9 Ways To Stay Motivated And Achieve Your Goals

Did you make resolutions for the new year? Learn how to stay motivated so you can achieve your goals for 2018!

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1. Set Small, Realistic Goals

When it comes to getting motivated, nothing is more important than setting goals. Setting goals allows you to fix your attention on a single idea—something that you truly want to achieve. Having goals allows you to visualize how your life will be different when you accomplish them.

Whenever you set goals, you should always start small. In the book, Finish: Give Yourself The Gift Of Done, Jon Acuff recommends cutting your initial goal in half!

If the goal turns out to be too easy, then you’ll only be more encouraged by your progress when you surpass your goal easily. But if you start out big, you could find yourself highly discouraged.

Decide what it is that you truly want to accomplish; and then write that goal down on paper.

2. Visualize Your Goals

When you think about your goals, try to visualize the benefits that will come from them. Focusing on these benefits will help you develop a clearer, stronger rationale for accomplishing your goals.

There’s a growing amount of evidence that visualization can play an important role in helping people to attain goals. Visualization is the practice of focusing on something you plan to do in the future; and then mentally simulating everything as it plays out.

Professional athletes often use visualization to imagine themselves winning races, scoring goals, or coming back from disadvantages. Walking through the motions in advance of the actual scenario can make it easier and more natural when the actual event occurs.

3. Create a Detailed Plan

Confusion and disorganization often makes it hard to get motivated. When we don’t know what’s coming next, it’s hard to move from step to the next without getting lost.

This is why it is important to map out a detailed plan before you attempt to achieve your goal. Then you can easily look at the plan to find out what you should do next.

4. Hold Yourself Accountable

When it comes to accomplishing your goals and staying motivated, it is important to employ “commitment devices.” A commitment device is any strategy that will give strong incentives to adhere to your commitment, even when there is no third party enforcing that commitment.

Find ways to make yourself accountable to someone else. Whether that person is your spouse, a friend, a co-worker, or someone else important in your life, give them a stake in your success. Keep them involved in your progress towards your goal and let them know when you need them to push you harder.

Another highly effective commitment device is to post your goals publicly. You can do this on social media, on a blog, or you can simply announce them to your family members and friends. By sharing your goal with others, it’s harder for you to give up on your goals!

5. Have a good support system

One of the factors that typically differentiates those who achieve their goals from those who do not is a strong support network. These should be people that will support you emotionally and are there for you whether you succeed or not.

No matter what goal you are trying to accomplish, your friends will play a role in determining how successful you are. If they cheer you on, check up on you, and encourage you, you’ll remain motivated; and you’ll accomplish that goal in short order. And if they tell you it’s impossible and that you’ll surely fail, you’ll feel less confident; and you’ll give up when the going gets tough.

If you make an effort to surround yourself with those who are positive and supportive, you’ll soon find that your goals are easier to achieve than you otherwise thought.

6. Maintain A Positive Attitude

Thinking positively may sound like generic advice that has no value, but in fact, it is a critical component of success. Thinking positively shapes how you see the world, how you make decisions, and how you feel about those decisions at the end of the day.

So, next time you start thinking “I can’t do this,” think again. Start with the premise that you can do it; and then figure out how. For instance, maybe you can’t do the task by yourself, but if you ask for the help of others, you may find that the task is trivial.

Self-confidence is an important part of motivation. This is why it is so important to stay focused on your strengths, rather than your weaknesses.

No matter what you do, don’t give in to negativity. Thinking negatively will drain your motivation; and make it much harder to achieve your goals.

RELATED: 10 INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES TO START YOUR DAY WITH A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

7. Get Inspired By The Success Of Others

One of the best ways to get motivated is to read about others who have had success in what you are trying to achieve. Regardless of whether your goal is to pay off debt, lose weight, or eat healthier, there’s countless stories of people who have achieved the same goal you are working towards.

If you’re like most people, you can visualize yourself being successful, but along the way, you probably have a harder time visualizing how you will overcome all of the challenges along the way. Reading about how others faced challenges and overcame them will help you to see how you can do it, too.

8. Celebrate Each Small Success

Staying motivated is often harder than getting motivated in the first place. This is why it is important to find daily ways in which you can celebrate your achievements so that you can stay motivated in the long run.

Give yourself a small reward, take a break, or let others know about what you have accomplished. This will make you feel better about yourself; and will reinforce your achievement of additional objectives.

9. Find What Inspires You

It could be reading blogs where you learn about other people’s stories and hearing about how they’ve motivated themselves, how they’ve overcome challenges, and how they have experienced successes.

Others are inspired by reading autobiographies or books that are explicitly written for motivational purposes. Find self-help books, memoirs, or guides for whatever area of your life you are working on improving.

RELATED: 8 MUST-READ BOOKS TO INSPIRE CHANGE & PERSONAL GROWTH

Maybe it’s creating a vision board with pictures and quotes and displaying it in a prominent place at home or work. Or creating a Pinterest board full of things that inspire you.

How To Accomplish Your Goals

If you truly want to accomplish your goals, you have to start by getting motivated.

Fortunately, motivation is almost entirely driven by internal moods and decisions. This means that you have a great deal of control over it; and can change it whenever you desire to get better results. It’s just a matter of you making that decision and following through.

So, no matter where you find yourself today, there are ways to get motivated, to turn things around, and to accomplish your goals.