Meaningful motivation gets you your heart’s desire
If I had a nickel for every person who set out to achieve a goal and abandoned it along the way I’d be a very wealth woman. Getting started or sticking with a plan for change is often a challenge. The Ultimate Guide to Motivation is jam packed with great ideas about how to achieve your goal.
Setting yourself up for failure
Typically people jump into an action plan without having spent enough time thinking about “why am I doing this?” Because “I should” or someone else thinks “you should” are rarely good enough reasons to propel you toward your goal. Or doing it for some vague reason like “better health” or “my family” often won’t sustain you through the inevitable tough patches you will encounter. And superficial reasons like “looking super hot at my high school reunion” might get you so far but they likely won’t help you maintain your goal once the reunion has come and gone.
Find a meaningful motive
One key to success is to find a meaningful motive - one that resonates with you at a heart level. You have to have a reason for doing something and when it comes to change, especially big change, you want that reason to be closely linked to the things that are most important to you. Doing that will help you get through any roadblocks with greater ease.
Listening to your heart
Sometimes it takes a little work to plug into your meaningful motive. You have to look past the first couple of superficial layers to get to what really matters. What does your heart want? Do you want to get in shape to be able to participate fully in your children’s lives? Do you want to get your life back in balance to have more and richer time with your partner? Do you want to de-clutter your house so you have a sacred space to honor yourself?
Taking time for personal reflection helps to connect to your meaningful motive. You’ll know you are getting close when you get a little lump in your throat or are a bit teary eyed. That’s a good sign that you’ve plugged into your heart. Motivation from this place is powerful.
Re-connect daily
Create a vivid picture in your mind or design a vision board so you can see clearly why this change is meaningful - why you are willing to stick with it until you’re successful.
Then as you implement your action plan, revisit that motive daily. In the midst of things, it’s easy to lose sight of why you are doing something. Plugging back in each day helps you keep both your goal and your motive top of mind.
You can have your heart’s desire. Just let your heart help guide the way.
