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Image courtesy of Julianne Hide
You have put together your goal list. You are excited, motivated and your blood is boiling. Diligently, you work on your goals, making daily regular progress. Then one day – about a month or so later – you decide that you don’t feel like working on your goals today. Or perhaps you think, “This idea is stupid! What was I thinking?” and that is the end of the goal list.
This funk is not unusual – I used to go through this sort of thing every year. I’d start something, build up excitement over it and then discard it, feeling foolish that I ever thought it was a good idea in the first place. This may be one of the reasons that there are so many unfinished novels in the world. It is almost as if we try to sabotage ourselves. I personally call this annoying phase my “dark night of the soul.”
Below are a few ways that I have found to help get out of this funk:
1. Recognizing the funk
One of the first steps you can take to get out of the funk is simply recognizing it when it hits. After many years of going through the same thing and abandoning my projects or goals, one year I thought “Oh, you again!” At last I recognized this foul mood occurs regularly – and usually has nothing to do with my choice of projects or goals. Once you recognize it for what it is, it becomes much easier to say, “Ah – it’s only my yearly funk setting in.”
2. Refuse to give in right away
Another way in which I fought the urge to abandon my goals, was to set a minimum time limit for myself before quitting. I tell myself, “Okay, I have lost interest in this and I now think it’s a waste of time. But I will continue to work at it for one more month. If I still feel the same way at the end of the month, then I will chalk it up to a bad decision.
3. Don’t break the chain
I once read of a technique where every day you accomplished or made progress on your goal, you would cross off the day on the calendar. The idea was that you would not want to “break the chain”. I actually use a little different technique. Two things that I want to do everyday without fail is to practice my harp and work on my Spanish lessons. For each day that I accomplish this, I put a gold star on the calendar for each task (I have a special calendar just for this). I then connect the stars so that I don’t “break the chain”.
4. Visually remind yourself of your progress
Sometimes, a visual reminder of your progress is enough to keep you motivated and excited about your project. For example, if you are writing a novel, print out your completed pages at the end of every day and keep it within sight. Visually seeing the size of your novel grow can provide much needed inspiration.
5. Use your support group
Talk up your project to one or more people and ask them to be your support group for when times get tough. Sometimes all we need is for someone to tell us, “Now, now, this is just a temporary phase. So just shut up and get back to work!”
Do you have any tricks of your own to keep yourself motivated?
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