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How to motivate yourself

Maggi Fitzpatrick
Posted 1/21/25

   If you set goals for the new year and you’re still making progress towards them, congratulations! You’ve made it past “Quitter’s Day.” The second Friday in …

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How to motivate yourself

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   If you set goals for the new year and you’re still making progress towards them, congratulations! You’ve made it past “Quitter’s Day.” The second Friday in January is often referred to as “Quitter’s Day” because this is when we see the largest dropoff in goal adherence for the new year. If you’re one of the people who hasn’t had as much success with your goals, don’t worry. Sticking to new goals is challenging, and motivation may be one of the reasons why. 

Having motivation is one of the best feelings. It often brings along with it bounds of energy and the feeling that we can do anything. Unfortunately, those feelings can be short-lived because they usually come from something outside of us, usually referred to as external motivation. This is why sticking to goals made in the new year is quite difficult. 

The new year brings a lot of external motivation, which leads us to feel like we will have the same energy until our goal is met. The reality is that the energy we have from the external motivation of the new year often goes away after just a few short weeks. 

This is why relying on motivation to reach our goals is dangerous. Motivation is fleeting, and doesn’t show up in the same way every day. Sometimes we can get bursts of energy because we’ve been inspired, and sometimes we can wake up feeling like taking the necessary actions to reach our goals is the last thing we want to do. Jumping straight from having no motivation to taking action feels impossible. Instead of waiting until we “feel like it” to take action, we must generate motivation ourselves. 

If we want to bridge the gap between having no motivation and actually taking action, we must take a few steps in between. Let’s say your goal requires you to exercise. Like me, you probably don’t feel motivated to do your workout every single day. 

On the days we don’t feel motivated, we can generate our own motivation through actions that change our state of mind. For example, one of my favorite ways to generate motivation to do my workout is to turn on my workout playlist. 

Once I start hearing the music I usually listen to while I’m exercising, I automatically start to feel a little bit more motivated to get started. This makes it a little bit easier to go from not wanting to do it, to getting it done. Before I know it, my workout clothes are on and I’ve started to move.

The same concept can apply to any goal we have in any area of life. Setting up a clean, calming work station can help us get work done when we don’t feel like it. Lighting a candle or turning down the lights can be a sign to your body that it’s time to start winding down for bed.     

Turning on a light before you feel like getting up can trigger you to wake up. Expecting yourself to go from having no motivation directly to taking action is setting you up for failure. If you can find in-between steps that help you generate your own motivation, you’ll find being consistent towards your goals a little bit easier. 

Xoxo

Coach Maggi 

 

 

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