How to Find Motivation to Start Changing Habits
Imagine waking up every morning feeling confident, motivated and full of energy. You happily get out of bed and immediately hit the ground running or in the gym, feeling healthy, fit and knowing that tomorrow will be even better.
It sounds too good to be true, right?
It’s not an utopia, no. Instead, it’s the compound effect of simple, steady actions that can help you feel satisfied, fulfilled and enjoy your health and life. These simple actions are… You guessed it…
Your habits.
If in case despite your best efforts you are still finding it challenging to motivate yourself to change some of your “bad” habits, fear not.
This newsletter contains exactly what you need in order to fix it in five steps that when you follow them, it guarantees you 100% success.
Enjoy it!
#1 Automate and schedule your motivation
Many people struggle to find the motivation they need to achieve the goals they want because they waste too much time and energy on other parts of the process. If you want to make it easier to get started, it helps to automate the early stages of your behaviour/habit with a simple routine.
Here are some examples of how you can apply a routine to get motivated in your day to day commitments:
Start each day stress-free: Create a five-minute morning meditation followed by breathing and stretching ritual.
Exercise: Have and use a pre-fixed, easy to follow warm up routine before your training of three to five or more exercises.
Food: Create a meal ritual. Chew one bite at a time as a rule or drink a glass of water before you eat any meals to make you feel fuller.
Sleep better: Similar to the morning, follow a “power down” routine before bed of a similar number of steps where you decompress of the tension accumultated throughout your day.
The key to any good ritual is that it removes the need to make a decision and will put you on autopilot making you more likely to follow through regardless of your motivation levels.
#2 Focus more on the process, not necessarily on the results
Most people spend far too much time thinking about WHERE they want to get in terms of their goals. And not nearly enough time on the SPECIFIC STEPS it will take to reach them.
The only time I personally focus on the results with my clients is in what I call — The measurement phase.
When we periodically assess the progress we are making towards a specific goal. Other than that it’s all about processes and systems in place.
#3 Keep the score
No one can argue with the scoreboard. Just as we keep score in sports, we should also keep score in our health, fitness and to be honest in life too.
Why is it important to keep score though?
For many reasons, but in this case it’s for when your lying, pestiferous voice inside of your head tries to deceive and discourage you, you can look at your ‘scoreboard’ and remind yourself of the truth.
You can tell that voice to shut up and get lost, and be encouraged, motivated, and focused, because you know the real story and that you’re on the right path and making progress.
#4 Make sure you reward yourself
I know for some it can be hard to embrace the mindset that rewarding yourself is necessary, but in the long run, trust me, it will benefit your so precious mental health.
Rewarding yourself (in an honest way) is a good habit to build and for a good reason — it builds integrity and it increases dopamine levels in your brain. However small, a reward is a good motivation to continue and feel proud of your accomplishment.
Rewards can look different for everyone. That might be some online shopping that ends in a new outfit for some, but maybe it’s concert tickets, dinner at a nice, fancy restaurant, or eating gelato for others. Regardless of how you prefer to treat yourself, it’s something you should practice.
My tip: be generous and reward yourself especially for healthy routines. When you give yourself positive feedback for your healthy habitual acts, you’ll strive to perform them again and again.
#5 Reflect and repeat
If you have read my past newsletters, you know that I value reflection time a lot! Reflection is an opportunity to slow down and consciously contemplate, think through things and digest everything. How will you know if you are headed in the right direction if you never stop to think? Uhh?
“What happened? What went well? What didn’t? What were your goals? What were your accomplishments? What were your failures? Did it turn out the way you wanted? If it didn’t, can you point to why?”
Take the time to reflect on what happened because you don’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been.
This single activity can help you develop an awareness of your habit, regulate your emotions, and reduce anxiety associated with complicated and at times challenging tasks.
It can be a quiet, solitary, and pensive experience, it can happen through discussion with someone, like a coach or a friend or like me, you can pour a nice cup of tea and use your favourite notebook to empty your head and gain clarity about the whole experience in writing.
Whichever way you choose, just make sure you do it and repeat it habitually.
Conclusions
There you have it. If you’ve been looking for ways to be more motivated and consistent with your habits, the five steps just described have the power to change your current circumstances!
Remember to:
1-Schedule your motivation
2-Focus more on the process, not necessarily on the results
3-Keep the score
4-Make sure you reward yourself
5-Reflect and repeat regularly
So where do you go from here?
It’s entirely up to you what you do with this information, but if I can add one last thought before I wrap up this newsletter is:
“Don’t let knowledge lead only to learning.
Let your knowledge lead to action”
Jim Rohn
What a powerful quote don’t you agree? I really encourage you to give any of these a try (action) in order to experience its full benefits.
If you have enjoyed this newsletter and found it useful and you feel you got value from it, please share your love by introducing and sharing it with your family and friends so that they too can benefit from it.
If you’re looking for more ideas on how to get motivated and stay that way, then check out my full list of articles on Medium or Linked-in for more inspiration or simply connect and ask for help by clicking — HELP ME BUILD THE HABIT -
Remember:
“YOU are the greatest project YOU’ll ever work on. Therefore make it a Master Piece!”
Thank you for reading this far, it shows you care and I look forward to sharing some more with you in the near future again. Until then…
As always, dedicated to your health, fitness and SUCCESS!
Be inspired and inspire others!!
If you want to make a change and don’t know where to start, simply ASK ME!! — HELP ME BUILD THE HABIT -
Proud to be of your service and committed to your fitness success, health and above all wellbeing.
For more information please visit: www.paulo-horta.com
