A few weeks ago, I put out a poll on Instagram and asked you guys to let me know what you wanted me to talk about and to ask me anything related to how to stay motivated, strengthen your mindset, and crush bigger goals. I reviewed all of your questions and took the most popular questions to create today’s episode for you! So here we go!
The Most Common Questions About Motivation:
Tee, It’s So Hard To Stay Motivated. What are some things I can do when I lack the motivation to work on my goals?
I’m glad you asked! But before we get into this, I just wanna give you a quick breakdown of what motivation is! Because we talk about it everywhere in the personal development space. It’s definitely a necessary force, emotion, mindset, energy that we can use to take our life and business to new heights, but most of the time, when we hear about motivation, it’s talking about some kind of external stimulation or reward. But what if your strongest form of motivation was already inside you waiting to be unlocked?
What Is Motivation?
At the core, motivation is your reason for doing something. People call this finding your why or understanding the reason why you do something and they attribute motivation to all kinds of things. For parents, your kids could be your motivation, for business leaders, helping people transform their life could be the reason you started the business, for musicians, the ability to impact many people at the same time could be your motivation!
Now these are all good reasons to pursue your dreams and go for what you want. But there is an even deeper motivation you can tap into. It’s the one that is driven from within. For me, one of my biggest motivations is the fact that I am in alignment, living my purpose, and excelling at what I was designed to do.
Hearing people cheer me on and tell me how proud of me they are is nice, but it doesn’t motivate me to keep going. The reason I and the team publish these blogs and podcasts every week, the reason I post on Instagram almost every day, and so on is because I know this is a part of what I was designed to do. This is my calling so I’m motivated from within.
And then I have additional motivators like deeply caring about you and your success and wanting to see you win, whether you become a client or not, is another reason why I’ve chosen to turn this podcast into a resources library for goal-getters and trailblazers!
How Can You Stay Motivated?
So, what are some things you can do to stay motivated with your goals so you can finally see some results? Find out what motivates you from the inside first. External motivators are secondary. I know your intention is to change your life, grow into who you’re meant to be, and fulfill your personal destiny. But if you keep allowing lack of motivation to be the reason why you have incomplete goals, then what else does that reveal about you? Because the way you do one thing is the way you do everything.
So if you choose to hide behind the reason that you haven’t achieved your goals is due to a lack of motivation, could this also be revealing that you’re unwilling to take responsibility for your life, do what needs to get done, and persist when faced with challenges?
I started out with a lot of energy and focus toward my goals and have been seeing progress.
But now, because it’s taking a while to see the full growth I was anticipating, I find myself procrastinating. What can I do to rekindle my fire?
I totally understand falling off course, getting distracted, and filling your time with other things that are unrelated to your goals when you feel like it’s taking a long time to manifest or become tangible. So instead of looking at this process as having something happen to you that is taking too long or your results are delayed, let’s look at what else this situation could mean.
- Could it be that there are lessons you have yet to learn that are preventing you from graduating from this class/this phase in life?
- Could it be that you are where you are because of the choices you’ve made and all that needs to be done is for you to make new choices?
- Could it be that you’ve been working on all of the wrong things that led you nowhere and now you’re wondering where your results are but the truth might be that you’ve been planting apple trees and now you’re looking for pears? The science doesn’t add up. You will never gather pears after planting apple seeds. You won’t gather big success after you’ve been working on things that only produce small success. You feel me?
Maybe you can book a meeting with yourself and be real about what you’ve been doing so you can create something better.
Related Post: 3 Fears That Will Keep You Stuck If You Don’t Get Rid of Them
I’m finding it hard to stay consistent. What are some things I can do?
My goals just feel so big! I know I still want to work toward them, but I’m finding it hard to stay consistent. What are some things I can do?
I love this question and it’s something I hear often. Many people find it challenging to prioritize one goal above the other because they all seem exciting and important. But here’s what I teach my students in 90-days: One Goal. Done is better than perfect and getting started is better than wishing you had started sooner.
So what do you do if you find yourself in this boat? Scrap your 12-month goal! Yes, you heard me right! Get rid of it! Stop trying to attain it, because that is the hardest, longest, and most excruciating way to go about achieving your goals. Instead, use a 90-day framework, adopt quarterly goal-setting into your life and you’ll find that your path to success becomes clear and progress is made a lot faster!
How Do I Use A 90-day Framework?
I have a full episode dedicated to walking you through that process called 90-day Goals: What They Are, Where to Start, & How to Create One so you can check that out for all the deets, but here’s a basic summary. 90-Day goals help you to set attainable goals, measure your progress, and build momentum over the long haul. Without them, you end up wasting a ton of time (even years) trying to figure out what you’re doing wrong. Hitting your goals require more work than necessary and you’ll wonder why nothing seems to work for you or things never go as planned and eventually, you might give up and start working on a new goal or idea, only to end up with the same result…nothing to show for all your efforts.
So when you say that your goals are so big, what are you comparing them to? How do you know they are big? Compared to what? Are you comparing them to the people around you whose biggest dream is to buy a house, grow in their career, and raise a family? That’s a beautiful dream! But if your dream is to impact a generation of people, create new laws in your country that promote good health and well-being for everyone, produce music that expresses the deepest longings of the human heart, and write books that become timeless classics and are taught to children everywhere, then your dreams are uncomparable!
There is nothing to compare them to! You are in a league of your own. Your dreams set you apart. It’s your calling, vision, and possibly even your purpose. God gives the download and you caught the vision. Now, it’s your responsibility to implement it. Bring it to life. How it happens is not as important as getting started. The path will reveal itself as you take each step, but if you believe the lie that it’s hard to be consistent BECAUSE your dreams are big, then you are the one preventing yourself from doing what you’re capable of.
So here’s some food for thought:
Can you think of a time in your life when you were consistent with something and it was easy? It doesn’t have to be a fancy example like building a business and you were consistent. It could be that you attended school consistently every day, you attended bible study every week consistently, you attended birthday parties every year for your closest friends, consistently cared for a pet, children, or an elderly or sick family member.
This PROVES that you have the ability to be consistent. So if you’ve done in the past, couldn’t you find a way to do it again today? Think about the times when you didn’t know how long you would need to be consistent but you stuck with it. Maybe you were changing your diet for health reasons, started working out or taking walks outside, and you didn’t enjoy it at first, but over time, it became a necessity. Could you recreate a similar experience in your life that will help you to remain consistent with your goals?
Because here’s the thing. The way we do one thing reveals how we do everything. So if you could be consistent in one area, that means you have the ability to replicate that in other areas. You choose how and when you want to be consistent.
The Most Common Questions About Mindset:
I know a lot of people talk about the power of the mind to help us create what we want, but Tee, can you break it down and kinda explain how this all works? Thanks in advance!
Yes! I read this question and smiled because I remember hearing all the same things you hear about the power of the mind and my main question was “okay this all sounds great, but how do I actually use this in my day-to-day life?”. So here’s the most basic layout for how the mind works and how we use it to create our lives and achieve our dreams.
Out-Dated Science:
Years ago, scientists believed that we were genetically limited or bound to repeat the same patterns, ways of thinking, and being as our parents. This is where the popular saying “the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree” came from. We were taught that if your parents died of lung cancer, you were doomed to have the same experience because it was genetic. If your parents were broke and considered to be incapable of earning more money or not smart enough to understand things about money, life, etc. that could help them improve, then based on science, people would assume that you were doomed to the same experience and they started calling it fate or destiny.
Most people back then, instead of trying to beat the odds or change the trajectory of their lives, would end up believing what others had declared to be true about them and creating the same reality for themselves that their parents had exposed them to which people then used as a confirmation to say “wow, I guess the apple really doesn’t fall too far from the tree” but it was a self-fulfilled prophecy!
Related Post: Courage: The Essential Ingredient To Building Any Dream
Neuroscience:
Now we know, based on neuroscience, that our brain is moldable and this has been true for AGES! Even Paul, a writer in the bible, says “renew your mind…become a new creation”. This simply means when we change our mind, make new decisions, gain a new perspective, have a new outlook on life, we automatically, as a result of this change, create something that we have never had or experienced before.
Why Does This Happen? How Does This Work?
There is a lot that goes into which I can definitely share with you in another episode on another day but basically, what happens is whenever we allow a new thought to enter our mind, it creates a new neuropathway in our mind. If we continue to feed that thought or idea, it grows stronger and creates something like a new highway or train of thought or something we call a way of thinking. This strengthens new thoughts or ideas and produces a tangible change in our behavior which creates lasting change in our life.
So we are not doomed to repeat the mistakes of the people around us or who raised us. We are individual people who can choose our thoughts, choose which ideas to implement, decide who we want to be and what we want to achieve and therefore create and experience anything we want.
This is why I always say anything is possible! Because truly anything is possible for us if we’re willing to create it.
How do I train my mind for success with my goals?
Here’s the crazy thing that I think about this. Because, as I said earlier, we are often on the hunt for motivational or inspiring content that empowers us to pursue our dreams, but what happened to us in life that caused us to forget how brilliant, creative, and capable we truly are?
Motivational content should be the cherry on top of the confidence, clarity, and drive you naturally have. It shouldn’t be the reason you get out of bed or work the way that you do. When I look at my kids who are 5, 3, and 1 years old, they are confident beyond what anyone thinks about them. They will sing at the top of their lungs no matter where they are or who’s with them. They will dance and look silly as heck but be having the most fun in the room!
They don’t need a motivator to tell them which goals to work on, how to do it, or when to do it. They want something and so they get up and get it. If it’s not within reach, they ask for help, negotiate for me or my husband to get it for them, or figure out a way to create it for themselves!
This is all so simple! But we’ve lost sight of who we are on the inside and we live in a world that tells us we need approval and affirmation from various things on the outside and so if we don’t get those signs of approval, we doubt ourselves, our ideas, our path and wonder if we’re doing something wrong or if we’re off course.
But what if you didn’t need to train your mind for success? What if you just needed to analyze your thoughts and uncover the lies that have been keeping you stuck for YEARS? What if, instead of covering up the facts to yourself, you begin to be honest about the fact that although you really desire to achieve your dream, you have not been doing what’s necessary for you to get there. You don’t ask for help, you’re not willing to invest in the training, coaching, tools, and resources you need to move your life or business forward, you’re not open to doing new things that will cause you to grow and so you’ve been where you are for the last 5 years and you’re wondering what’s going on. Hey God, you gave me this dream but it still hasn’t happened? Why? But you’re unwilling to admit to yourself that you are the reason why you are where you are and for that reason, you’ll stay there until you’re ready to work through it.
So my answer to the question: how do I train my mind for success with my goals? You don’t need to. Because you were born with everything you need to win so it might be time to unlearn some things that will free you of dead weight in your life so you can get to the next level!
Related Post: The One Thing That Might Be Keeping You From Your Goals & How To Overcome It
What are some affirmations I can use to increase productivity, focus, and drive?
Affirmations are a great way to program some new beliefs, but this won’t work if you only try to add it on top of the contradictory beliefs you already have. If you have a fear of being judged and criticized, but you haven’t acknowledged or worked through it, then trying to do affirmations like “I am unstoppable” or “I have everything I need to be successful” won’t change anything in your life because in your mind, you’re still wrestling against strong beliefs that have been deeply embedded in your mind for a long time.
Here’s where I would get started if I were in your shoes. I would spend some time everyday working through the root of the fear and removing the stories and ideas that allow it to thrive. Here’s what I mean. Every belief is rooted in a story. Whether it’s true or not, productive or not, beneficial or not, I would uncover the stories I created around the belief and be honest with myself about the benefits I get from holding onto these beliefs. Then I would look objectively at what exactly is happening and the results I have in my life because of these beliefs and examine if these beliefs are truly benefiting me or not.
Here’s an example:
I believe that people will judge me if I put myself out there and start working on a music album so I’ve been writing songs in secret, going to the studio here and there but not really actively putting in the consistent work I need to see results.
How does this belief benefit me?
Well, I get to procrastinate and put things off.
Where will I be in the next 3 months if I keep doing this?
Not any closer to my dreams. Still in my comfort zone, feeling stuck and unproductive
What will I let go of in order to attain my dream and really live my life in alignment with my purpose?
Overthinking, putting too much attention on what others think about what I do and who I am, fear of failure, etc.
What can I start doing today?
This will answer will give you a clear direction to start off in, so you can finally make your goals a reality.
Have More Questions?
If I didn’t answer your question, …no worries, my friend! You can submit your question and who knows, it might just end up getting featured in our next podcast episode!
