Who took my motivation?

Motivation frequently takes a dip as holidays come to an end, change in weather, drop in seasonal sales and even though we have 9000 channels to choose from, nothing to watch on the TV! All or any of the above can impact our day to day survival and how we feel.

What drives our usually positive emotional state down? Why does our demeanour seem to take a downturn and is it pandemic because everyone else seems down too?

Here are some areas to consider:

• Lack of a clear goal/focus – no sense of direction.
• Negative self-talk – putting yourself down.
• Feeling alone – Struggling with an issue or project and feeling it’s yours alone.
• No end in sight – Workloads seem to be ongoing without a clear end.
• Too big – Projects that just seem overwhelming.
• Inability to start – allowing procrastination to step in.

There are countless others too but you may well resonate towards one or more of the above.

As a business coach I don’t ever suffer with lack of motivation … I stink at being a liar. Of course I too occasionally suffer from lacking in the motivation department. Fortunately for me, it never lasts too long as running motivational workshops and seeing many of our clients succeed in their goals (see above!) means I frequently get uplifted by the success’ around me.

As a result, some tips are shared here to help you get back on the motivational band-wagon for happier times.

1. Clarity – Get the thoughts out of your head and down on paper! Literally write down lists of jobs you have ahead of you. Problems of existing projects. Areas in your life or work that are preventing you from simply moving forward. Clear your brain of all those thoughts vying for the number one spot.
2. Music – think about it. Those tears you shed at a cinema/film/theatre. That certain piece that makes you feel sad! The opposite effect happens with uplifting music so listen to your favourite tracks, create a playlist of just them. If not possible within the work environment, take some headphones and listen whenever you get the chance and help boost those motivational feelings.
3. Head for Wembley! – It’s scoring goals that gets the teams to Wembley. So set about achieving as many goals as you can. Start by addressing the ones you ‘want’ to achieve rather than feeling obliged to (someone else’s motivational driver) as you will subconsciously put more effort into these.
4. Pyramid building – We look at the pyramids and think wow! But they are only one massive project that was split into millions of components. So for those overwhelming tasks, break them into separate, manageable components. I write, design and present workshops on a myriad of subjects. Although most last half/whole day, the amount of work, research and construction for each can take weeks. Before starting, I break them into manageable parts, set timeline for each and plan when I shall undertake them. Overall, the job seems smaller, it takes less time as I get on with it sooner and more efficiently as I know what I am doing for that part without worrying about the rest as that too has been planed.
5. Stimulation – All too often we can sit and mull over what is bringing us down. We sit and feed it and sit and put things off and sit. You may notice the theme here so the best thing to do is stand, stretch, walk around a little and even go grab a cuppa, shake off the negative feelings.
6. Plan it – Whether you prefer the electronic or written form of a calendar, write down when you are going to start and block out the time to spend on any new objective. I use Outlook for everything as either my Laptop, pad or mobile pings to remind me of whatever it was I entered and that’s the key, if you use paper system, insure you devise a way to check it.
7. Feed me or beat me – It may not be PC these days about beating people but we’ve all heard of the Carrot/Stick analogy. Figure out what your drive is. Mine is a really nice filtered coffee and 10 minutes downtime once I’ve written these features. Scale it up according to the task in hand, as you see, I prefer the carrot as the other really isn’t my thing!

At Coaching to Success, we have other tools in our armoury to help individuals or teams achieve levels of motivation. Each are specific to our client’s needs so should you need that support, contact Neil on 07761 187238 or email neil@coachingtosuccess.co.uk, where you will be assured a warm, friendly welcome and the chance to discuss ways we can work together along with his own infectious levels of motivation.