Motivation is something we can choose and create each moment by changing our energy.
When we chop down a tree and look down at the top of the stump, we can see a series of concentric circles that indicate each year of that tree’s life. From a seed to its final form, the tree never stopped growing, and we can see visible evidence of its development.
Like the tree, we too can grow each year. Continuous growth, even until the last year of our lives, helps keep our minds clear and sharp and our bodies strong. It also satisfies our soul and brightens our spirit.
Of course, nothing that’s good for us is easy, is it? It can be hard to be motivated to always be growing. We may be discouraged by too many doubts and fears or not enough time and energy. Or we may feel too comfortable with our existing habits or in our current environment. And pain and discomfort often accompany growth.
So how can we have enough motivation to overcome these obstacles? Here are some ways to stay motivated to keep growing and learning.
1. Have a clear goal.
Unless we first feel the need to grow, we can’t even start. One way to gather the motivation to make a change is to find something we really want. That wanting can carry us over our inertia and the challenges in our environment. To help us get started, it’s best to clearly define our goal. Give it a deadline and determine how much we want to accomplish in that time. For example, we can decide that we want to be able to say five sentences in French by the end of this month.
2. Feel your goal.
Instead of just knowing what we want, it’s more powerful to feel it. Specifically, we can feel the desires of our heart. I’ve experienced that our heart is where what I call our soul is situated in the body. Feeling what our heart wants makes that desire thrilling and revitalizing. We feel passionate about what we’re doing. And knowing where to feel it means we can always go back and feel it again when we lose motivation.
3. Change your energy.
The feeling of what we want in our hearts, like all feelings, is energy. Although we have a feeling of what we want, the rest of the energy inside us may not support it. In fact, it may be in opposition to our heart’s desires.
When that’s the case, we may find ourselves doing things that prevent us from growing and changing. They take us away from our goals and may even drag us in the opposite direction. This situation may cause us to lose motivation even more.
To get back on track and rekindle our motivation, we can remind ourselves that lacking motivation or not doing the things we need or want to do is not a personal defect. It’s not our personality, nor our sin. It’s simply our energy state, and our energy state can always be changed.
Changing our energy can be done in a moment. We can breathe, smile, laugh, dance, listen to motivating music, read inspirational messages, or move our bodies vigorously.
To get back on track and rekindle our motivation, we can remind ourselves that lacking motivation or not doing the things we need or want to do is not a personal defect. It’s not our personality, nor our sin. It’s simply our energy state,… Click To Tweet4. Make the choice to be motivated every moment.
To keep an energy state, however, requires continuous practice and choice. In each moment, we can see our energy state and choose to change it. And if we don’t, we have the next moment to try again. In essence, a lifetime of growth is actually a lifetime of changing our energy.
But if we stick with it and don’t give up when something gets too hard, joy starts to develop. We’ll feel joyful because we’ll see our success, and because the moments of changing our energy will have accumulated. With time, it becomes easier to change our energy because we’ve had practice. We’ve also built up reserves of positive energy that help us maintain a good energy state.
5. Give yourself encouragement.
Motivation is a skill we can learn and develop. Rather than beating ourselves up about what we didn’t do, we can encourage ourselves and show ourselves love. For example, we can say encouraging words to ourselves and change our self-talk from negative to positive. And we grateful for any motivation or accomplishments we have. We can even give ourselves a reward whenever we stay motivated for a certain period of time.
6. Just start.
We don’t need to have everything figured out to start something new. Once we start, we’ll understand what we need and how to do it better. Starting something as quickly as we can will help prevent our doubts and fears from keeping us from changing.
7. Acknowledge your limitless potential.
In the midst of discouragement or lack of motivation, we may not feel our potential has no limit, despite how many times we’ve heard we can be anything we want to be. But pure, unbounded potential is actually responsible for everything that exists, including ourselves. We can access that potential with our mind—our conscious awareness—and we can bring that potential into the physical world through our words and actions.
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We can bring motivation to ourselves by the way we manage our energy. If we stop and feel ourselves, especially our energy, we can even find the motivation to make ourselves motivated by changing our energy.
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