How to Stay Motivated to Reach Your Goals

Setting goals is a great way to increase your happiness and productivity—if you can stay motivated to accomplish them. It isn’t easy to exercise self-discipline, but there are things you can do to stay motivated to reach your goals.

Identify Your Why

What is the reason behind your goal? Knowing why you want to accomplish what you’ve set out to do is a powerful motivator that can help you stay focused and give you the strength to resist distractions and overcome obstacles.

Make it Visual

Put your goal in writing, draw a picture of it, or print out an image or quote that reminds you of what you want to accomplish. By keeping it in front of you you’re more likely to think about your goal and feel motivated to keep going with it.

Declutter

Distractions and clutter in any form can bog you down and prevent you from pursuing the things that are important. Identify things that may be distracting you from your purpose. Then remove those things, or move them to where they belong in the order of priority.

Expect Obstacles

Any goal comes with potential problems that could derail you. Instead of allowing this to happen, expect problems to arise and make a plan to deal with them. As soon as you encounter an obstacle, figure out if it’s something you can influence or not. This will prevent you from wasting energy on things you can’t control and moving forward even when the going gets tough.

Be Positive

Whether things are going smoothly or you’ve hit a bumpy patch, always engage in positive self-talk. Optimistic thinking will subdue doubts and self-criticism and instead increase your confidence and affirm positive belief in yourself.

Reward Yourself

A reward doesn’t have to be big or cost money. You can use stickers on a chart or schedule time out to do something you enjoy. Recognizing when you’ve made progress increases your feelings of happiness and gratification, and motivates you to continue moving forward.

Remember, goals are there to help you grow and become the person you want to be. If a goal is no longer serving that purpose, you can discard it without guilt and set a new one. But if your goal is a good one and you simply feel that you need more motivation to accomplish it, try some of these ideas to keep you motivated as you pursue your journey of personal growth.