We’re halfway through the year and how many of you are still as focused and enthusiastic to achieve the goals that you set yourself back in January?
I suspect there will be many of you who have become discouraged, are doing things half heartedly, or have even abandoned your goals all together.
Why do so many of us do this? Start the year so enthusiastically, with focus and determination, only to find a few months later, the enthusiasm has waned, we’ve lost motivation and we’re still no further forward to what we want to achieve.
If this is you, here are 5 tips to help you put some zest back in your approach so that you can motivate yourself to take the action needed to make the second half of 2016 more productive and successful than it has been so far.
1. Reconnect with your why
Not achieving results as quickly as you would like can be disheartening. Feeling like you’re not getting anywhere can make you disconnect with your vision. Just like a relationship, you need to keep the passion burning and you need to keep your vision alive.
Remind yourself of why you want to achieve this. What does it mean to you on an intrinsic level? If you’re vision is not attached to what motivates you intrinsically, it makes it harder for you to stay connected to it, making it harder to keep the motivation going, particularly when the challenges come along.
What difference will achieving your goals make to your life? Close your eyes and visualise what achieving this means to you. What will it feel like when you achieve it? Through this vision create as strong an emotional connection to it as you can and imagine that you are living the vision now.
2. Get to the root cause
I believe that deep down we know the real reason why we’re not achieving our goals. We often blame it on external factors when, if we’re honest, the main reason why we don’t achieve them is because we get in our own way.
We may say things like ‘there are no opportunities’, or ‘they don’t like me so they won’t promote me’, ‘no one wants to pay for what I have to offer’. Really? So what part do you play in this? Do they really not like you or is that just your distorted perception? And even if it is true, what can you do about it?
Whatever your perception is of why things aren’t happening for you, have an open, honest conversation with yourself. Self reflect on all you have done (or haven’t done but could have done) and what the outcome has been. What is the root cause and what can you do differently?
3. Have you got a plan?
If you haven’t got a plan of action, put one in place. Without the structure of a plan to follow, you can wander aimlessly. The plan will be your roadmap setting out what you need to do and when.
The plan is not set in stone and it is you that controls it so there can be flexibility because, sometimes stuff happens that might may take you temporarily off track temporarily. But having a plan enables you to pick yourself back up and continue on down the right path when setbacks happen. And believe you me, they will happen.
If you made a plan at the beginning of the year, when did you last look at it? Is it gathering dust on a shelf somewhere, or buried in a folder on your hard drive and you can’t remember where you saved it?
Dig out your plan and rekindle your relationship with it. Review it and adjust it if necessary.
4. Take consistent action
How consistent are you with the action you need to take? Did you start doing things full throttle and then give up or do them half heartedly? Did you say you were going to network once a week, but in reality, haven’t networked for the past few months? Being focused and consistent with your actions will be what gets you the results.
If you’ve lost motivation, don’t sit around waiting for the motivation to come, take action and the motivation will follow.
Sometimes you’ve got to take the action even if you don’t feel like doing it, even if you have had a late night and are too tired to write that blog, or fill out that application form that will get you your dream job.
Whilst giving things a miss on the odd occasion may not be too detrimental, if you’re consistently letting things get in the way, is it any wonder that you’re not getting the results you want?
5. Get help
Get support to help you stay focused and on track. There are various ways you can do this at varying budgets to suit the level of support that you need. From watching YouTube videos, reading how to blogs and articles, to productivity apps, an accountability buddy, a coach, a mentor, a mastermind group and more. There really is no reason why you can’t get the help you need in some format or another. Determine the level of support you need and what you can afford, then go and get it.
If you want the second half of this year to be one where you get the results you want, you will need to stay focused and consistent with your actions. If you don’t, you will still be in the same place this time next year as you are now. That is fine if this is what you want, but if it’s not and there are things you know you want to achieve, you will need to take action in order to make it happen.
Thanks so much