How to stay motivated
For me motivation is hard physically and mentally. I have so many aspiring goals that I want to achieve but I always get distracted with social media, friends, laziness, and just personal negative energy. I sometimes find excuses for myself somehow that I get any for later on. Im thinking “how did I let that thought of not working out really take over my action of not working out?” I have found a few tips to help stay motivated.
Keeping A Positive Outlook.
When you start to believe that your goals are actually realistic then maybe you will have a better relationship with yourself. If you don’t then you lose track of and drag down your goals. This is essential to keep your goals alive and drive them. If your goal is to loose 5 pounds in two weeks, then really make it clear to yourself that this is a realistic goal that you want to achieve. When you finally realize start to recognize this, then its going to be so much easier for you to lose weight and eat healthier.
Make It Clear.
This goes hand in hand with positivity. Like I said before you have to make your goals known and clear to yourself. But how? Sometimes it is better to say things out load to allow you to really understand. You know when you read a paragraph that you can understand until you read it again for the 5th time. I bet that if you read it out loud after the first time of not understanding it, it would have helped. Say your goals to yourself out loud, however many times, to help you stay motivated. In a study done about reading strategy use and comprehension performance it said
“To best gain access to a reader’s sophisticated process of reading comprehension
and strategy use, thinking aloud provides a powerful means to obtain this mental
data, and verbal protocol analysis can lead to new insights into reading strategies,
reader responses and characteristics, as well as the influence of situational variables”
(Afflerbach, 2000; Smith, 2006).
I like to wake up in the morning and go for a run, so what I do is I tell myself before I go to sleep that I am not going to snooze my alarm and I am going to get up and run. Surprisingly it works!
Break Time.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Life happens and we all need a break. Give yourself time to decompress and reflect on what you have done throughout the week. Maybe watch a movie, go shopping, or get yourself a massage. I love to watch movies while I bake or cook! cooking is so therapeutic to me. Try to beat your goal before the time you give yourself so you have more break time!
Use Your Phone Less.
Cell phones are a huge distraction. Social media’s given purpose is to persuade you into using it longer, which they have been very successful at. When I use my phone and social media for longer than I anticipated I get so angry at myself for allowing them to use my valuable time when I could have been doing something way better, like reading. The relationship with your phone can be toxic and hard to downgrade, but put your phone on do not disturb and focus on you! Maybe find an app that can block your social media and other apps for an extended time to help you focus. A couple apps to keep in mind are offtime and moment.
Even in a classroom, students use their phones and laptops that keep them distracted. I do that too sometimes. In a study it proved that “While it seems reasonable to assume that laptops would be more likely to distract other students than cell phones (given the larger size of laptop display screens), observation confirms many more students use cell phones regularly during class than they do laptop computers” (Duncan, Hoekstra and Wilcox 3). cell phones and technology is a distraction, so you have to find a balance to help yourself stay motivated.
Keep yourself active
Physical activity will help reduce you stress of all the hard work and will make you feel better about yourself. In a study done to show that yoga supports stress management says that “The findings revealed a inverse relationship between stress level and yogic practices. This suggests that practicing yoga led to lower level of stress among the participants of experimental group rather than control group” (Tripathi and Bano 326).
I workout about 5 days a week and it has helped me stay self- motivated and ready to seize the day. The best way to start you day is working out, because it forces you to have the energy you need to reach you daily goals.
Don’t look at these as boundaries or restrictions. I always tend to reject and have a negative outlook to what others offer me, even my own parents or teacher. In reality these aren’t boundaries or restrictions, they are there to help you challenge yourself and go beyond your comfort. Never live in comfort because that just means you want to be lazy and live easy. Take advantage of your time you have and STAY POSITIVE. Life is too short!
Your World Of Positivity 