Maintaining Self-Motivation Is Easy With These Simple Steps
By Tyng Kam, Stride Career Prep Success Coach
Self-motivation is one of the most imperative traits that differentiate high-performing individuals from everyone else. But, motivating yourself can be hard. Below are a few suggestions on how you can increase your self-motivation.
Setting goals helps with self-motivation
Goal setting helps to create a definite direction and allows you to measure your progress. You want to be specific when setting goals. “Doing my best” is an ambiguous objective, and typically not as effective as a specific one like “improving my overall GPA to a minimum of 3.0, by the end of the fall semester”.
Your goal should also have measurable metrics so you can track your progress, that way you can also take necessary actions whenever you fall below the target.
Identify your intrinsic motivation
Finding intrinsic motivation leads to a more enjoyable experience and effective results. In a situation where you must do something that you’re not interested in, you will want to look beyond the current task to seek positive reasons for self-motivation. For example, you might not like art history and are frustrated with assignments you need to complete this semester. Seeking self-motivation from what scoring an ‘A’ in Arts will bring to your overall future, further on down the road, is intrinsic motivation.
Create extrinsic motivators
In an ideal world, we would always work on tasks that we naturally like. The reality is that we don’t always find jobs and get assignments we love. When that happens, creating extrinsic motivations can be helpful. Finding extrinsic motivations can be particularly effective with short-term goals. For example, you have no interest in your art history assignments. But, you know that your parents will take away your cell phone for two weeks, if you don’t finish your homework on time. The risk of losing your cell phone motivates you to complete your assignments.
Build your village of supporters for self-motivation
It’s critical to surround yourself with people who can support you to achieve your goals. Your supporters are people who know you and encourage you to achieve desired outcomes. People who have a network of supporters perform better than lone rangers. Consider adding mentors and coaches to your network to improve your continued self-motivation.
There are many ways to keep self-motivation high, as you look to build a successful future. If you are interested in starting your virtual journey with a supportive network, check out some of Stride’s Career Prep options to learn more!
