The Formula for What Motivates You to Achieve Your Goals
Not all goals create motivation the same. Goals that are too easy or too hard drive very little motivation. In addition, goals you have no idea how to achieve or that highlight your weaknesses won’t do anything other than frustrate you.
What motivates you to achieve your goals comes down to setting a goal that has at least these four elements.
1) Motivation to Achieve Your Goals Through Visualization
The goal is something you can visualize in detail. This visualization is extremely specific down to things you are doing in the moments before, during, and after you achieve the goal. This includes all the inspiring and deeply positive emotions associated with those moments around achieving the goal.
2) Motivation to Achieve Your Goals Through Confidence
What it takes to achieve the goal must only feel slightly difficult to you. When something is only slightly difficult, you can still be confident that you can do what it takes to overcome the difficulty. This usually means you not only know what you must do, but you also know other people in a similar situation as you who have done the same thing.
3) Motivation to Achieve Your Goals Through Using a Progression
The “what” and the “how” to achieve your goals must include a process that is a progression. For example, if you want to run a marathon, the process is a walk, jog, run progression. This allows for tiny victories along the way, realistic growth to higher levels of difficulty, and the ongoing motivation that comes from making it to the next level.
4) Motivation to Achieve Your Goals Through Using Your Strengths
The “what” and the “how” to achieve your goals must leverage your strengths and not depend on you turning a weakness into a strength. It’s a fact that you’re at your best when you’re doing what you’re best at, and that’s using your strengths.
You can find your strengths in the activities you love to do, or you could use something like the Gallup “CliftonStrengths” tool to find them. Regardless of how you do it, when your process leverages your strengths, motivation is effortless. On the other hand, the effort and grind it takes to turn a weakness into a strength will do nothing more than distract you from your goal.