Interested to learn 7 practical solutions to maintain your momentum right up until the New Year?
1. Do the toughest task first! This will ease a lot of your day-to-day worries and boost your self-confidence for the rest of the day. An insightful book on the topic is How Do You Eat An Elephant?: One Bite at a Time by Bill Hogan.
2. Think positive! If you are looking to increase your positive emotions, I invite you to sign up for my free email and video series on Positive Psychology Tips. Learn about making positive psychology work for you. Simply add your name and email and I will send your first tip right away.
3. Have fun! For creative and people focused types, we need to have a little fun. So create a game with yourself and make the task fun. That way you’ll stay motivated to do and finish it. For example, one of my coaching clients needed to make more face to face visits in his community. He decided to bring in a vase to his office and put marbles into it every time he went out to visit a business or client face to face. He was able to get his administration staff involved to keep him on task. By the time the jar was filled, he celebrated by taking a Friday afternoon off.
4. Compare you against you! There will always be someone smarter, faster, stronger, etc and when you use them as your benchmark you can really kill your motivation. There are always people ahead of and behind you. The focus should be on you, what you can achieve and how you can reach your goals.
5. Remember your achievements! Remind yourself of all the good you’ve been able to achieve, let those positive thoughts outweigh your past failures. If you are really stuck, taking time out to frame your mind is important. Think back to a time when you achieved something you thought you couldn’t. Write down the details of this success and remember what strengths you used to achieve it. They can serve you well this time too.
6. Ask yourself, what would courage have me do? As with the idea above, taking a bite, one a time with get you to your goal. Think through the question, “what would I do if courage was on my side.” Answering that question, is sure to get you moving forward.
7. Parter in possibility! Having an accountability partner to check in on your goals and talk through a plan of action is a sure way to keep you motivated. If you have someone in mind that you can call, pick up the phone now. If you need someone to help, reach out. Having a partner can help break the cycle of isolation. Teaming up with someone to compare notes and report progress, can add to the enjoyment. My coaching clients say they are motivated to do the tasks they committed to before our calls to ensure they have some WINS to share.
Also, remember, it’s not just about big goals. Many people make the mistake in being entirely focused on big goals. If you base too much of your life satisfaction on achieving BIG goals only, you’ll be unhappy for a very long time.
Long term goals are great, because aiming high lets us strive to be the best we can be. But for every long term goal you have, you want to have many short and medium term goals. Maybe for now, you’d be happy celebrating the wins along the way to the BIG goal.
The beauty of small goals is enjoying the satisfaction of achieving a goal and enjoying the benefits. Even if it’s a small goal, you feel good for checking it off your to-do list (whether it’s on paper or just in your head). You also get to have something that brings a little satisfaction right now.
Jennifer Jimbere is President of Jimbere Coaching and Consulting and is a certified professional coach that has 16 years in the financial services industry.
Let me know which ones work well for you. Maintain momentum and make it a great day!
Image credit and artist: LA artist and old friend Jennifer Verge
Inspired by: My email sign off:)
