How To Motivate | Vital-Side

Ok, so you wake up in the morning and you have to go to work again. You run through the same routine that feels so monotonous and mundane. Shower, get dressed, get the kids dressed, quick breakfast, then run. And it may feel like you are running and running the rest of the day- from one event to the next.

OR perhaps you don’t have a heavily scheduled day, but you still wake up feeling angst or a bought of depression. Maybe this is due to a persistent symptom or a recurring thought that enters your brain first thing in the morning.

Whatever kind of morning you have, you may notice how a lack of motivation exists. It may be a result of overbooking yourself and forgetting WHY you do what you do. OR it could be a result of a despair and hopelessness after having lost your WHY. Whatever the reason, motivation is lacking. Often times, people ask me how to get motivated. A recurring question that gets brought up in clients and colleague alike is, “I know I truly want to do (name an activity), but I can’t bring myself to actually complete it.” Believe me, if this resonates with you today, you are NOT THE ONLY ONE.

When we lose motivation to do something or can’t even find it in the first place, it is because there is a lack of emotion that exists in association to that activity. Maybe you have a strong desire to physically exercise every day or start building that new business you’ve been dreaming about for years. But if there is no emotion attached to it, urging you to complete the activity or task, it will make it extremely difficult to get done.

Now, everyone motivates in different ways, so it’s up to you to find the most beneficial technique that works for you. But some general rules of thumb when it comes to motivating yourself include:

1. Time blocking 5-10 minutes a day ( EVERY SINGLE DAY) committed to thinking about the task. Have a note pad that is designated for this specific idea or activity. While you think, write down WHY you want to complete the task, HOW it makes you feel, and WHAT is involved in the completion of the task.

2. Once you did this for a week, take the next week and time block 5-10 minutes to write about what will happen once the task is complete. Focus on the EMOTION behind the completion of the activity. Include all 5 senses- when you complete this activity, what do you feel? What do you taste? What do you smell? What do you hear? What do you see?

Now that you’ve completed two weeks to this time blocking activity, you have slowly created an emotion behind the desire. You have not only uncovered the WHY of what you’re doing (health benefits, self-kindness, compassion to others, pure enjoyment, etc.) but you have developed an EMOTIONAL ASSOCIATION to the actual event. You have seen yourself completing the event. And once you have done that, it’s easy to come up with the steps that are necessary to see the activity through to completion.

If after two weeks, you still don’t feel motivated, keep using this visualization technique. It may take months, but you WILL eventually feel the motivation needed to enjoy a beautiful day, start that business, improve your relationships, or do something that is meaningful to you.

Keep me posted on the outcomes of this motivational technique, and in the meantime,

Happy Healing.

Lindsay