4 Ways To Motivate YOURSELF To Get Way More Done

I’ll be honest, I need to preface this post by saying I’m not a huge fan of motivation as a whole. Motivation is kind of unreliable. One minute it’s there and the next it’s not. It kinda sucks. I much prefer trying to build self-discipline through consistent action.

But, there’s no doubt that we all need some kind of motivation from time to time. That can come from watching videos or seeing someone else in a position where we want to be.

Those things can light a small, dying flame inside of you, but in general, they suck…hear me out.

Motivating yourself is a different kind of motivation. It’s the ability to take action no matter what is going on.

It’s an all-out skill. It’s something you can always call upon when you need to get something done.

I’d much rather be able to motivate myself than wait around until I feel motivated.

If I had to wait until I felt motivated, I’d never get anything done. I’m lazy by nature. And I think most of us are. We seek comfort. We seek the easy path. And you can’t blame us, life is tough. It’s full of distractions.

Motivation usually only comes when we have a quiet moment to think about what we want in life when we’re not distracted.

And how often do we have those moments?

When you motivate yourself, you’re taking control of your own destiny.

When you’re waiting to feel motivated, you’re at the will of other people’s influence. You’re in a state of hope…

Start taking control of your own motivation by being your own motivation.

In this post, I’ll go over 4 ways to motivate yourself – the steps that have helped me to knuckle down and build better habits regardless of how I feel or what’s going on around me.

Most articles will tell you that you need to write lists, set deadlines or break your tasks down into smaller chunks but I don’t think those things are as helpful as what I’m going to describe in this post.

By learning to motivate myself, I’ve lost 23 pounds, continued to exercise every week (even though I never look forward to it) and created a writing habit that I love.

So where do we start?

1. Uncloak the veiled excuses

The first step to building your own motivation is something that nobody ever talks about but if you ask me, it’s the most important part of the process – uncloaking the veiled excuses.

People don’t like to hear it but most of us are full of excuses. I’ve still got excuses I tell myself from time to time and I bet you do too.

But the thing about excuses is it’s often impossible to notice you’re making them until someone else tells you that you are. They stand next to you veiled like Harry Potter and his invisible cloak.

And the worst thing about your excuses is they only get bigger the more you use them. You start to believe they’re actually real.

But most of them are no more real than Harry Potter’s cloak itself.

So how do you get around this? By being very clear on what is an excuse and what isn’t.

Here’s a personal story to demonstrate this point. I’ve sat in a desk chair for the best part of ten years. Sure I’ve continued to weight train for most of my adult life but up until last year, the last time I ran for more than 10 seconds was when I was 17 and playing soccer at college.

The very thought of running for more than 10 seconds made me feel sick. So it didn’t make sense for me to agree to join a 6-a-side soccer league.

It didn’t take long for the first match to roll around and I was nervous, to say the least. Sure enough, I managed about 4 minutes before I had to come off the pitch. My heart nearly tore out of my chest and my shins felt as if they had splintered into a million pieces.

I walked away from that match with the worst headache I’d ever experienced, vomit ready to shoot out of me and with every single muscle in my body tight and sore as if I’d been in the ring with Tyson Fury for an hour and a half.

So why did I go back the next week?

I went back because I knew bailing out of the next match would be an excuse. And believe me, I was thinking all day about what I could say to get out of it. I thought about saying I was busy, had a stomach bug or that I was stuck in traffic.

But after hours of pondering, I realised how silly I was being.

Had I really fallen so much since that last match at college? The answer was a big fat yes.

The following match was still difficult but each game each week got a bit easier.

You have to be clear with yourself about what is an excuse and what is not. The potential excuses I could have used were exactly that – excuses. What isn’t an excuse but a fair reason not to attend would be something like an injury.

Whatever it is you’re trying to do, be honest with yourself and think about all the reasons you tell yourself you can’t go for a run, cook, write, whatever.

Every week the excuses stand next to me and every week I have to tell them to take a hike even when they’re so tempting to listen to.

2. Become a person of faith

Not in a god but in the process. In order to motivate yourself, you have to believe in something you can’t see straight away, something that’s not tangible or that you have evidence for. Essentially, you have to have faith.

Not blind faith or delusion, but you have to be quietly confident and have a bit of self-belief.

Let me explain.

When you start a blog there’s nothing but crickets for the first 6 months (at least). No one is reading and it can feel as if you’re wasting your time. So is it delusional to carry on publishing? Maybe.

But sometimes it pays off. Sometimes a few eyeballs roll in and then some more and then some more…

But there’s no way of knowing unless you keep going. Likewise, if you’re trying to lose weight. For the first few weeks, you look in the mirror and you’re practically the same, even though you’ve cleaned up your diet and started moving around more.

It’s disheartening.

But then after those first few weeks pass, something magical happens. Your pants feel looser around your waist. People look at you and notice something different. You catch yourself in the mirror as you get out of the bath and think “Oh, hello!”

If you gave up in the first few weeks you’d never get to that point. You’d assume that healthy eating was a waste of time that ‘doesn’t work’.

The only way you get to these pay-off moments is by believing in something that doesn’t exist in the beginning. It’s by having faith.

Motivate yourself not by what you see today but by what you believe is possible. If you keep going there is an endless amount of potential possibilities out there waiting for you to achieve if you do.

Do things always pay off? No. But you aren’t going to know unless you start.

3. Live in the world you’re trying to inhabit

One of the most crucial ways to motivate yourself is to live in the world you’re trying to inhabit. First, think about what you’re trying to achieve and then consider where like-minded people might be hanging out.

And I don’t just mean physically…

If you’re trying to get a grip on your nutrition and build a healthier diet, it’s not just recipe blogs you need to find. You need to delve right into the world of healthy eating. That means watching cooking videos, joining healthy living Facebook groups or going nuts and browsing Pinterest if that’s what people are still doing!

Each to their own.

The point is to put yourself in environments that encourage you to become the kind of person you want to become that achieves the things you want to achieve.

Essentially, it becomes much easier to motivate yourself when your environment is helpful, not necessarily motivational, but helpful.

Imagine yourself as a train. The world of healthy eating keeps you on your tracks. The distractions (or your old habits) are like big stones on the tracks, ready to derail you.

Most of what you hear and see as you walk around the planet is meaningless junk. The problem is the noise around you is as addictive as junk food. It’s easy to get sucked in by them and over-consume them.

And sure enough, these distractions kill your motivation in its tracks.

You turn on the news and you are inundated with information from across the globe. You open up social media on your phone and see notes posted by people you don’t even know. Your colleagues unload their stresses onto you whilst you’re trying to work. You get called to go out for dinner, even though you’re trying to be ‘good’.

Distractions are everywhere and the easy option is to give them your time. It’s more comfortable that way, more familiar.

So think about what the person you’re trying to be would do. Clear the clutter from your tracks and set yourself up for success by surrounding yourself with the right stuff.

4. Remember the 5-year rule.

So when you’ve identified what your typical excuses often look like, learned that having faith in the process is just as important as motivation, and you’re surrounding yourself with a helpful environment, it’s time to keep the 5-year rule in mind.

This is one of the best ways to keep yourself motivated when you’re feeling disheartened.

This 5-year rule isn’t about where you see yourself in 5 years, the kind you get asked in job interviews. This is about where you don’t want to see yourself in 5 years.

This is one of the most motivational things I think about all the time.

Do I want to still be in this job? do I want to still be unfit? Do I still want to be telling myself I wish I’d started that project?

The answer is always no. And this answer always gives me a burning motivation to keep doing whatever I’m doing whether that’s writing, exercising or eating well.

In 5 years I don’t want to be in the same spot. I want to have progressed. I think that’s human nature. In 5 years, I don’t want to be in a place where I’m no longer fit enough to run around and kick a ball anymore.

But people don’t think about where they don’t want to be in 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 years. They’re usually living on autopilot. How many times do you hear people telling you their plans month after month but they don’t ever end up starting them?

It’s not excuses, it’s just inaction. They think they will always have more time. Sometimes you’re so focused on yourself that you can’t even see yourself.

But it’s not until 5 years roll around that you realise you’re exactly where you were.

Time keeps moving and so I think it’s a good idea that we do too.

Once you start thinking about where you don’t want to be in 5 years, it’s much easier to identify what you need to do to be where you want to be. What would you have to do to earn more money? What would you have to do to get fitter?

In summary

The truth is, motivating yourself is pretty darn difficult at first but in the long run, it’s much better than searching for it from other people. These are the things that help me to stay motivated. Do I always feel motivated? no. Sometimes I want to slack off and have a rest and you know what? sometimes I need a rest. We all do from time to time. You can also do too much sometimes.

But the more you foster a self-motivating mindset, the more you get done. And the more you get done, the easier it is to keep on track. You end up being motivated more than you’re not.

The great thing about being human is you’re pretty adaptable. The more you do something, the more you get used to it and it doesn’t always take long to get into a good routine, one that doesn’t feel forced but instead one that makes you feel good.