The very first thing I’m going to say to help you get yourself into a motivated state is that you need to sometimes (not always but sometimes) change the meaning of the thing that you need to get motivated to do. If you’re motivated to do something that really appeals to you, it tends to be much easier to tap into the feeling of motivation to be able to get on and do it. What do you do when the thing you need to do is ultimately not all that interesting to you? It is still possible for you to really motivate yourself. However, you need to change what that thing means to you because if has some kind of negative meaning, such as it’s going to take away your time and energy from better things, then we need to change what it means so that it means something that makes you want to get on and do it. 

Let me give you an example of this. Many people are not motivated by going into a gym and making their body hurt but they still do it. Why? Because what that means for them is perhaps a Slimmer body. What it means for them is perhaps being able to run faster or to compete at a higher level. It’s not the action itself that means something to them, it’s the results of the action of going to the gym. If you can’t see the meaning in doing the thing that you’re doing, think about ‘what’s the result it will give me if I actually do it’.

Teaching yourself to become the kind of person who can do things that you do not want to do and still do them to a good or high standard is going to really set you up in positive ways in the future. You’re going to develop a part of your mentality that would otherwise just be locked away in a box, never accessible.

The second thing you can do if you want to get yourself motivated quickly is to see yourself doing the thing. Imagine yourself doing it and as you imagine yourself doing it imagine yourself doing it in a useful way, not a negative way. It needs to be more like, ‘I’m doing it, I’m bossing it, I’m feeling powerful over it and I’m commanding this situation”. You need to really engage with it with the kind of energy that’s going to have you do it fast and the kind of energy that’s going to have you do it thoroughly. Having a sense of empowerment can really help you to develop the motivation that you need to get moving and to do the things that you need to do. 

Thirdly, we’re going to make sure you have a plan. That might mean that before you take on the task that you need to do you, instead actually spend some time mapping it out. We need to be careful here that you don’t spend so much time mapping it out that you’re just kind of using it as an excuse to never get started. Before I got started on writing an essay, I would bullet point all of the things that I wanted to include in the essay and then Shuffle around those bullet points to put them into some kind of order. I would think about how I wanted to start it and how I wanted to conclude it and that basically gave me a framework. After that, the work seemed easy because all I had to do was kind of beef up what I’d already mapped out in bullet points; by breaking a big task down into smaller chunks, it usually makes it feel much more digestible and much more achievable for our brains so that we’re more likely to get started. 

The fourth ingredient to get you motivated as quickly as humanly possible is you need to know what your own personal ingredients are for being motivated. Think about something that you are already motivated to do. Think about times in the past when you felt really motivated by something. What are the functions that underpin that motivation? 

Perhaps it’s feeling and understanding it’s energy. Maybe it was a Focus. If so, what helped you with that Focus? Was it having a certain environment around you? Maybe you were listening to a particular song or you were in a particular place. Maybe it was making sure that you had eaten and that you weren’t trying to start something on an empty stomach. There are all sorts of different things that are good checkpoints for you to consider around how to motivate yourself because you’ve had those in place before and they worked for you then so they can work for you now. You can start tuning into what it was about that situation that made me so motivated. 

I want you to sort of go back to an experience where you’ve already experienced a high level of motivation in the past and reflect on it, see what was going on there. Did you have people around you? Were you alone? Was there something that you were looking forward to on the other side that was kind of driving you to get this piece of work done or was there something that you’d already done that put you in a good mood before you got started? Did you allow yourself treats along the way or did you use the treats to motivate you to get the thing over and done with? You’re going to do a little bit of an audit which means that you’re going to go back through and find all of the pieces that were in that puzzle of motivation for you in the past and you’re going to do everything you can to bring those into the moment of now to motivate yourself for the thing that you need to be getting on and doing.

By Gemma Bailey
www.childtherapisthertfordshire.nlp4kids.org