In The Rising Podcast- A Health and Wellness Podcast

How to Kickstart Your Motivation in Just 5 Steps

March 16, 2021 Bettina M. Brown Season 2 Episode 67
In The Rising Podcast- A Health and Wellness Podcast
How to Kickstart Your Motivation in Just 5 Steps
Show Notes Transcript

 Struggling for getting the motivation together to do what you are interested in?

I talk about some ways to get motivation together so that you can do the things you are interested in and excited about!






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Greetings and welcome to In the Rising Podcast. My name is Bettina, and this is the platform I have chosen to talk about living a life that's in alignment with your best dreams, goals moving forward and leaving behind that shame blame game that really does nothing for you and never did anything for you.

So, I like to start off by saying I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, counselor. I'm not any of these things, but I am a healthcare professional who really loves to research and talk to people and figure out what makes them tick. And a lot of that has to do with therapy, which is what I do, we are taught to not chase the pain, but go after the source.

And so often we make decisions, and we evaluate things because we're trying to be symptom free, but we don't always find out the answer of the real cause of things. And I was just in a place, I would say this weekend, where I was exhausted. Truly I was tired, but I also couldn't get myself together to do things that I really, really liked and do things that were important to me.

Where was that motivation? And perhaps you have wondered where your motivation has gone to from time to time, but I know that in the ability or in the quest to look and live the life that you want to live, not according to your roles and not what someone else says, but what you want to live somewhere in there, there has to be some motivation.

So I was reading this article, as you know, for self-help really about the five steps to get motivated. And now of course there are many more. There can be three steps, but I liked the conciseness of these five steps and I'm going to talk about 'em today. So whenever we are looking at getting it together, basically.

I love that little line. Get it together, getting it together for yourself. The number one thing you have to do, or is recommended, is to define your objective. So sometimes objectives are much too big. For example, get it together and, you know, clean the house, get it together, and, you know, do certain tasks.

But what if that, “Get it together,” task is just too big in cleaning. The house depends on someone's house. The person with a studio apartment may not need a whole lot of motivation. A person that lives in a three-bedroom house with, you know, a great room and whatever, might need a little more motivation because there's just a lot more house to clean.

It's a lot more work. So being more defined, I am going to clean two bathrooms today, or I'm going to really work on the master bedroom and change my sheets out and wash the, the, the big blanket that I've been putting off because I have to take that in. Or what about even the drapes? I'm gonna go ahead and take that in.

So, defining what you're going to do. Helps you get motivated, where really going after an entire house is not something that generates a lot of interest in me. It would have a few years ago, but now I'll be honest, not so much. So just getting really specific with that objective and even if it is something with regards to your, your physical.

Appearance. What is one thing you're going to work on? Is it getting in the habit of waking up and exercising several days a week where it's not something you do, it's who you are. And I've read so much about that, that when we. Our lacking motivation is because whatever we're trying to do is not in our nature.

So if waking up and exercising is not something we do every day or exercising period, it's because being an exerciser is not who we are. So, our change in motivation is to do something often enough and change our mindset about it so that those objectives. Are actually in alignment with what we characterize as  important.

Most of us would like to say we are reliable and independent and we are honest. And so to be someone who's dependent on someone else or asking for help is, is basically sacrilege or, going out and not being fully independent every day is painful. Lying to someone is outside of our ability, and that's because it is not in alignment with who we are.

So if having a clean bedroom or a clean bathroom and exercising is in alignment with who you are, that objective, that motivation will start to arise because we want to be correct. We don't want to deviate from who we are. So, if our objective is A, B, or C, Figuring out ways to make that objective part of our personal characteristic will help us get motivated.

Because when you do something all the time, you know, helping your child do homework or remembering to pick up your child from school. You don't need motivation. You may not want to get up or, "Ooh, I'm exhausted," but I have to go drive him to practice. It's something you do. You're not going to just not do it.

Like I don't feel like it today because being a parent and being a responsible parent is part of who you are. That's your objective. So, Stick to that objective, figure that out, define it. Get very clear on that. The second thing is to declare your intentions publicly. Now, this one always causes a little strife, like, well, if you say you're doing it to enough people, they're going to know at what you're doing often enough that they're going to know when you haven't done it.

And that's the entire point if you are trying to change yourself. Into a person that works out and you tell everyone, well, there is a way for them to know whether or not you're doing that. They can watch you have lunch there. Are you really just eating all the snacks? Are you eating healthy? Are you taking some steps to work out?

Are you physically showing that you are sticking to those. Steps two to three months later, can you announce what you're doing? Like what did you do today? And you're able to respond quickly because it's true. Those are the abilities, that of someone that is following through. So, set that intention publicly and that does not.

Mean Facebook, it does not mean fully Instagram, sometimes publicly can just be between you and your spouse or you and your best friend, but putting it out there what your goals are not. We'll see if this might be my objective, but this is my goal. And when you don't meet that goal, Then people know about it, and then we cannot be angry that we're not following through with that goal, or people are holding us accountable to it because we set that initially.

Number three, to get yourself motivated is to take small steps at first. So there are some people that have really rolled their eyes and I say, no, I only work out 10 to 15 minutes a day, five, six days a week. Well, what are you going to get done and that, how is that going to change? What are you doing? The entire purpose right now is not to do a 45 minute to an hour and a half every day, because I'm not even interested in that.

But going back to objective number one, define your objective. If I am a person that works out, Even those 10 to 15 minutes, they are so important that I will stick to it. I will get up and do it. I will follow through, I will change some things up. My body and my mind have gotten in the habit of doing it.

There was a different book. I think that, that the story of greatness by the, by the, initial person who invented Mindvalley, Vishen ( Lakhiani) I always forget his last name. I can never pronounce it. That's really why, but very interesting book and very interesting guy. And I recommend Mindvalley for anyone. You can do cheap low courses or sign up for the year and really.

Learn to read quicker, learn to have a better relationship with money. Learn how to be more conscious in your parenting and what your goals are with that. So, I deviate, but what he really discussed was how some people. In the context of gym, had to actually drive to the gym for a month or two and then leave because they had to really start small.

When I mean small, I mean this was small. They didn't even step foot into the gym, but they made themselves a habit. And then when they went to the gym and finally went in, sometimes they just changed clothes and came back out. For me, my first thought was, well, that's ridiculous. You know? Like, what is that going to help?

Kind of the same way people think about my 10-to-15-minute exercise. But what I did glean from that is that it became such a habit for these people to go to the gym, to start to eat right, to make this time. There was no excuse they could give themselves because this became part of who they identified as, that they were the ones most successful.

We read often about people who are starting, you know, up at the gym in January, right? Yes. Gyms get full. They love that. That's why they do the year membership and you can postpone and blah, blah, blah. And how many are really on that same wagon a month later? It's the small steps. It's great when you go out and buy a brand new wardrobe because you're going to do something, but it's not always easy to stick to that.

Number four is think about your goal to the point of obsession. There are some dots with that to the point of obsession. Now, it is important to remain on task, and it is much easier when that remains in your mind where they're coming from with. To the point of obsession is that it is something you continuously think about.

I like to talk about retirement because I'd like to retire one day, but it's not something I think about often. And so a lot of my financial choices, you know, in my four are not always consistent with me retiring at 55 or 60 or 67 or whatever number they'll come up with by the time I do retire. I guess even my comment by time I do retire shows that that has not been my main goal, but I have also had personal goals within the last year to refinance my car in the beginning of 2021.

And when I made that goal, I had no idea how it was going to happen. When I made the goal of doing it at a certain time, I didn't know where the money was going to come from. I didn't know which federal credit union or bank I was going to do it with. I didn't know if my credit score would be good enough that I have low enough of an interest rate.

I did not know, but I thought about this over and over and over that even consciously and unconsciously, I. My decisions went in the direction that would allow ease and quickness of this refinance. That meant my push was into paying off a credit card. My push was into adding money to my savings account.

My push was, I'm not going to buy that because that's not going to help my goal end up quicker. My push was researching, whether I should refinance in 2021 or the year after. What are the interest rates based off the certain years? My push was really just talking. Every time I turned on the car, I was like, I am going to refinance this car.

And it was an obsession and it did happen, and it was within a week. I mean, it was so simple. Everything fell in alignment because I had made such a decision. Now I know there are things that you find that important that they are just going to happen. This, there's no option for failure. There's option for deviation, but there's no option for failure.

And the last one, catch any negative thinking right there on the spot and crush it. You know, a lot of us have negative thoughts. A lot of us have negative thoughts that come out of other people. Let's be honest. You're not going to make it. It's going to do this. You're not going to have that. This is what the, and there's always an opinion and they don't always seem to be positive.

Right? But how do you stay motivated in that catch your own negative thinking. There is a point in time when we think about surroundings, right? When, when you're negative, do you tend to hang around positive people? Do positive people want to hang around you? No. There's a point in time when you are really responsible, and that's just it.

You do have some responsibility, personal responsibility to yourself. It's the greatest responsibility you have because when you can take care of yourself, you can take care of others, you can love on others, you can stop living in fear and denial and hesitation. If you hesitate, you don't move, and you can't move forward without moving.

So if you catch a negative thought, oh, I'm not going to be able to refinance. Oh, they're, you know what? Nope, nope. Undeniably these were thoughts that were not permitted. So, I didn't have to push for some motivation. If I felt a little thought or I heard a comment, you know what? You don't know me. You don't know what I'm capable of.

I don't always know what I am capable of because I was motivated. So the five steps I talked about today, were defining your objective to, to declare those intentions publicly. Take small steps at first. Think about your goal and obsess about them. It is okay to obsess about some things. And whenever you have a negative thought, fly in, a little fly coming in a little negativity, take that fly swatter of positivity and knock it out the park, knock it out of your mind.

So I thank you for your time today because you know what? All of our time is important and you gave me some of yours today and I appreciate that. Until next Tuesday, let's keep building one another up!