Feeling unmotivated?
You can’t hit the target if you don’t aim first, and that will make you procrastinate because you don’t know where to expend your energies. If you have something you want to achieve, the clearer you are about what you want to achieve the more chance you have of achieving it. If your target is vague and/or impractical, it is so much more difficult to achieve anything - in two ways:
If you don’t know what your target is, how will you know when you’ve achieved it?
A vague target means you can’t effectively plan to achieve it.
Your dreams and ambitions won’t just land in your lap neatly gift-wrapped for your enjoyment without you having to do a thing. That very rarely happens. You are the one that has to fulfill your own ambitions. You’re the one that has to stop procrastinating and go out and do what needs to be done to get you what you want in life. That’s why targets are important.
Setting targets is quite easy, but it takes some discipline and common sense. Do you have that?
Do you want that target badly enough? There will be some hard work along the way to hitting your ultimate target. You’ve got to make sure it’s really something you want and that you’re prepared to work hard for. Is it really *your* target - or something that someone else wants you to do? If you don’t buy into that target you’ll take no enjoyment in having achieved it and the journey will seem twice as long and three times as hard with all the excuses you’ll come up with not to knuckle down and get things done.
Really think hard about what’s to be gained by achieving your target. Weigh up the potential gain against the price that is to be paid for all the hard work that achieving your target will take. That price could be in time, energy, relationships or money. Your loved ones as well as you could be the ones paying the price.
Is it worth it?
If it is, you’re ready to set your targets.
Put your targets down on paper. That will make your targets seem more real to you. As you write them, you’ll find yourself naturally thinking of ways to achieve your targets and you’ll help to keep procrastination at arm’s length, where it belongs.
Jot those ideas down! Keep all those ideas you have because later in the journey towards your target you may need Plan B, C…and Z! Those ideas will always be useful when you have to re-assess and change your strategy when things don’t go according to plan.
Have you buried your motivation? Not feeling motivated is a prime reason for procrastination. You need to get that motivation back. Sometime - a little persistence is all you need to feel motivated again.
Have you ever wondered why it is that some people seem to have all the luck? They appear to get whatever they want. Rewards just flood to them. You see it and you want to be just like that. Well, you can, but you need to get over your procrastination and develop persistence. Persistence is what keeps you achieving and achieving keeps you motivated. It’s not difficult, but to begin with you will need to work at it a little.
Motivation starts with an idea, a hope. It stems from something you really wanted to achieve. That carries you along for a while, while it’s all new and fresh and exciting. But motivation gets knocked and is hard to maintain when things don’t seem to be going well or you come up against obstacles.
That’s where persistence becomes best friend to your motivation.
Persistence is the ability to carry on towards your goals even when things go wrong or take longer than you wanted them to. With persistence, you keep going and striving for what you want even when you feel like giving up. You stop procrastinating.
When you work on any big goal, your motivation will have good days and bad days. It will be affected by your mood, the people around you, how well things are going towards your aim etc. Sometimes you’ll feel motivated; sometimes you won’t. But it’s not your motivation that will produce results - it’s your actions.
Making the effort and achieving even one small thing towards your aim e.g. reading that first chapter of research - will have you feeling positive about yourself. You’ll know that you can achieve your aim now, because you just proved it to yourself - on a bad day, you can still take a positive action towards achieving your goal.
Ok - so how does persistence improve your motivation?
Persistence isn’t magic; it’s simply that thing that allows you to keep taking action even when you don’t feel motivated to do so. With persistence you stop procrastinating and keep getting at least small things done; they all add up - and therefore you keep on achieving results. All you need is one small step forward, one little positive result and your motivation will return again because you will be believe once more that you *can* be successful.
For example, you may become a lot more enthusiastic about completing an e-book once you’ve got that first page written. Doing that first page of reading for your research was a great step along the way to achieving your aim.
So that’s why persistence may be all the motivation you need. Force yourself to make one step in the right direction towards achieving what you want to achieve and you will see some benefits. Your goals will suddenly look a whole lot more achievable. You’ll remember why you wanted to achieve that goal in the first place and you’ll see that it’s worth a bit of hard work to get it. Soon you’ll have stopped procrastinating and will actually have achieved something you know will help make your ambition a reality. Therefore persistence will ultimately provide its own motivation. If you simply keep taking action, you’ll eventually get results, and results can be a great way to rid yourself of procrastination on a project.
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