During the height of my illness I had many interesting and lively conversations with my medical team.  The source of motivation was one of them.  One doc in particular believed that motivation was a limited resource within us, could be called upon regardless of mood or the reason why, and that it would run out.  I strongly disagreed.  

I had learned quickly through the early days of my illness that motivation is a state of mind.  On my good days I would get up, go to work.  On my less-than-good days, it took great effort to get off the sofa.  I love to cook, but I lost my joy for it, but if my family were coming round it was easier for me to want to cook (and cook in large quantities so I could freeze some).

And because motivation is a state of mind, I could manipulate it.  The happier and more content I felt, the more motivated I was to do something.  Who you are doing it for, ups the game.  If you’re not feeling great, but have a family to care for, you find (enough) energy to show up for them and you.

So how can we play motivation to our advantage.  There are four levels of motivation, but here I’ll focus on the first three (the fourth is what you do for your god).

Level 1 – What you do for yourself

What you do for yourself is the lowest level of motivation as it’s so easy to put ourselves very low on the priority list.  I’ll do it later/tomorrow/next week is extremely common, and seems fine, yes?  But, every time you do this you are breaking a promise to yourself, it gives evidence to those limiting beliefs and dings your confidence.  

Ask yourself – What do you do for yourself that you enjoy/makes you happy?  What do you not enjoy/makes you unhappy?  If you can delegate the unhappy list, brilliant.  If not, what can you tag on from the happy list, to make the unhappy list a little less unhappy.  Could you listen to your fave podcast whilst working out?  

Also, is your why enough?  When it came to choosing between laying on the sofa or doing my housework, sofa won every time, but if I thought of the wanting to live in a clean home vs an unclean home that would add to my health issues, my health would overpower the pull of the sofa.

Think about a goal you have, or something on the to-do list and can you apply any of the positive stuff to achieving the goal?

Level 2 – What others think of you

What others think of you can be a great motivator, and it can also be quite destructive for motivation.  To have others tell you you’re doing really well and cheering you on is brilliant.  But, if you have someone in your life who is not supportive, or if you have false beliefs of what people think of you (your own limiting beliefs ie you think you’re a failure so you’ve convinced yourself that others think you are), motivation wanes very quickly.  

Thinking about the same goal from level one, ask yourself – do I have evidence those opinions are real?  Who can I surround myself with who will be supportive?

Level 3 – What you do for others

An intrinsic human need is to provide value and contribution to others.  What you do for others is a very powerful source of motivation and others, such as family, is usually the most powerful “why” behind goals that get set. 

It’s the power behind making a difference, having accountability to others.  You only have to look at the thousands of runners lining up in the charity zone of London marathon to see it.  There to raise money for important causes, most of whom wouldn’t be there for the heck of it, nor would they have put themselves through long training runs on cold, wet, wintery days without having a strong, powerful, why to keep them going.

What do you do for others that you enjoy/makes you happy?  What do you not enjoy/makes you unhappy?  How can you add more of what makes you happy, and tag it on to what doesn’t, to give you a positivity boost? How can you apply those to meeting your goal from level 1?

With motivation being a state of mind, for me, I also found that little and often, especially when it came to housework, was so much easier than trying to do several hours, both physically and mentally.  The thought of 15 minutes of dusting the lounge is much more achievable than viewing it as dusting, tidying, hoovering which will “take hours…”.  It’s a trick I still use with running.  I rarely stop after 15 minutes.  

Motivation, like confidence, grows with doing.  The more we do, and the easier we begin to find it, the more motivated we are to keep going.  

For the ultimate worksheet to walk you through transforming your motivation, click here