What is motivation? How can we keep ourselves motivated?

” Continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them ”

In life at many times we feel unhappy, feel ourselves to be unproductive due to setbacks. We feel ourselves to be less motivated and didn’t feel satisfied with our work, we feel confused as earlier we were so enthusiastic about our work but now we are struggling for motivation and not able to do the work with the same passion. Struggling for Motivation to get motivated to keep the journey “ON” towards the desired goal is indeed the toughest phase a person can face.

Let’s begin with understanding the basics.

What is motivation?

Motivation is considered as a driving force within the organism which directs its behavior towards a particular goal. Motivation is of different types as some people go to work to earn money whereas others simply work for their passion which in return give them immense happiness and satisfaction.

Motivation is of two types:-

• Intrinsic Motivation: This is the type of motivation in which a person performs an action because of internal driving force i.e. the act itself is rewarding, gives them satisfaction.

Example: We work hard to follow our passion and in return we feel satisfied.

• Extrinsic Motivation: This is the type of motivation in which a person performs an action because of an external driving force i.e. some external plus or minus force keeps us motivated to keep going.

Example: Some Employers might do extra shifts to earn money or students completing their homework due to fear of the teacher.

It really doesn’t matter what motivates you to keep going as long as it is encouraging positive values in you, and helping you to achieve your goals. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can really help in improving performance or productivity like you can give yourself rewards after completion of a project or any small accomplishments, these things can really help to boost morale. This can also boost positive emotions within you which are the foremost kindest gift one can ask for (Life satisfaction).

How can we keep ourselves motivated?

Some of the ways of keeping your self-motivated are mentioned below:-

• Follow Your Passion: It’s recommended to follow your heart, do the work that you truly relish or enjoy doing. Following your passion is seriously the best gift you can give to yourself. Once you love the work you are doing, you may never feel motiveless rather you will always feel motivated to explore more and more in that arena and enjoy living with a sense of satisfaction and peace of mind.

• Positive Environment: Living in a healthy and positive atmosphere is very essential because when you are surrounded by kind and hard-working people then the same qualities are enlightened in you. They motivate you and encourage you to never give up. Your company really matters as qualities your friends possess might influence you too.

• Consistent Efforts: Persistent hard work is really important, consistent efforts boost your self- confidence and you tend to feel high self-worth as a result you view yourself as a hard-working individual who continuously works for his dream and this positive image of yourself will motivate you to keep going until you accomplish your dreams.

• Proper Schedule: A healthy lifestyle and righteous schedule is really vital as they assist to keep the body and health in good condition. Further a good time table helps to develop positive habits and encourage you to work as per your schedule. Simply just in case if you miss doing work as per your time table you may begin to feel anxiety and restlessness. Thus, maintaining a proper schedule helps to maintain healthy habits which keep us going, motivating us to work to chase our dreams.

• Inspiring Idol: Choose your idol very carefully. It is very important to have a successful idol, a person you can look up to, a person who can inspire you to work for your dreams. Your idol can be anyone, your parents, an army personnel or a successful businessman etc. Idol is one whose journey motivates us to struggle, who motivates us to follow the right path and who motivates us to fight bravely to numerous challenges of life.

• Healthy Habits: Having good habits are recommended i.e. you can watch good movies or consume healthy or positive content when you are free or having a break. Watching an inspiring movie or documentaries of successful people rather than scrolling in your free time can really help to encourage positive emotions within you. Thus, keeping you enlightened and motivated.

• Learning from failures: Setbacks and failures provide us the everlasting motivation than anything else may provide. They encourage us to work hard so that one never has to face the difficult times that they had seen earlier. Sometimes a fall in career teaches us the most that nobody ever may.

• Daily Assessment: Assessing yourself is admittedly necessary. You should keep track of your daily progress and evaluate yourself concerning whether or not you have given your 100 percent. You can also give yourself a reward after completion of each goal, it doesn’t matter how small or big it is. For example you can buy yourself a good shirt after scoring a good score in an exam, but not necessarily materialistic things. These sweet gestures can really help to keep your morale up.

To conclude, “Everything you do should be a pure expression of yourself. What you need to be, what you do and say. Otherwise, your actions and words will be incongruent. As a result, you will feel an emptiness, a void, a sense of unfulfillment that leads to unhappiness ”. Follow your passion and do whatever your heart says but be careful that your actions should not harm someone else.