Top 10 Get motivated tips

Positive reinforcement is a fundamental principle of human behavior that says a behavior is more likely to happen (and continue to happen) when it’s followed by something enjoyable or rewarding:

• Little kids are more likely to learn how to use the potty if their parents clap and sing songs and cheer profusely whenever they successfully go in the potty rather than somewhere else.
• Employees are more likely to come to management with useful suggestions and feedback if managers listen to that feedback carefully, take it seriously, and offer genuine thanks and appreciation. You get the idea. We all know the power of positive reinforcement in our lives. But what we’re not as good at is building in positive reinforcement when it doesn’t occur naturally or by default. But the ability to build in positive reinforcement mechanisms to our own challenges and goals—a process I call artificial positive reinforcement—is a surprisingly simple skill we can all learn. For example: Suppose you decided that this is the year you finally read Moby Dick. You’ve told yourself since college that one day you’d finally read The Great American Novel, but so many times before you’ve cracked it open, made it a few pages or chapters past Call me Ishmael, only to lose interest and fail at your goal once again. What if you artificially set up a system of reward and positive reinforcement for yourself? I know, it seems silly to reward yourself for reading a book—I’m an adult not an elementary school student!—but if you want a proven, effective way to keep your motivation up, this will do the trick. Here’s how you might do it:
• Pick a small amount of reading you would like to do each evening. Let’s say 15 pages.
• Choose a small but enjoyable reward. I like those little Dove dark chocolates.
• Keep your copy of Moby Dick and your bag of Dove dark chocolates on the shelf by the coach.
• Each time you finish your 15 pages, put the book away and reward yourself with a chocolate. Again, I know this one can seem silly and childish because we associate positive reinforcement with getting kids to do things, but it’s just as powerful a principle with adults as kids. Give it a shot.

For a long time, I was skeptical of the idea of using visualization as a technique for improving performance and motivation. It always seemed a little hokey and woo-woo to me, like something you’d read in a cheap self-help book or hear from a scammy motivational speaker. But the truth is, visualization is a very straightforward practice that can powerfully boost motivation. And it has nothing to do with channeling cosmic energies, manifesting your inner purpose, or any other nonsense like that. Instead, it works on a simple principle of motivation that says the more specific, concrete, and available our mental representation of a goal and its benefits are, the more we’ll feel motivated to achieve it. For example, consider two scenarios for staying motivated to achieve a goal of losing weight:

• Scenario A: The doctor told me it would be good for my health to lose weight. Guess I should try to eat better…
• Scenario B: The doctor told me it would be good for my health to lose weight. And then I imagined how fun it would be if I could run and jump and swing and play with my grandkids at the park without getting instantly winded and fatigued. Which scenario is going to provide more motivation to lose weight? Yeah, obviously Scenario B. The more detailed our image for the outcome and its benefits, the more motivational pull that outcome will have on us. No matter what the specifics of our goal, if we make time to visualize and “paint the picture” in our minds of what it will look like to achieve our goal, we’ll have more sustained motivation to do the hard work required to get there. I’ve found that the best practical way to add visualization into your routine or plan for change is to commit to a small journaling habit. Get yourself a small notebook and spend 5 minutes a few times a week writing about what it will really be like to achieve your goal and all the possible benefits that might go along with it.

Yes, I know this conflicts with what I just said, but hear me out. Just like during a workout, it’s hard to get pumped up without music! Something about loud music always makes me clean faster, and allows me to forget that I’m even cleaning. If you prefer, turn on an audiobook, podcast, or YouTube video that doesn’t need to be watched (like a TED Talk). Pandora has some stand-up comedy stations that are a fun way to pass the time, too. I like to use a small portable speaker, so I don’t have to carry my phone around with me. The idea is to just to be distracted enough to forget you’re cleaning, but not so much that you forget to clean at all. If you have an hands-free earpiece, talk on the phone to a friend or your mom while you’re tidying. You’ll get caught up with each other, and be productive!

This is one of the more important budgeting tips and tricks to follow. When your budget is complete, you should go through and review your expenses and look to see if they line up with your short and long-term financial goals. I talked above how analysis is one of the best budgeting tips and tricks to keep your budgeting on track. For example if one of your goals is to get out of debt or reduce credit card balances, then you want to be sure that your monthly budgetary expenses reflect that. You should have and aggressive monthly expense factored into this category if you’re trying to pay off your credit card debt.

If you like structure and routine, following a training schedule can help you stay motivated and committed to your runs. “A training plan helps you prepare mentally and logistically, so you’re not wasting energy trying to figure out what to do and where to go. You just show up and run,” says Moore. To build a basic training plan, start by choosing the number of days a week you want to run, as well as how much time you want to run for, Moore says. From there, you can create workouts based on your current fitness level and goals.

If you have a list of things that you need to finish every day or every week, tackle the worst or the hardest or the most boring task first. This way you will feel like you achieved a great accomplishment by getting this hard task out of the way, and you will feel more motivated because now every thing on the list seems easy and achievable. I usually do this with workouts and house work, because these are usually the activities that I feel like can be the hardest or most mundane. So first thing I do when I wake up is workout, then do whatever chores I need to do in the house for that day, and once these two are done, I feel like I can do anything.

If your goals are good ones, you probably have more motivation than you realize. The trouble is, you may be wasting huge chunks of it. And one of the biggest culprits behind wasted motivation is our own self-talk. Self-talk refers to our habits of talking to ourselves, both what we say to ourselves in our own head and how we say it. If your habitual, automatic self-talk tends to be negative, harsh, and judgmental, it’s going to produce a lot of difficult emotion like guilt, anxiety, frustration, and sadness, all of which sap you of your natural motivation to reach your goals. This means that one of the best, if counterintuitive, ways to stay motivated is to stop robbing yourself of motivation with overly negative self-talk. And instead, create a new habit of gentle self-talk. Here are some examples:

• Suppose you hopped off the treadmill 5 minutes early because you were just too tired to keep going… Harsh Self-Talk: You’re so weak you couldn’t even finish the last 5 minutes. You’ll never get in shape for that 5K. Gentle Self-Talk: I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t make it all the way to the end, but the fact that I’m so tired means I must be really giving my muscles a good workout.
• Imagine you impulsively blurt out a sarcastic comment to your spouse after dinner, even though you’ve been working on being less sarcastic in your relationship… Harsh Self-Talk: I knew I’d mess up again. I’m just a sarcastic person. What’s the use in fighting it? Gentle Self-Talk: Ah, man, I did it again. I’ll keep working at it because I know old habits are hard to break. Our own habitual negative self-talk is one of the most powerful obstacles to staying motivated and working through challenges to our goals. If you can learn to notice and then re-shape your self-talk to be more constructive and gentle, you’ll be amazed at how much motivation you’ll already have. Learn More: Cognitive Restructuring: The Complete Guide to Changing Negative Thinking