not what we're talking about today. Motivation and how to how to get it when you don't have any, it's how do you maintain it as you're moving towards your goals? So there are two ways you do that. The first one is to strengthen the reasons to keep going. You know that's common sense, right? And, and someone I follow and listen to a lot is Brendan Burchard. And he says common sense is not common practice.

And for sure, staying motivated and maintaining that motivation takes practice. And one of the ways you can do that is to strengthen your reasons to keep going, strengthen your resolve to keep going, and so how do you do that?

Well, there are three things you can do.

The first thing is, get more clear on your why there's so much talk about your why and what is your why. And I think if you peel that back a little deeper, what we get down to is your values. Your purpose and your values are those intrinsic things within you.

It needs to be served those that your values in a way is your truth. It's who you are. And when you're out of alignment with those values, you're going to end up being frustrated. There's just going to be tension. And that's a good indication that you might be out of alignment with your values. And oftentimes when you're out of your alignment, motivation very quickly starts to dwindle because you're starting to feel out of integrity with who you are.

And it's hard to maintain motivation when that's the case.

So that's something to explore is what you're doing and what you're pursuing, is it aligned with your why. And if it is, how can get really crystal clear on that?

The second thing you can do to strengthen the reasons to keep going would be asking yourself who else need you at the top of your game who else needs you at your best, because when you expand the focus outside of yourself and look to other people that might be counting on you, other people that your success might mean a whole heck of a lot to them as well and bring them into the circle, if you will, into your why.

Because that's going to even further motivate you, it's going to raise the necessity that you accomplish the goal you set out to accomplish because it's not only for you now it's for every it's for, it's for that it's for your family, it's for your partner, your spouse, it's for your co-workers, your team, your company, your business, right. It's for something much bigger than you and it's very motivating.

When you first find make sure you're serving yourself your why you have to be connected with that at all times. Because if not, you're disconnected from your energy source. But once you are the way you can expand that is to start to think about, well, who else needs me at the top of my game here who else needs me at my best?

So that's the second way you can strengthen the reasons to keep going. And then the last one here is as you accomplish the goal, what will change for you and what will that mean? What's the importance of that change to you. And to others, the others that we just spoke of. What will change? What will it look and feel like as you accomplish your goal? What will it mean to you? What will change in your life? What will you now be able to do? What will your children be able to do that maybe they're not able to do right now? How will you feel how you feel differently upon accomplishing that goal, or whatever it is you're pursuing? In fact, that's an interesting question because I'd often ask, well, how could you bring some of those feelings into what you're doing?

And I think that leads us to the second part of how to stay motivated when things get hard because the first one is to strengthen the reasons to keep going, right common sense. This is also common sense to weaken the reasons to quit. Right? Common sense, but not common practice.

Weaken your reasons to quit, so why are we wanting to quit in the first place?

Well, I'm willing to bet that we've been relying too much on willpower, discipline and determination and grit. As we've been pursuing our goals, and willpower, a lot of research shows that willpower is just like ours, our physical body, our muscles, it quickly gets tired. And we run out of willpower is limited, we only have so much of it until we kind of tap out and want to just slam on the brakes. Right? And so if that is your fuel source, it's a very it is a fuel source for sure we need to have willpower. But if that is what's driving you that grit and determination and discipline, it's going to be fleeting, because it only lasts for so long until you're left without it and now what you crash, right and so, so how do we weaken the reasons to quit? Well, one is, you know, don't run on determination, grit and discipline and willpower, because that's not going to sustain you.

So what will sustain you? How could you weaken the reasons to quit? The first one is to increase your joy and energy you bring to the journey and don't get so attached to the outcome.

What if you could pursue the thing that you love because you actually love pursuing it. And it was less about the actual outcome? It was less about the actual result? How much more could you get done if you could bring some joy into what you do?

And instead of determination, discipline, and grit, and feeling like it's a grind, and you got to grind it out? What if you could find a way to bring joy to what you're doing? And that that opens you up to have more fun, like, just enjoy the journey, right? have more fun, like, yeah, it's work. But what if you could do it in a way that you enjoy it? And there's things that we do that we just don't enjoy or not fine email or just getting through? Some administrative tasks or stuff that isn't necessarily fun.

Well, let me ask how could you make it fun?

Would it be a little more fun if you got outside into a little bit nicer of scenery and had a cup of coffee while you banged out those emails, right?

Do things that kind of bring some joy and energy into what you're doing so that it can be more of a fun experience, a more enlivening experience.

And, you know, the last part is we, you know, t0 weaken the reasons not to quit, is take some breaks and give yourself a break, like feeling that immediate urgency to always be pursuing goals and all and feeling like you're in a hurry to get there.

All that turns into is more willpower, determination, discipline, and grit and it's not going to last and so you need to find a way to sustain yourself to where you don't ever get to the point where you feel like quitting you never get to the point where you're you're burned out or, or just exhausted, like find a way to pace yourself building Your day, some self-care, like building the day to get a workout in, build into the day of 10 to 20-minute mindfulness practice building the day, just getting out of the office and hanging out with people you care about and just being social, right? Go, volunteer, give, do other things, because I promise you, it will be a change of pace for you, it'll energize you, and it's actually going to sustain you. And you prevent yourself from ever getting to that point of wanting to quit in the first place because you're doing it in such a sustainable way.

That instead of it, draining you it actually is bringing energy and finding that balance is specific to you. But it's something worth exploring. So we can your reasons not to quit by increasing the joy, find a way to more just enjoy it more, have more fun, change up the scenery, and then take more breaks, do things in a way that you know is realistic and sustainable.

So I hope that helps you know so what are the two ways to maintain motivation when things get hard, well strengthen your reasons not to quit and weaken your reasons to quit.

And when you can start plugging those things in, what you're going to create for yourself as a very sustainable way forward, and I'm confident that that consistent action that this will bring will produce those same consistent results towards your goal. And that's what you're really after. Right, and I hope this helps and I will see you in the next video.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai