Have you ever experienced a lack in motivation? If you said yes, congratulations–you’re human! Are there times when you seem to have more motivation or times when you just can’t seem to muster up your motivational mojo and get moving in the direction you really want to go?
I’ve been thinking about what moves people to be–and-stay motivated. More specifically how we find motivation for something that we know needs our attention but we don’t naturally feel inclined to do it. Right now for me, my flower beds need weeding before the mulch arrives. We have many flower beds so it’s not a one day affair or a few hours of work but many hours of work over several days. Since I’m not a passionate gardener and pulling weeds is not how I truly want to spend my days off, I do enjoy the end result of my decision to attend to the flower beds. Plus, I get the benefit of admiring how beautiful everything looks all summer long once I’ve done the work.
Because financial wellness is my superpower, it’s easy for me to feel inspired. I love this stuff and I’ve done it for years. But because gardening isn’t my strength or what I feel passionate about, inspiration doesn’t come so easy.
Can you relate? Is there something that needs your attention right now? Is it your health, getting your home organized, or maybe evaluating certain aspects of your financial life. Maybe your financial foundation is solid–you make lots of money but your spending isn’t in alignment with your values and you aren’t saving and investing the way you should be for a more prosperous life.
If you’re finding it a challenge to muster up your financial motivation, here are 2 ways you can tap into your financial mojo:
1. Don’t wait for motivation to show up, create it: Never sit and wait for motivation to show up once you’ve made the important decision to take control of your financial life. Otherwise, you could be waiting a long time. This is a common mistake people make, thinking that magically they’ll feel motivated to attend to their financial matters after having a determined thought to do so. So they wait…and wait…and wait. And when motivation never arrives, they give up and make excuses for why they’re not good with money even though that’s not really a true statement at all.
What you need to do instead is to follow up your decision with immediate action, no matter how small that action step is. This is how motivation is created, especially for those areas in your life you don’t feel naturally drawn to.
So, once you make a decision to get a clearer picture of where your money is going, for example, then do something that aligns with your decision. You could take a look at your most recent credit credit statement and bank register to see where you’re spending most of your dollars. Schedule some time, even if it’s only 15 minutes every day on your financial wellness. After some time, you’ll notice how much easier it gets and the progress you’re making will invite even more motivation into your life on this particular goal.
2. Envision yourself as already there: I talk about this a lot. When we can see ourselves in that place where life looks and feels the way we want, this can be the fuel we need to feel motivated. Much science has been done on visualization through meditation. It shows that the brain doesn’t know the difference between now and the future vision you have for yourself. This isn’t about positive thinking. Quite the contrary. It’s about allowing your future to dictate how you behave now so you can arrive at that place you’re envisioning for yourself. If you’re seeing yourself through the same lens you always have, you’ll be reliving your financial past each and every day. But if you can see yourself through the lens of your future, there is no limit on what you can accomplish.
If you want to instill more confidence in your financial life, spend a little time each morning seeing yourself as that person you want to be. How do you speak, walk, talk and act as a financially confident individual? Once you can bring about the emotions of being that person you want to be in your relationship with money, you’ll begin to feel more motivated to make it a reality.
As for those weeds. Well, I took immediate action and began weeding in one hour increments and, guess what, the progress I made motivated me to keep going. I only have two flower beds left!
