MAKE MOTIVATION EASY
STRUGGLING WITH MOTIVATION?
How many people struggle with motivation? How often? For many of us, the answer is too often. Motivation shouldn’t be the struggle we have become so used to enduring.
THERE’S A LOT TO MOTIVATION
For concepts like motivation, there’s lots of advice. There isn’t one necessarily better than the other, but better in the right situation. So it’s about keeping a toolbox of applicable advice and applying the right tool to a given situation.
So when someone says you have to fight for your dreams. This is absolutely true. However, this shouldn’t have to be the case all the time. In fact, if this is all you do you will end up hurting yourself over time.
MAKE MOTIVATION EASY
We need to make motivation easy. What do I mean by that?
Our minds are powerful things. How we think directly affects our lives. It affects our decisions and therefore our outcomes. Moreover, we build habits. What we repeatedly practice is embedded into our lives.
NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS
Words and images can elicit emotions. What we feel when we hear those words are based on our own perspectives and what connotation we’ve personally assigned to those words.
WORK WORK WORK
Let’s take a quick look at the word work. At some point in our lives, most of us have had to work a job simply because we needed to make ends meet. With that came days when we admittedly didn’t want to be there. We knew there were other things we would rather be doing. Perhaps this was actually working on our dreams and goals.
In those situations, we refer to the word work begrudgingly. If someone asks if you want to hang out and you answer “I can’t, I have to work”. When you have to wake up tomorrow morning to go to work, it gives you this feeling of dread.
It’s responses and emotions like this that we put into practice.
CREATING A CONNOTATION
This repetition has given the word work its connotation. Now anytime we use the word, hear the word, or think about it, we may unknowingly bring those emotions into play. It induces a kind of stress.
The problem is we often use it in practice for our own goals and dreams. Now there shouldn’t be anything wrong with the word work itself. However, it’s the practice of using the word without separating the negative connotation that’s the issue.
LET’S SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT RIGHT NOW
“WORKING ON YOU SHOULD NEVER FEEL LIKE WORK”
THE WORD MOTIVATION
Similarly, we have done the same thing with the word motivation. It can also now be a stress inducer. Motivation is now tied into words or combinations of words like, push, fight, work hard, no excuses, and never give up.
These words reinforce the idea that motivation is something we have to push through. It reinforces the idea that motivation is a struggle.
YOU HAVE TO WANT IT AS MUCH AS YOU WANT TO BREATHE
You may have heard this in a motivational speech at some point in time “you have to want success as much as you want to breathe”.
Now like I said before, don’t discount any tool you can add to your toolbox. You do have to want success as much as you want to breathe. You do have to fight for your dreams at times in your life.
However, the mistake we make is when we make this our creed in which we live our everyday lives trying to achieve our goals and dreams.
I’m here to tell you that motivation shouldn’t mean suffocation.
Motivation should be beautiful.
Motivation should be happiness.
And yes, motivation should be easy.
YOUR THOUGHTS DICTATE YOUR ACTIONS
With most things in life, you are your own worst enemy, but you are also your greatest ally. In short, your thoughts dictate your actions and therefore your outcomes. So if you’re always fighting for motivation then you are making it harder for yourself.
There can be consequences to pushing too hard too often.
PHYSICAL INJURY
When we push too hard we can hurt ourselves. There’s a connection between our mind and body.
Think about when you get a cut on your finger. We feel a sensation of pain that informs us of the injury. The reason being isn’t that we are fragile, weak, or incapable of doing the activity that we injured ourselves on, but that we need to be conscious of the injury itself. Our body is telling us to be careful.
This is that moment when we start knocking that cut on our finger on every little thing. Ouch! That’s when we start realizing just how much we take that finger for granted.
But our body wants us to be able to work and do the things we were doing. Our bodies are informing us that in order to still be able to do that activity we need to take the time to heal.
If we don’t, we can make the injury worse and further possibly cause other injuries that may be more debilitating. This will further delay us from continuing that activity.
MENTAL INJURY
Injuries can be mental as well as physical. For me, I pushed too hard too often. I thought this meant I was being highly motivated. But my body did not agree.
One day I thought I was having a heart attack. I was frightened for my life. I had never felt such a sensation before in my chest. Now I never actually had a heart attack before so I didn’t know exactly what was happening but I was experiencing shortness of breath and palpitations.
My late stepfather was a doctor so immediately sought his expert advice. After checking several things including my pulse and more he told me to calm down. He said that I was likely just having an anxiety attack.
I couldn’t believe it. It had never even crossed my mind that I was experiencing anxiety. I could have never imagined my body reacting the way it did because of the way I was pushing myself.
I was ignoring the messages from my body to calm down. It was trying to inform me of the injury. I was constantly putting my body in a stressful environment which it sought to escape. I had to take the time to heal before I broke myself further.
“Pain in your life, whether physical or mental, is not a weakness. It is a necessary tool that tells you exactly where you need to learn, adjust, heal and fix things so that you won’t break and your grind won’t stop“
GrindPolicy #20
STRESSFUL ENVIRONMENTS
When we have to push and fight for motivation we put our minds and bodies in a stress-like environment. Our minds might know what we want to do but our bodies only react two ways to stressful situations. It looks back to basic fight or flight principles.
Here’s the thing though, not only do we introduce our bodies to the stressful situation but we force our bodies to choose the fight response. This is how we push through when we feel like motivation is a struggle.
When we continue to do this we are continually exposing our bodies to stress and anxiety. Continuing this will either cause a burnout or can even hurt you as it did me. Our bodies start looking for a way out.
DISTRACTIONS
Our bodies aren’t stupid. After all, it’s still connected to our minds. Hence, it knows that we don’t actually have to fight through anything.
It’s important to understand that our body’s fight or flight responses have one job and that’s to get us to a safe place. So when we are telling our bodies to get ready to fight and push when it comes to working on our goals, it knows that Netflix is a safe place. It seeks to take you away from that stressful environment. Why fight when you can just chill?
The problem is, the more we push the more we reinforce the idea that motivation has to be forced. In turn, the more we reinforce the idea that our distractions are safe places. This then solidifies a cycle of making motivation a struggle and the alternatives an oasis. Procrastination and more start to take hold.
Stop making motivation a struggle. Stop making motivation suffocation. Start making motivation easy. Start making motivation happiness.
HOW TO BE HAPPY AND MOTIVATED EVERYDAY
You don’t have to keep fighting, it’s not the only way to stay motivated.
Motivation itself is just a measure of how willing you are to do something. The keyword there is willing. Implying choice. You can choose to do something.
Make the choice easy. Make being willing to work on your dreams easy.
So how do you make motivation easy? It’s not just about pushing yourself, it’s about happiness. Put happiness back in the equation.
WHEN YOU DISCOVERED YOUR DREAMS AND GOALS
Do you have dreams and goals? We all have a shared experience. We all went through a moment in our minds, where we got a taste of what it would feel like to accomplish something.
I want to talk about that experience of when you figured that’s what you wanted in your life. It’s that very experience when we think about something we want to try and do.
Our thoughts literally start to shape what that accomplishment looks like, who we talk to, who’s around us, what we look like, what it tastes like, what it feels like having done that thing.
We envision how happy we are, how cool it is to have that vision come true, it makes us happy! There’s a happiness we feel when we just allow our minds to bask in the wonder of our dreams and goals.
Just think about this. We sit there and entertain these thoughts. Our minds give us a taste of what it’s like and we decide we want the whole experience. We literally change the direction of our lives to reach a happiness we haven’t achieved or fully felt yet. Our whole life now moves to that end.
THE POWER IN HAPPINESS
That’s how powerful the sense of happiness and fulfillment is in your goals and dreams.
That’s the feeling you want when you think about motivation. That’s the connotation you need to attach to the word.
What’s truly motivating is you. It’s the wonder of your goals and dreams. It’s not just why you want it, it’s the beauty of it, the happiness it brings when you think about yourself having accomplished it. Let that vision take hold of you.
HOW IT WORKS FOR ME
There’s literally a particular thought that gets me hype. I think about the people around me in the future, and literally being there to tell my grandkids that dreams are possible.
I show them where I started and explain how I got to where I am. Everything I did including all the mundane and repetitive tasks is all steps that got me closer to my goal. I can tell them that I found my happiness in those tasks because I knew it would bring me here to my success.
So every task I do, I know it’s something I can add to my story for them. This actually makes me laugh sometimes. When I have to do hours of research, I think about how I’m going to tell them that specifically on this day, I did 4 hours of research and that was a step closer to success.
It actually makes me happier to then go and do the research rather than having to feel like I have to push through the dread of it all.
HONE IN ON YOUR HAPPINESS
So take the time to bask in your thoughts of your goals and dreams. Let them inspire you. It really is your happiness. There’s no fake happiness here. You saw your dreams and goals and decided to change the course of your life to reach it when you only had a taste. That’s how powerful it is. Use it.
When you think happy thoughts you automatically put yourself in a warmer state of being. Bring those thoughts into your tasks. Meditate on it if you want to. Take the time to let it fill you with happiness.
Every step you take toward your goals and dreams should be lit by your happiness!
HELPING YOU MOVE FORWARD WITHOUT DISTRACTIONS
You will find there will be less of a need to fight. And with that, there is less of a need to entertain distractions like movies or whatever.
There can be happiness in your distractions, but sometimes after the distraction, we are regretful. It’s important to remember these two things.
- Breaks are needed, just remember that it’s about being consistent with most of your time.
- Never beat yourself up for taking any breaks, just remember that it’s about being consistent with most of your time.
“The happiness we feel from our distractions are fleeting while the happiness we feel from accomplishing our goals and dreams will be life defining“
GrindPolicy #47
CELEBRATE YOURSELF
So it may sound strange, but it’s about remembering why your dreams and goals make you happy and choosing to apply them to the task at hand. Remember that each task will bring you closer to your goals. And lastly, once you’ve committed to the task, be proud of yourself. Celebrate yourself.
“It’s all your little victories that play the biggest part in your success. Celebrating them will build an undeniable mental fortitude to carry on. Be proud of yourself“
GrindPolicy #29
SMALL STEPS TO SUCCESS
Small steps will walk you to success, no leaps of faith are required. Have faith, but you don’t have to leap for it. Every task that seems small or mundane, repetitive, or boring, will bring you closer just as much as steps that seem more important or rewarding. Be proud of yourself for accomplishing all your small steps.
This is a practice that will reinforce a state of happiness when you move toward your goals and dreams. Giving you a new connotation to the word motivation and eliciting more positive emotions from your thoughts. Specifically, this will help make motivation easy.
Learn more about the positive effects of celebrating your small victories here in the Seven Steps to Life Success. Step #6 Perceive.
CONCLUSION
The happiness you feel about your goals and dreams, that’s real. Be cognizant and listen to signs from your body.
You will get burned out from constantly fighting, but you will never get tired of happiness. I don’t know anybody out there that will ever say “man I’m tired of being happy”.
Put happiness back in the equation. Just remember it, enjoy it, feel it, or meditate on it, then apply yourself to the task at hand. And celebrate yourself every step of the way. Make motivation easy.
“Make motivation easy. Put the happiness of your goals and dreams back in your grind“
GrindPolicy #45
WEAR YOUR MOTIVATION
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