February 19, 2017 In Business By 
Motivation is a common topic brought up frequently with entrepreneurs or anyone else that’s looking to do anything worthwhile. One of the things I hear frequently is people say—is how tough it is to stay motivated.
I feel ya guys, and that’s why I’m writing this article. Motivation isn’t something I’ve struggled with too often. There’s a deep drive that I’ve had since I was a kid that I hope I can share to an extent where you can take it yourself and apply it to your life.
When times are tough, it can be challenging to stay motivated. It can look like your life is just collapsing all around you. These are tough times to be motivated. They’re also, ironically the easiest times to be motivated because you have nothing left to loose. If the only way is up, you can take it.
However, when times and circumstances are great—how do you stay motivated? It’s easy to loose your hunger and motivation when things are going well. Sometimes in great times, we become complacent.
When you’re doing well, you can stay motivated by consuming motivational content every day. This reminds you of where you were. Remind yourself of what you’ve been through and how you never want to go through it again (extreme poverty, homelessness, suicide, self worth issues, hating your life and more).
Remember to be and feel grateful for the experiences and the journey. If you remember, you’ll know that the only way out of the pain and suffering is to continually drive forward.
Success stems from a habit of being successful consistently. Life is a game of inches. At some point, you may get a break and have some great success! Just remember that it will only last if you’re being successful in your daily habits, and every inch consistently.
Audit Yourself to Find Your Motivation Habits
First, there are habits that we do on a daily basis that MOTIVATE us or that DEMOTIVATE us. It’s really important to audit your own personal habits. We all have unique strategies that we use to motivate or de-motivate ourselves—you may just be doing it unknowingly.
Next time your motivated or otherwise, ask yourself:
- Why do I feel motivated?
- What did I do immediately before this?
- What habits did I implement today? How did they contribute to a feeling of motivation?
Motivation happens when you implement a specific formula that gets you revved up and motivated! This formula is a little different for everyone. If you start paying attention to your emotional states, and exercise a high level of awareness, you’ll begin to see that you do have a formula. Then you can start deconstructing this to find your source of motivation.
How do you become motivated on demand?
Implement the steps and strategy that you’ve outlined above (that motivate you) and you’ll receive a feeling of motivation. Everything has a cause-and-effect. If you take the steps proactively to feel motivated, you’ll naturally attract the state.
Once you know what gets you motivated—you can be motivated whenever you like! Just go through the steps that motivate you and voila!
Audit Yourself to Understand Your Demotivating Habits
Similarly to how you can produce a feeling of motivation on demand, you can do the same for feeling unmotivated. We have patterns for everything. If there are periods where you’re feeling unmotivated, you probably self-induced the feeling.
Next time your unmotivated or otherwise, ask yourself:
- Why do I feel unmotivated?
- What did I do immediately before this?
- What habits did I implement today? How did they contribute to a feeling of demotivation?
Take a look at what you did immediately before feeling unmotivated and the habits you implemented throughout the day. All of this contributes to feeling that way. In fact—it’s your unique formula to feeling unmotivated. When you go through these actions and strategy, you’ll receive the feeling on being demotivated.
The solution? Know what motivates you and set those actions into motion on a daily basis. Remove your negative de-motivating habits. Be conscious of the negative habits when they pop up for you, and don’t engage with them.
Fill Up on Positive Motivational Material Daily
Here’s the no bull-shit scoop: motivation expires.
You can feel motivated for an hour, a day or a week. Either way, it’s going to expire.
If you were to take a shower on Sunday, would you expect the effects of the shower to last for the next 2 weeks? No. Let’s be really candid here—you’d stink. You probably would look disheveled too. From there, you would receive more judgements from others (because you smell and look disheveled) that would just increase you feeling like shit. Would you just stay in this state and not take a shower? Maybe you’d wait for the moment to strike where God provides you with a natural rain shower.
What if you could just walk in your bathroom and take a shower and achieve everything you were looking for (feeling clean)!?
Motivation is no different. If you don’t expect a shower to last you all week, don’t expect motivation to last all week. The feeling of being motivated comes from engaging in habits that cause you to feel this way on a daily basis.
Back to the question… so how do you feel motivated?
One of the best tactics I can give you to employ is to consume positive motivational daily content. I literally listen to motivational videos and audios every day for at least 30 minutes. Some days I listen to these audios 4-5 hours, and others for just 30 minutes.
My favorite videos to watch are on YouTube for Motivation. In fact, I actually rarely watch them. Most often I am listening to them while doing other things. I listen to 45 minutes of motivational videos every morning when I wake up at 5:30 am until when I leave at 6:15/6:30am. I have my earbuds in while I brush my teeth, do my makeup, get dressed and prepare my breakfast.
I usually long-board to Starbucks, a coffee shop or a co-working space. I listen to motivational videos while I’m long-boarding to my destination. By the time I’m ready to sit down and work, I’ve already consumed over an hour of motivation in the early morning.
I can say that when I engage in these daily habits, it makes it ridiculously easy to sit down and work my very hardest, most creative and best. I’ve already motivated myself for the entire day and am ready to take on any challenges or opportunities that arise. This is all possible because I’ve already pre-conditioned my mind in the morning to know that I can handle anything and everything to reach my desires.
Your mind is the most receptive to new habits and content in the morning.
In the morning, you have more access to your subconscious mind. This means that you can easily start to program positive behaviors and feelings into your subconscious mind by consuming positive content in the morning. Your subconscious will take in the information and mull over it all day while your performing conscious tasks. It’s like having programs running in the background on your computer making it faster and stronger.
Surround Yourself with Inspiring, Motivated People
I’ve had the absolute pleasure to call many people friends. I’ve never had a shortage of friends, but I will tell you that real great ones don’t come as often. Surround yourself with positive, inspiring, motivated people.
If you’re looking to be motivated and driven, the best thing you can do is surround yourself with people with these traits. They’ll rub right off on you! It doesn’t matter if they’re in different industries than you or the same. What matters is that they’re seeking to bust boundaries and be the top in their respective fields. It’s the drive and motivation that matter, and how they execute on the inspiration.
Here are just some of the lovely souls I can call friends that motivate and inspire me. They’ve each shared what motivates them to help you on your path to crushing it.
Amanda Rivera: Visibility & PR Coach, Millennial Thought Leader’s Mastermind Facebook Group Host
Amanda is an incredibly driven entrepreneur from the east coast. She’s constantly re-inventing herself to provide the market with more value and be of more service to as many people as she can.
Amanda has overcome adversity to create a powerful version of herself that runs a spiritually-based business to coach entrepreneurs, coaches and thought leaders to be more visible and garner more PR opportunities.
“When I’m feeling burnt out or struggling to write, it’s a sign that I need to do a mini digital detox and go on a long nature walk to get fresh air and get new inspiration. It keeps me grounded and helps me stay mindful.”
Amanda said that in tougher times, she’s motivated by being of service. “Whenever I feel like I’m going through a tough time, I find someone else who is going through a tough time and help them out. And it can even just be as simple as holding space for them and giving them a gentle and supportive listening ear. Sometimes all we really need is to feel heard and understood by someone else.”
To stay hungry and motivated in a peak or in good times, Amanda said she gets curious. “I’ll do some research on what’s trending in the tech industry, or start reading books on neuroscience, start learning how to speak Arabic. It’s usually outside of your industry where you get the inspiration that can give you an edge. I always like to stay ahead of what’s trending in my industry, and it keeps me hungry because I love to be curious!”
You can find Amanda’s website here, her Instagram, Twitter, and her Facebook Group.
Austin Iuliano: Storyteller, Social Media Personality, Snapchat Marketer & Writer
Austin is not just my partner, he’s incredibly driven. Every day he’s looking to do something that scares him and expand his comfort zone even farther. He’s always challenging himself to do new and different things—even things he would fail at just to learn and make his comfort zone bigger. Austin is a constant student and always more than willing to learn (in fact he’s always looking to learn!).
Austin motivates himself by positioning fun and creative projects in the beginning of his day. He likes being able to wake up and look forward to something.
“Motivation for me is about starting the day off with a bang. If I start the day slow, the rest of the day continues that pace. What works best for me is the night before making a to-do list, and starting with something big that excites me. If I don’t have anything big, I start the day with a creative task that I enjoy. I use the time I am most refreshed for myself and my business.”
To stay motivated in great times, Austin likes igniting his competitiveness and uses other people’s success as motivation.
“When things are going well and I need to stay hungry, I turn my competitive streak on. I look at the people who are doing better than me and who I respect. Then I figure out how I can beat them, how I can double or triple down. I want to beat my peers in a way that they turn around and respect me for my work ethic.”
You can find Austin’s website here, his Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat.
Justin Wu: Growth Hacker & Entrepreneur
Justin has been growing leaps and bounds as an entrepreneur, and a Snapchat influencer. He’s been crushing the entrepreneurial game, meeting Marc Cuban, taking over the Wall Street Journal Snapchat account among working with loads of notable brands.
Simply, Justin’s crushing it. And the only way he could be doing as much as he does—is by having a clear strategy that keeps him motivated and on track to his goals.
“I keep myself motivated daily by understanding the overall objectives at every level. I identify my monthly goals, then cut it down to weekly and then daily. Every day I review what I did yesterday and what I have to accomplish today. It is a constant reminder that I need to get things done.
I also have several accountability partners that I check in & report to with weekly. They keep you going by sharing momentum on their side but also keep you accountable in the tasks you need to get done.”
Megan Snedden: Travel Journalist, Photographer & Copywriter
Megan is absolutely one of the most fun people I’ve ever met. She hasn’t been given life’s share of roses per se and has had to overcome tremendous adversities. This has made her one of the most loving, fun and motivated people I’ve found. She’s traveled over 22 countries throughout the world as an independent young women. She’s learned different languages and is not shy about submersing herself in new, uncomfortable cultures and adventures. She takes on any challenge that is tossed her way and comes out laughing and making jokes.
Megan stays motivated by amping up her self esteem, and having accountability partners to mastermind with.
“I started following the advice of powerhouse entrepreneur Lisa Nichols who recommends everyday writing down at least five things you are proud of yourself for. Reaching for five things each time really expands my mind and makes me feel super good about myself. When I feel good about myself, I have more energy and enthusiasm to keep going. I also exercise, a lot. That feeling of being in my body instead of in my head really frees up my mind. Plus, I need to burn energy so I feel exhausted at the end of the day to fall asleep and wake up early the next day feeling pumped to start all over again.
I’ve actually been meeting with a mastermind group once a week for a year now. Mid-week we touch base on our goals and chat about our wins for the week. It definitely keeps me on track! We use Asana to track our goals as we go. That way, every once in a while when I’m having a ‘I’m not doing enough’ moment, I refer to Asana and realize, ‘wow, I’m doing more than I give myself credit for.’” Sometimes it’s hard to see the big picture when you’re right in the middle of it, then when you look back and realize what you accomplished, it’s that extra push you need.”
Megan is driven to the point of traveling all over the world, starting businesses and experimenting with new projects. You can find Megan’s website here, her Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
You can find Megan’s website here, her Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Morgan Simone: Fitness, Dance Visuals & Vlogging, Photography
Morgan is young and she’s got some serious hustle. She knows that she can create every aspect of her life, and while dabbling in entrepreneurship, dance and some serious creativity she’s taken great strides in the fitness world.
Morgan set her mind on making her body the best she could have. She worked out tirelessly, ate only foods that were beneficial to her health, and exercised great discipline over her mind and spirituality.
“Visualization is key for daily motivation and drive in my life. Each day I am sure to express gratitude for all of the blessings that I do have at the beginning and throughout the day, but when I am not expressing gratitude, I spend my time envisioning me reaching my goals. I envision the person I aim to grow into and I envision the endless possibilities I’ll have once I do become that person. I am motivated by the fact that I can create any future I want for myself and that it’s up to me to bring it to fruition. Whenever I find myself in a testing time, I tell myself ‘I was made for this and with God’s strength in me, I am limitless.’”
You can find Morgan’s Instagram here.
Test What Works for You and Make it Part of Your Daily Routine
Motivation does expire, thus you’ll have to make it part of your daily routine. Everyone is motivated by different aspects of life and goals. Tune in to yourself and identify the key factors that really motivate you.
Here are the daily habits that were mentioned in this article to keep you motivated. Pick and choose and kick your motivation up a level!
Daily Habits to Stay Motivated When Times Are Tough & When Times Are Great
• Fill up on positive motivational content constantly
• Create a morning motivation routine
• Surround yourself with motivating, inspiring people
• Get into nature for fresh inspiration
• Increase your level of service and help others
• Be curious and start learning for new inspiration
• Proactively create new, creative and fun projects to look forward to
• Use the success of others to ignite your inner fire
• Create monthly, weekly and daily goals
• Send weekly reports to your accountability partners to stay on track
• Create a list everyday of your accomplishments
• Get accountability partners, and mastermind-friends to keep you on track
• Visualize every aspect of your life, with you #winning
• Visualize who you desire to be, and the life you desire to create
• Express gratitude for everything that you have, and everything that you are
Looking to stay on top of your goals?
Download this free goal setting workbook to crush through the rest of the year.
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How do you stay motivated? We’d love to know! Tell us how you stay motivated in the comments.
This article was originally posted on dscience.co
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