Motivation

is the act or an instance of motivating, or providing with a reason to act in a certain way. This leads us to believe that motivation comes to us – like a lightning bolt or a spark that gets us started. However, according to Jeff Haden motivation is a result, specifically motivation is the result of being successful.

If we want to stay on track, if we want to continue to progress towards our goal, the key is enjoying the small minor successes that come on a regular basis. Motivation is not something that we have but rather something that we get from achieving small successes each and every day. Success is the process and repeating that process day in and day out gives us motivation.

The process often gets a bad reputation because there is nothing fancy to it. It comes down to hard work, consistent effort and dedication that sparks the motivation in us. Once we get started, once we start doing something, it brings us one step closer to our goal, the process gets easier, and motivation kicks in. We feel motivated because we took action which further supports the idea that motivation is a result, not a precondition. If motivation is our fire, nailing the process each day is adding logs to our fire to keep it burning hot.

There are 8 steps to creating a successful process that will fuel motivation:

1. Determining your goal - goals should be SMART goals so they have structure and give you the ability to track progress along the way. S.M.A.R.T. stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. For example, instead of setting a goal to 'Walk More', we can make this SMART by setting a specific goal of walking 20 min a day for a month, or getting 10,000 steps a day for the next 30 days. These are attainable goals with specific measures which will making it clear when the goal is met.

2. Avoid decision anxiety and select an encouraging routine - Using the example above, we should add our daily walk into our routine. Find a buddy and set a time to walk every day, or make it a routine to get up from your computer and walk for 5 min every hour. Putting it into your daily routine makes it second nature and you won't get fatigued by deciding when to do it each day.

3. Narrow the plan to be specific -If you created your SMART goal in step 1, this step isn't necessary. However, if your goal can be more specific for a clear target each day, this would be the time to narrow it down.

4. Adapt your schedule accordingly - Generally, the process involves creating new habits and routines. As such, you may need to look at what you are committing to and determine what changes need to be made to your daily routine. For example, you may need to re-evaluate your schedule to determine what changes can be made in order to ensure there is time for your daily walk. Maybe this means purchasing a treadmill so you can walk while you work, or cutting out an hour of TV time to get up and move. Likely, you will need to make changes in your daily routine to make your new habit stick.

5. Design your daily plan - This is generally an easier step in the process as it involves mapping out the time in your new daily routine to ensure the plan will work. For example, if you want to walk 20 min a day, you can block off 20 min in your calendar every day to make sure you have time already set to walk.

6. Work the process - Now comes the magic! We have a plan in place and you can go about working that process day in and day out. The only thing that matters now is checking off the box each day that you have completed the goal. When you check off the process each day, we can celebrate those successes, and, as we know, celebrating those successes is going to increase motivation!

7. Adapt your schedule to fix hiccups - No matter how hard we try we cannot predict the future, and occasionally the new schedule that we have set to be successful in our process may not work. Generally, when we come across these glitches in our system, the first thing to go is our new habits. Instead of giving up, we want to work to fix whatever schedule problems have arisen to ensure the process is still successful.

8. Be prepared to modify - As we make adjustments to our routine in order to improve our likelihood of ultimate success, it is important that you are prepared to adapt your system as well. If the process is working, we do not want to make changes because we are tired, bored, or lazy but rather we want to make changes when the plan is not working to increase the likelihood of ultimate success. This is where our data comes in handy. Let the data speak for itself and show us how the process is working. If you are new to the idea of following the process, it can be helpful to use a daily checklist. This way each time you check off a box when you have nailed the process, you will get that instant feedback of success which is going to fuel motivation for the next day!

The idea of setting up a process is that you will have big goals and dreams. Although these are fantastic, we ultimately want to set up a plan. And it is following this plan and nailing the process on a continuous basis that will not only fuel motivation but will get you to your goals, and this is the ultimate goal. Motivation will not always be there, but the process will be and when you nail the process, you will feel successful and excited to keep going!

One tool I consistently use is the Habit Tracker app on my phone. It's really simple to use and I love checking things off as I complete them for the day. For example, I put things like 'Hitting my Macros', 10,000 steps and Meditating on my list of Habits. I can check off each habit as I complete every day, and track my progress for completion each month. I can also set reminders to keep me on track. It seems simple, but just the act of checking something off when I've completed gives me a lot of satisfaction! And knowing that just missing one day will throw off my monthly completion percentage makes me want to do it each day.

If you need assistance with creating a process for your goals, let me know! I love to help with setting and meeting goals!