Staying motivated is one of the hardest parts of staying productive. While we sometimes are brimming with energy and excited to tackle the day's work, more often than not we feel pretty sluggish about doing what the day demands. Often, these lulls in energy and productivity are simply lulls in motivation. By taking the steps you need to stay motivated more often than not, you'll find your productivity will skyrocket.
Keeping track of your progress is one of the easiest, and most effective, ways to stay motivated. Charting your progress provides a couple of motivation benefits. First, if you don't chart your progress, it will be difficult to be able to see the impact of all the work you've been doing. While sometimes rewards are slow coming, the reward of knowing that you are already well on your way can often be enough to keep you going. Similarly, charting your progress makes you accountable for keeping on task. Being accountable can be as simple as marking a red X on a wall calendar for every day that you complete a step towards your goal. Believe me; once you have a couple of red X's in a row, you're not going to want to break that chain.
Another way to stay motivated is to not fully commit yourself to the project from the start. I know that this sounds counter-intuitive, but most of the time when we set a goal we start out by attacking that goal from a very emotionally charged place. We decide upon the change we want to make in our life and we decide we're going to make a complete 180 degree turn to get there. Unfortunately, our motivation usually only lasts as long as that initial burst of energy. Once that initial surge is complete, our motivation fizzles out.
However, if you hold yourself back a bit and don't succumb entirely to your initial enthusiasm, you have a greater chance of sticking to your new habit. For instance, instead of saying that you're going to exercise for an hour a day, decide that you're only going to exercise for 10 to 20 minutes a day. By setting very simple and attainable daily actions, instead of large and unrealistic and impressive sounding actions, you'll feel less intimidated by the work and you'll be more likely to keep it up.
Finally, making your goal visible is a great way to stick with it. The first thing you want to do is find an image that symbolizes your goal to you. This can be easy if what you want is something you can purchase, like a cruise or a new car. Just find a picture of the car or the cruise liner, print it out and post it where you will see it often. If your goal is abstract, writing it out as an affirmation is a great way to make it visible and present. However you visualize the goal, just make sure that it is unambiguous and always near by. Whether you set the image as your desktop background or keep a copy of it in your wallet, keeping you goals clearly in mind at all times will go a long way towards keeping you motivated.
Sam has been writing articles for over 4 years. Come read some of his most recent articles, including one on buying rocking chair pads and another about purchasing a teak rocking chair.
