The Five Pillars of Sustainable Motivation
This article is an overview of how to achieve sustainable motivation. While I have presented this information in a rough sequence, it’s really important to focus on how you are already motivating yourself.
Focus on the familiar. Don’t think that you’re going to have to start at the top of the list. It’s okay to start in the middle. That’s perfectly fine. What’s important is you fully plug this tips into what you’re doing, scale it up, and then move on to the other pillars until you have all five covered.
Focus on your purpose
It turns out that for people to do a better job at doing what they need to do, they have to first be informed of why they’re doing things in the first place. That’s right. While having a clear idea of what to do and how to do it are important, it’s even more important to understand why you’re doing these things in the first place.
Focus on what you stand to lose
I wish I could tell you that most people are proactive. I wish I could tell you that most people are motivated by the things that they hope and dream of. Unfortunately, when it comes to practical reality, most people would rather stay with almost unbearable situations until they feel that their backs are against the wall.
They basically act only in terms of reactions. These are reactive people. Most of us are reactive. Accordingly, telling people what they stand to gain can only motivate them so much. In fact, for a lot of reactive people, thinking in proactive terms isn’t much motivation.
What really gets them to sit up and pay attention or better yet, get off the fence is to show them in clear terms what they stand to lose. Reactive people are driven by fear and loss.
Get motivated by daily micro-victories
Believe it or not, every single day, if you’re even putting in a half effort into whatever it is you’re doing, you’re actually achieving lots of victories. The problem is too many of these are routine, familiar, and programmatic that it’s very easy for you to overlook them. In fact, it’s very easy for you to take them for granted.
In your mind, unless and until you achieve big victories, you’re not really winning on a day-to-day basis. Well, you need to learn how to get motivated by micro-victories because they’re all over the place.
Turn to others when you begin to slow down
It’s important to note that in your journey towards self-discovery, self-awareness, self-actualization, and victory, there are other people making the journey with you. It may seem that you’re the only person in that lane. You might’ve even gotten the idea in your head that nobody can really quite understand you.
However, if you’re completely honest with yourself, there are other people around you. You can turn to them when things begin to slow down. When you find your motivation lacking, there are people you can turn to.
Mentally standardize your state of flow and call it into mind
This is the most important part of this process. Unfortunately, you have to master the previous parts to even have a shot at succeeding with this section. This is where the rubber meets the road. If you are able to achieve this, then a life of pretty much unstoppable accomplishment and victory awaits you.
You see, when you enter a state of flow, things become easy. Can you imagine being able to call that state into mind on command? In other words, you call it into mind at that point in time when you’re being challenged. When you feel that you need a Hail Mary pass to win this game, you call your state of flow into mind.
Believe it or not, you can do this. However, you need to get all the previous four pillars taken care of before you attempt to do this. Still, this is the ultimate goal of continuous motivation, as far as using it to lead to your personal state of flow.
