Douglas: Welcome to the Unleash Your Potential Blog, what question can I answer for you today?
AmbitionAdvocate: What techniques can help me stay focused and motivated?
Douglas: Thank you for asking. This question is one I frequently ask myself. In fact, as I sit here at my computer getting ready to write, I find myself struggling to focus on the task of writing my blog and there is a definite dip in my motivation this morning.
So I will start by being a bit off task, but I promise I will get back to the question at hand. As you can see by the blog title, “Unleash Your Potential #60 – Staying Focused and Motivated,” today is day number 60 of 100. That means that at the end of this entry, I will have successfully written every day for 2 months. I consider that a big win! I am prone to dig into a task for a couple of days with great energy and enthusiasm and then I move on to something else. However, with this task, I have written for 2 solid months. Within those 2 months, there was a 5-day vacation and a couple of 2-day vacations which necessitated me writing early so the entries could post while I was away. How did I stay focused and motivated through the last 2 months? Now I am ready to dig into the question at hand!
Harness Intrinsic Value
Goal setting is an important part of being focused and motivated. SMARTR goals give us a target to stay focused on and motivated toward. More important than that, however, is that the goal has to have intrinsic value to you. In previous posts, I have talked about the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic refers to something for which the value comes from within you. It is a powerful force. Extrinsic is something you value because of someone or something outside of you. For example, intrinsic is a project you value because it is important to you, and extrinsic is a project you value because it is important to your boss.
Returning to my 100-day blog, this is important to me as I continue to develop my coaching brand, Identity Evolution. It is also important to me as I develop my skills as a coach. Engaging in these questions every day focuses me on thinking about, researching, and answering these questions on a variety of topics that might come up with actual clients.
Staying focused and motivated is about finding intrinsic motivation for the projects you are working on. If it is a project for work, how can you locate an intrinsic motivator for that project the boss assigned you? You might not believe in the project at the outset, but remember why the job is important to you and acknowledge that doing well on the project is part of keeping the job. I also find I am intrinsically motivated by my desire to do my best effort for every project I undertake. When I committed to complete the 100-day blog, I wanted to do it to the best of my ability and not leave it half-done. That has helped me to be focused and motivated throughout the last 60 days. The point is, that when the task means something to you, you are far more likely to stay focused and motivated.
Make it a habit
Choosing 100 days for my blog project wasn’t a completely random number. First of all, for some reason 100 seems to be a psychologically important number…perhaps because it is the first 3-digit number, I am not sure. But think about it, in school (especially elementary school) they look back around Oct/Nov at the first 100 days. Politicians are often asked the question, “What are you going to accomplish in the first 100 days?” We seem to find this number to be significant. Additionally, I wanted to form a habit of writing. There is a pearl of folk wisdom that it takes 30 days to form a habit, but I haven’t found much hard proof behind that, however, repetition is key to habit formation. Instead of 30 days, I wanted to stay focused for significantly longer and 100 days (over 3 times as much) seemed a stretch, but doable. The first key to a habit is to do it regularly, in my case daily.
The second key to forming a habit is to do it at the same time. My blog writing happens at almost the same time, every day. My alarm goes off at 5:05, I engage in morning prayer, and by 5:30, I am at my computer writing my blog for the day. It is always the second thing I do upon waking up and it always follows morning prayer. By this point, when I do my morning prayer (even if I set my alarm a little bit later), I feel compelled to then sit and write. That’s how I know that writing my blog has become a habit, it becomes something I don’t have to think about, it just happens. I am motivated to focus on my blog and finish it every morning.
There are tons of answers to the question, “What techniques can help me stay focused and motivated?” And this is not the first time I have written about this topic and certainly won’t be the last. Fortunately, there is a lot of information out there about motivation and I have spent a lifetime trying to figure out how to be motivated myself. Today I offer the ideas of developing intrinsic value and making it a habit.
I hope my answer sheds some light on your question. If you want to dig into this concept further, I encourage you to reach out and set up a conversation. In the meantime, check back tomorrow for the next question in the Unleash Your Potential Series!
Be Well!
Comments