Finding Motivation to Achieve Goals

Last year didn’t go as planned. Expectations were high, but your motivation to achieve goals plummeted quick. You didn’t keep up. This year you resolve to do better. You have laid out your goals; goals that are similar to the ones you had last year. The New Year is refreshing you. You’re excited, you have the momentum to get you started, maybe you even found some friends to get energized with. After a strong start, you experience some early success. Yes! This is your year. Nothing can stop you.

And then life sets in. Again. It starts to get old, mundane. Your excitement and motivation fizzles as old temptations come creeping back in. You realize that what you’re doing is actually pretty darn hard.  By late February, March if you’re lucky, those old temptations start to win. Before you know it, your goal is just a wistful wish that you have either forgotten about, or feel bad about falling off track. Again. You know it is important to have goals, but you have enough guilt that you haven’t worked up the resolve to try again.

The Problem with Using Just Motivation to Achieve Goals

Let’s think about it. You have a goal, for example save 3-6 months of expenses in a savings account. This is the outcome you desire. One way you could go able accomplishing this is to reduce your expenses. A reasonable action to take to make progress towards this outcome is to create a budget and track your spending. The action(s) in itself is not necessarily a hard action.

And then you drive by your favorite take-out place on your way home. It’s late, you forgot to prepare dinner, though there is food in the fridge to make at home. You’re exhausted after a long day, and you know the kids will be hungry. Plus, you didn’t do the dishes last night, so you have to clean before you can even start cooking. You might briefly think about that budget you created, the one that felt pretty tight to maximize your savings of every dollar. Is the money in the budget? Do you even remember to check? After a long day, are you thinking about that $20 towards savings, or about an easy hot meal on the table? Your brain likes what it is used to, and there is nothing compelling about your savings account in this moment.

You’re motivation to achieve the goal is not very high in this moment.

Now, the first time you give in to take out it might not affect you too much. Oh, it’s just once, what’s the harm? And maybe it is in the budget. However, eventually you start to cave to take-out, Starbucks, your impulse Amazon buy, impulse Target buys, and more. And eventually that leads to going outside of your budget. Now your brain starts to fill with thoughts of disappointment and shame at your inability to stick to your set expectation. It says, well we already screwed up, what’s one more? And you head down a spiral of putting yourself down, despising your budget, and eventually shifting your thoughts until saving is no longer a priority.

Do you struggle keeping the motivation to achieve goals?

Does this sound like you? I get it. This used to be me too. It still is sometimes, to be honest.

The actions from this example are coming from a place of pressure due to expectations. The expectation to stay within some predetermined budget is set, and you are putting pressure on yourself to meet that expectation. When you act from pressure, you are not inspired to change. Your brain has won, and it has kept you in its comfortable place.

Lately, I figured out something that helps me stick with it when the going gets tough. Keep reading, because we’re going to talk about how to change the narrative and actually accomplish our goals this year.

The thing is, you can’t count on motivation to get you to the end. Motivation helps to reach goals, and is important, but also extremely unreliable. Instead, what you need is consistency. Being consistent will lead to building a habit, which will in turn get the results you want. But how in the world are you expected to be consistent through the hardest parts if you don’t have motivation?

How to motivate yourself to reach your goals:

Because you have reason. Motivation is driven by purpose. You have a reason that is meaningful enough it drives a full-fledged belief and resolve that you can do it and you deserve it.

I’d wager a guess, that the number one reason goals do not succeed, for anybody, is because they don’t have a good enough why to get them through the sticky points. Because let’s be honest, ALL goals have a sticky point. Anything worth going after is going to be hard. If it was easy, you’d either already have it, or wouldn’t find it appealing. If you are going to get through that messy middle, and get to the other side, you have to have a damn good reason for why you are doing it.

And if you’re that person sitting there right now telling me through the computer screen that you DO have a good enough reason, then I’m going to challenge you to dig deeper. Because if you’re still reading this, you’re struggling with keeping the necessary motivation to achieve goals, and it’s probably in a lack of purpose behind the goal. It may be that it’s good enough and you aren’t tapped into it, or you don’t believe in your subconscious you deserve it/can have it.

Either way, you aren’t pulling on it when the going gets tough. You aren’t pulling on it when that sale pops up in your email inbox. Or when you drive by the take-out store but you know there is food sitting in your fridge.

Alternatively, it could be that if you dig deeper you find out what you really want doesn’t match the outcome of what you are striving for, and you need to alter the goal. There not only needs to be a reason, but it needs to be compelling and get deep in your soul of what you want in your life. And you need to believe in it.

Related Reading:

• Setting Useful Goals: How to do a Year End Reflection
• 4 Questions to Help You Find Your Purpose
• Lacking Time? 5 Reasons Why and How to Overcome It

So how do you tap into your why?

Write out your goal. Jot down what you are trying to achieve, what the end result looks like, in some measurable form (like our save 3-6 months expense emergency fund example; or, pay off your student loans). Then, right underneath it, write out why it is important to you, or your intentions behind attempting to complete this goal. Back to our example, if your goal is to save 3-6 months expenses in a savings account. Your reason could be “so I am more prepared in case of a financial emergency.”

But you don’t really experience a financial emergency all that often. If you did, it wouldn’t be called an emergency. Emergencies, by nature, are for the extremes, and are pretty rare. In the heat of the moment passing by your favorite coffee shop, being prepared in case of a financial emergency may not be enough to stop you from spending that extra $3.

Therefore, after you write out that initial why, I want you to write why you want your why. So, for our example, why do you want to be more prepared in case of a financial emergency? After you write out why you want your why, do it again. Why do you want that new why? And again. And again. Do it a total of 7 times, so you have 7 whys in front of you.

What’s the point? Why go so far? Well, the first couple will probably be fairly practical. Wanting money in a financial emergency is fairly practical. By about reason 4 or 5 you will start to dig deeper. But it’s not until the 6^th or 7^th that you will really start to dig into your subconscious and understand the true meaning behind why you are after your goal.

Let’s go back to our example. You drive by that same take-out place. What about if you didn’t think about your savings account, or your budget? Instead of the budget, now you think of keeping your kids in their same school if things get tough, or how you are going to spare your kids the financial anxiety you grew up around, or whatever else the reason is for having that emergency savings. When you can compare that vision in your head to the hot take-out meal, does the take-out meal still have the same appeal? Instead of being bitter about the budget and thinking about how you have to cook when you get home, you can become re-enthused to stick to your budget and your mission. You know that the result of your efforts will pay off long after the effects of the take-out meal will.

This way sounds better, right?

How To Use It Effectively?

Having a reason why will only help you if you can tap into it and use it when temptations are high. Put your list of reasons somewhere you can see it. Make it your screenshot on your phone, or on your fridge door, or in your wallet stuck to your credit card. Have it somewhere easy to reach at all times. As soon as that old temptation hits, you can pull it out and say: this is why I am doing this, this is why I need to say no to this temptation right now. And you can say it with confidence.

In addition, I recommend putting a copy in the bathroom or some other easily triggered place, and tell yourself every morning: what your goal is, that you are worthy of achieving this goal, and why you want the results of achieving this goal.

Keep your reason front and center as often as possible. Believe in yourself and your reason for achieving this goal. This is the key to tapping into the needed motivation to achieve goals. Do these two things, and you my friend, will be unstoppable in your goals this year. I can’t wait to see what you accomplish.