How to Stay Motivated

So, you’ve identified areas you want to make changes in and have created SMART goals for how you’re going to achieve this. Now comes the hard part: putting in the work.

Again, honesty is going to be crucial here. If you’ve had this goal before and it didn’t pan out, that’s okay. You can use that experience to inform your current plan. What did you struggle with last time? What kept you motivated? What didn’t?

Be sure to also look at your past successes. The key here is to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are, because you’re going to need to plan out your goals accordingly.

This is especially important if you’re neurodiverse. So often the tips and tricks for motivation, time-management, and personal development are all based on the neurotypical brain. And that’s great for neurotypical people - but if you aren’t, it is SO important that you make sure you’re not trying to force your brain to work in a way that it doesn’t. Make sure that the goals and strategies you intend to use are going to work for you, and not someone else.

Mind Over Mood

And whether you’re neurotypical or neurodiverse, our understanding of motivation also needs adjusting.

There’s this idea of “drive” and “staying motivated”, but the truth is that motivation often comes during or after you do something. This sounds counterintuitive, I know, so let me break it down. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that regulates learning and motivation (among other functions). The long-held idea has been that in order to accomplish your goals, you need to stay motivated and “driven”.

People who struggle to act in accordance with their goals are thought of as having a lack of drive or ambition.

But here’s the truth: dopamine tends to come after initiating action. When first creating a goal, thinking about it may come with positive feelings and that burst of “get up and go” energy. But over time, merely thinking about something isn’t necessarily going to be enough to compensate for a lack of physical energy. This is where “mind over mood” comes into play.

When we do something positive, whether that be an activity we enjoy or something that gives us a sense of accomplishment, dopamine is activated and you start to feel good as a reward.

When you feel good, you typically want to continue doing whatever is making you feel that way. It’s why bookworms spend hours reading, or runners get that “runner’s high.”

So, if feeling good comes after you start, it doesn’t make sense that we’re essentially waiting for that rush of dopamine or motivation to come first. This is again why it’s so important that your goals are your own and you have a clear and important reason for wanting them. You’re going to need to tap into all of those hopes and reasons sometimes in order to start before you feel like it.

And it’s going to take consistent practice and repetition for this to be effective. The more positive experiences you have working towards your goal, the easier it will be to stay motivated.

As Nick Wignall says: “Anyone can feel highly motivated at any time, but highly motivated people build habits and routines into their lives that generate motivation consistently.”

The strategy here is to make working towards your goals, and feeling positive once you do, become a habit and routine that encourages you to continue.

Connect with Others

You have support - use it!

Creating new habits or changing current ones takes time and energy, and may involve some lifestyle changes. Make sure that you’re asking for help when you need it. Is there something that your partner, roommate, or children could do to support you? Are there changes to how you’re sharing responsibilities that need to be made?

Sometimes people can also find it helpful to team up with an accountability partner, someone who maybe shares your goals or has similar goals that you can connect with and encourage on each other’s journeys. Words of encouragement and signs of support from people we care about are so powerful, especially as time goes on or when you find yourself struggling to continue.

So identify who in your life is supportive and who you know you can rely on. Share your goals, your motivations and how you’re doing. And intentionally connect with, and rely on, them as you work towards achieving your goals.

Practice Acceptance

And, finally, let’s talk about perfection. Growing and developing as a person or a professional is a journey. It’s going to have ups and downs, wins and losses. That’s the normal ebb and flow of life. One of the pitfalls that I see so often with New Year’s resolutions, healthy habits, or goals in general is that people don’t deal well with “failure”.

This is especially true if you have an intense, daily goal. In today’s culture, “streaks” are practically sacred. Many of us feel quite sad if we miss a day and lose a large streak on Snapchat, or lose a kill streak in a video game. Look at the intense, overwhelming app Flappy Bird, where people became incredibly invested in how long you could keep a weird yellow bird from hitting a pipe.

All of these things are arbitrary, yet what happens?

Usually, we get sad or beat ourselves up. “So close!” is something you often hear - and then we move on. There’s a sense of there being “no point” in trying to start over or feeling it’s “too late”, we’ve already failed because that number is back to zero. And we see the same thing for goals, particularly with things like 30-day challenges or starting on January 1 for your goals. But here’s the thing: you’re human.

And this isn’t just about me telling you it’s okay to make mistakes - although that’s important, you will make mistakes and you need to be compassionate with yourself when you don’t succeed.

But what I really mean here, is that you need to listen to your mind, body, and spirit - and be gentle with yourself. You will also need rest, to take breaks, to focus on connecting with others more than it always being about your goals. Your goals are important, but if you need to prioritize other things sometimes - that is not just okay, but normal. 

What I’m encouraging you to do is not to give up on yourself just because you missed a day, or didn’t start on the first of the month. You find a goal on the 15th? Start on the 15th - no, not the next day, but right now.

Meet yourself as you are now, with all the strengths and challenges that come with it, and just try to focus on showing up for yourself each and every day.

I 100% believe in you.