Expecting to feel motivated all the time is one of the biggest myths related to motivation. Not understanding that it’s impossible to feel driven and inspired all the time adds a lot of frustration to people’s lives, which leads to them becoming even more unmotivated to invest in their goals.
But not being in the mood is just a mood, and understanding that moods can always be changed can give you an edge. The best way to combat apathy is to actually start doing what you’re supposed to do. When you focus on a task and truly engage in it, the lack of desire to do it is all of a sudden replaced with an urge to get it done.
In this article, we explore the best ways to prime ourselves to work harder. You’ll find the motivation and inspiration you need to stop putting things off and start accomplishing your goals.
Four Ways to Work Harder
Below, you’ll discover four ways to work harder. Harder doesn’t mean investing more time or effort but using your resources to achieve the best outcome for you. These four ways will help you reclaim your motivation.
- Make sure you love what you do
Passion is vital when it comes to feeling motivated to work on your goals. The degree of success you achieve is directly proportional to how passionate you feel about your actions. If you lack passion, then every time you work on your goal, it will feel like a burden. This will only catapult you into the hamster wheel, a never-ending cycle of frustration from doing things not aligned with your vision.
Passion is one of the qualities successful people possess. When they dig deep, most people realize that they’re unmotivated because they don’t like what they do. And while getting to that truth requires certain levels of honesty and courage, in the long run, it’s crucial to stay true to yourself and only focus on what feels right inside.
Passion helps you redefine your level of resilience. Having a high level of enthusiasm allows you to overcome obstacles with ease. Obstacles won’t feel like deadlocks but rather like lessons learned. And this is because passion and commitment go hand in hand. When you fully invest your attention into an activity, you signal your body that you’re in for the long ride. So you accept that lessons are piece and parcel of this journey. But we don’t learn lessons through triumphs that require zero or little commitment. We reap the benefits of the lessons learned by normalizing the presence of obstacles and mentally preparing for them. This attitude will always help us make the best of the lessons life teaches us.
Passion will always keep you engaged, even when things get tough. There’s a lot of energy around your passion, and that energy will fuel you to show up for your goals. Your energy levels automatically escalate when you follow your passion and do not doubt what you’re doing. You harness that high energy and direct it into goal-achieving. Whatever activities you need to perform to support that vision don’t burden you because you’re avidly pursuing your passion. You’re the one who clears the decks by ensuring your passion is your driving force.
- Become the actor of the scene
See yourself as if you acted in a particular scene, where presence and dedication are the catalysts to motivate you. Like watching TV, you see the character playing in a scene, but you don’t know what the actor thinks about it. That’s the energy you want to tap into because it will help you take out a matter’s importance. And it will place the focus only on that matter rather than everything else on your to-do list. A sort of one day at a time, reversed into one thing at a time.
Telling yourself that you must stick to the script for a specific part will help prime your brain. It will signal your brain that it needs to focus and support you while you go through the lines of the script. This way, you’re conditioning your mind into believing that you are acting and must give your best to that scene. Not focusing on the entire movie but only on that scene will take away the pressure of having to do too much because that pressure can be confusing and diminishes our motivation to get started. But having an explicit scene in mind where you’re the actor will keep you highly motivated and engaged.
Becoming the actor in that scene will also help you detach emotionally. When we feel unmotivated to do something, we operate on a low energy level. The negativity around it may amplify because of everything we associate with taking action. Many times, we’re the ones who make things more complicated by focusing on the effort that produces the result instead of the actual result. Then, the lack of motivation leads to helplessness and the incapacity to take action. We can quickly feel stuck in that state, forgetting how easily we can activate our motivation. The simple act of starting with the end in mind will help you reach a prolific mental state where you’re giving your best because the outcome drives you.
- Increase your why
Everyone does things for a reason. And if that reason doesn’t resonate at a high level, you won’t find any impetus to get things done. This is why clarifying your ‘why’ is crucial to keep your purpose alive.
Managing to define your why is a profound accomplishment. Your why will help you tune in with your inner being and get your desired direction. Increasing your why will not only make you stay in the game but also help you stay highly engaged. The more you understand what drives you internally and how to manifest that externally, the more you elevate your chances to succeed. Knowing your why is highly connected to your priorities. If your priorities are clear to you, removing anything from that list that doesn’t match your direction is easy.
Being crystal-clear about your priorities will prevent you from running on autopilot and instead, it will help you make highly-conscious decisions and move toward your goals with ease.
The clarity that defines your why comes from an honest inner conversation. It almost forces you to be truthful and establish what you really want. And when you do so, your why becomes the North Star that guides you. And when you clarify it, you allow it to shine strongly enough. And it will chart for you a path filled with motivation because your why truly represents your purpose. And when you connect to it, it sheds light on what’s worthy of your dedication and ignites your desire to commit.
- Set yourself up to win
Accepting that you can’t always expect to be in the best shape will lower your importance of getting things done. This level of honesty will help you stop blaming yourself when you’re not in the mood to work on your goals. This is the first step to setting yourself up to win.
Our energy is key in accomplishing goals, and understanding that 20% of our energy goes to our brain is a must. But knowing that we may feel demotivated if that energy is low is essential. And people mistake this for lack of willpower. But we can’t tap into will on demand. Our level of willpower is determined by the quality of the energy that goes to our brains.
To regain your motivation, you must start ingesting high-quality brain fuel from nutritious foods. Our brain chemistry is essential, and it’s the first area to be galvanized to pursue our goals. Getting the right sugars into the diet can change the course of your entire day and set you up to win.
Setting yourself up to win also has a lot to do with preparing for the next day the night before. Suppose you’re planning to work out when you wake up. In that case, you must leave your training kit near the bed, so when you wake up in the morning, it’s the first thing you see and you automatically tap into the mood to work out.
Contribution Increases Motivation
Self-serving is limiting. Sometimes, we can convince ourselves to throw in the towel when our reasons are irrelevant. But understanding that serving others is more important than our desire to show up for ourselves is a game changer. Getting things done for ourselves will produce a different level of excitement than serving others.
When we serve others, we suddenly gain more clarity and impetus toward achieving the desired outcome. It’s much more compelling to help others because of the moral commitment. Empathy and care are just some of the traits you reinforce when you serve others. The more you practice them, the better you become at seeing the bigger picture, and serving becomes part of who you are.
Putting service on the top list of priorities will provide inspiration. When you’re inspired, you’re also motivated to achieve goals. You don’t have to push yourself in any way because your drive is focused differently. You’re no longer the main character, and this helps you focus on lifting others. When you combine motivation with inspiration you hold a space for others and serve from a place of authenticity. And this level of honesty makes everything you do about those who can benefit from your help.
When you serve others, there’s no loss involved. No amount of time or energy is wasted because contribution leads to growth. Most times, we gain as much from helping others as they do. You increase your empathy, care, and gratitude, which are crucial in keeping motivation alive. Placing your focus on others will help you pick yourself up in ways you’d hardly ever do for yourself. Whether you help your family, your community or people you don’t know, each act of service is cumulative and has numerous benefits on your well-being. It will also help you refine your purpose and decide what matters. It’s not about getting personal satisfaction, but rather, life satisfaction.
When you give without waiting for anything in return, you inspire others to act accordingly and pay it forward, too. A small act of service may be perceived as almost useless. Still, when you do it consistently and inspire others to follow suit, you create change at a higher level. And this only fuels your motivation until being motivated almost becomes second nature.
Motivation Is the Outcome of Mastering Yourself
Often, not having a clear map of how to get there keeps us from rolling up our sleeves and completing tasks. But investing our energy in activities that are meaningful to us can fuel the motivation we so much need. And helping others and inspiring them to contribute, too, will help all of us lead better lives.
I’ve seen numerous people wasting their potential because of low energy levels. There are some primary triggers behind procrastination and self-sabotage that most people aren’t even aware of. I’ve strategically designed my Ultimate Self-Mastery program to help people overcome these obstacles and set themselves up to win. And it all starts with a decision to discover what you can achieve.
How will you motivate yourself to work harder?
