Let me start this with a promise. Every piece of advice in this post is something tangible and actionable that you can do right now. None of it is airy fairy, none of it is going to be meaningless drivel.
I say that because every time I read a list of tips these days, it’s something along the lines of “just believe you can do it!” — which is a useless piece of advice. If we believed we could do it, we wouldn’t ever struggle with motivation.
What I want to do is give you three simple strategies that are going to boost your motivation to complete tasks, finish projects and work towards an overarching goal. The fact of the matter is, motivation dies every single day. Motivation dies when we don’t care for it and tend to it as if it were a fragile plant.
And when we lose motivation, through our own carelessness and the natural quietening of our emotional connection to our work over time, we leave everything unfinished, unsaid, unpolished and unremarked.
Motivation doesn’t have a whole lot to do with fitspo instagram posts of people holding green smoothies and wearing Lycra. Motivation comes down to two simple questions:
Does your desired outcome have the power to drive the actions necessary to achieve it?
Are you connected to that outcome closely enough that you are aware of its relationship to each action you take?
The strategies I want to talk through are about answering those questions affirmatively every single day. Because that’s where real motivation actually springs from.
Build And Keep Track Of A Detailed Vision Board
“Wait, I thought this wasn’t going to be bullshit??” — At least one person who reads this blog
Vision boards are not bullshit. They’re actually a completely straightforward, simple, and incredibly effective way of keeping in touch with your goals and your outcomes and where you want to be.
I started with a list of personal priorities that I wrote down in a notepad. I added a list of personal and professional wants, and a list of dreams that mattered deeply to me. These lists were slowly whittled down and worked through until I had a grasp on the items that were the most important.
I think where a lot of people struggle with vision boarding is when they tie it up to a lot of bullshit ideas (i.e. if I visualise it then the universe will magically make it happen) or when they spend too much time thinking about what their vision board “should” be rather than what they want it to be. Mine isn’t complicated. Here’s what it looks like:
I review that vision board every single morning. Every morning, I look through it, and I ask if it still represents who, where and what I want to be. I tweak it, if I need to. And I let it keep me deeply connected to my work.
Here’s the action points for this:
- Make a list of what’s important to you.
- Start collecting visual representations of what’s important using Milanote.
- Review it daily or weekly for the next 3 months — you’ll see progress!
Use RPM Blocks
I work through my day using RPM blocks. That’s Rapid Planning Method blocks, and it’s a system created by the man Tony Robbins. The best way to describe it is to get out of his way and let him do it:
Today, there are so many things you can focus on. There are so many demands for your attention that if you don’t decide in advance what you’re going to focus on, you’re most likely going to be controlled by the focus of someone or something else, and there will be fewer chances for you to achieve what it is you really want in life.
The first step toward taking back your focus and achieving the realization of your vision is to ask yourself three questions in a specific sequence on a consistent basis, the RPM system. Although RPM stands for the Rapid Planning Method, you can also think of it as a Results-oriented/Purpose-driven/Massive Action Plan.
The sequence is critical, because if you don’t know what you want, why you want it, and then create a plan for how to get to it, in that order, your actions will not be sustainable through life’s challenges, and you’ll have little possibility of experiencing what it is you truly desire.
The questions you ask are:
1) What do I really want? What’s the outcome I’m after? What’s the specific measurable result? The more precise, the stronger it is. (For example: There’s a difference between “I want to lose weight” and “I want to lose 15 pounds.”)
2) What’s my purpose? What are my reasons? Why is this not just a “should,” but a must for me? The emotional quality of purpose makes what you will do not only sustainable, but powerful.
a.) What kind of trigger words really motivate you to reach your goal? What words make you crazy with excitement? What words really make you want to do something? For example, let’s say you want to lose weight not only because you want to feel better and have more energy, but you also want to look better. Trigger works attached to looking good and fit can be sexy, desirable, knockout, or head- turning. These are the kinds of words that can give you a high level of energy and enthusiasm. Trigger words change your biochemistry and level of energy and are the “juice” behind the action.
3) What do I need to do? What’s my massive action plan? Not just one or two things. Brainstorm a bunch of ideas. What are all the possibilities, so I can later decide which one has the most power?
This method is hugely effective, because it’s making sure that every time you set out a task that must be done, you’re also tying it into the wider outcome.
Track Your Progress
I do this almost obsessively. I want to know where I’m at, where I’m going and how fast I’m getting there. So I use a weekly check-in meeting — it’s in my calendar every Friday — where I go through my work, my projects and my notes and I write down a progress statement for each outcome that I’m working towards.
A progress statement has a pretty simple format:
“Last week, I was _ . This week, I am _ . Next week, I will be _ . In 6 months, I will be _ .”
For example, my most recent progress statement for my digital agency was this:
“Last week, I was planning my content campaign. This week, I am in the middle of 2 new blog posts and the second week of my newsletter. Next week, I will have more subscribers to both. In 6 months, I will have 10,000 subscribers.”
The progress statement forces you to consider whether or not you’re making headway on what you want to do. The last part — the 6 month part — you can modify to represent whatever larger goal or timeframe you’ve got. You might be working on reducing your credit card debt within 12 months; that’s the final part of the statement for you.
Here’s the action points for this:
- Write a progress statement covering last week, this week, next week and your outcome goal.
I hope you take some of these tips to heart. They’ve made a massive difference to how I work and how I stay motivated — and after all, I believe that most things are possible if you can find and nurture the right level of motivation.
[This post by Jon Westenberg first appeared on Medium and has been reproduced with permission.]
