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Your Personal Motivation Strategy

Whatever it is you hope to achieve in your life you will be need to identify some kind of motivation to get you started and keep your momentum going until you achieve your goal. Once you’ve identified this, you will be able to create your personal motivation strategy.

Anyone starting off on a project that they are excited about will have no problem finding energy and enthusiasm for it. At this point the motivation strategy needs to concentrate mainly on keeping this enthusiasm under control so that you don’t start to burn out too early in the timeline of your project!

Think about your project in terms of a timeline. What are the notable midway points along the timeline between the start and end of the project? These are your short-term goals, and identifying these on your timeline will help you to make a motivation strategy. Don’t rush ahead along the timeline, no matter how tempted you are to do so. Instead use the timeline to pace yourself at a steady work rate.

Once you get towards the end of the project and you are so close to achieving your goal that you can almost taste it, then the enthusiasm and energy for the project increases and motivation isn’t a problem. The sheer adrenalin of being so close to completion is a motivator in itself.

Unfortunately before you get to that near-finish situation, you must get through the middle section of the project, and this is the hardest to find motivation for. It’s here that many non-essential projects go awry as the initial enthusiasm is now depleted, and although the project/goal is still desired, there’s less energy for it now, and the end is a long way off.

In many people, one of the main problems affecting motivation is in the length of time it takes to get a project completed. One good way of counteracting this is to use these short-term goals as an integral part of your motivation strategy. Rather than just list the short-term goals on the timeline, use each short-term goal as a step along the timeline so that you then divide each short-term goal into identifiable sections. This means that you can quantify your progress. Charting your progress visually assures you that although you haven’t yet reached your main goal, you are working in the right direction and you are accomplishing things along the way.

If visual assurance isn’t a big enough motivator, use rewards within your motivation strategy. Again using the short-term goals on your project timeline identify some “treats” that you can use as a reward to accomplishing each of these. The rewards don’t need to be expensive, but something as simple as having a favorite cup of coffee at your local coffee shop, walk in the country, buying a new CD or any other reward that makes the completion of each goal. You could even have a list of rewards or increase the value of the rewards as the project progresses. You could have small (coffee shop) type rewards for the little goals that make up a small goal, and then have a larger reward (perhaps a meal at a restaurant, go see a movie or a small retail therapy session) for accomplishing each of the small goals along your timeline.

The important thing in creating a motivation strategy is that you tailor it to what will work for you. You know what motivates you, you also know what stops your motivation and so you need to factor into your motivation strategy a plan for what you will do to kick-start your motivation if you find that you feel you no longer have much or any enthusiasm for the project.

To accomplish any project/dream/goal is a big achievement and that’s because it’s not something that can be done with no effort. However, by putting some motivation strategies in place before you start your project, you will have a greater chance of succeeding and achieving your goal.