I’ve observed that many people seek motivation externally, from successful individuals, their peers, their boss, motivational videos, or even friends and family. However, this external motivation often proves fleeting because it doesn’t align with their own life experiences and paths. 

While it’s fine to admire and learn from successful people, true and lasting motivation comes from within ourselves. 

We possess the power to persuade our minds and find the inner drive or desire to achieve our goals. External sources can inspire, but the lasting motivation needed for challenging tasks must come from our own inner resolve.

In this blog, I will discuss five simple ways to self-motivate and achieve your desired goals, ultimately shaping the life you aspire to live.

Here are five straightforward tips that anyone can use to motivate themselves and achieve their life goals:

1. Know Your Why

First, you need to identify your ‘WHY,’ and this ‘why’ should have a deep emotional connection with your inner self. Ask yourself questions like, ‘Why do I want to achieve this?’ ‘Why am I willing to endure hardships for it?’ ‘What drives me to do it?’ ‘What meaningful impact will it have on my life?’ The answers to these questions should ultimately lead you to your ‘WHY,’ with which you have a deep emotional connection and which will help you achieve your goals in life. 

Example: For someone who has previously lived an unhealthy lifestyle but is now adopting a healthier one, their ‘why’ could simply be to live a healthier life.

2. Set Clear Goals For Yourself

Motivation is the driving force to do something, but if we don’t know where we’re going, this force has no purpose. Let’s illustrate this with an example: imagine a bus traveling on a road, its engine propelling it forward. However, if the driver doesn’t know the destination, the bus will eventually crash, and its journey will come to a halt. That’s why it’s essential to set clear goals to achieve your ‘why.’ When you establish clear goals, it enables you to create a well-defined roadmap for your journey. Achieving these smaller milestones along the way not only helps you maintain your motivation but also propels you steadily forward toward your WHY.  It’s crucial to ensure that these goals are clear, achievable, and aligned with your ultimate goal. 

Example: If your ‘why’ is to lead a healthier life, your clear goals should encompass regular exercise, the consumption of nutritious and balanced meals, ensuring you get adequate sleep, etc. These goals serve as stepping stones toward your ultimate aspiration of living a healthy life.

3. Change Your Mindset 

You can achieve anything in life with the right mindset, but lacking the right mindset can hinder your path to success. Often, we tell ourselves stories like, ‘I can’t do it because I lack the necessary skills or knowledge or time,’ or ‘This is beyond my abilities.’ These self-doubts arise from a lack of motivation, and when faced with challenges, our motivation dwindles further. That’s why it’s crucial to change your mindset and embrace a growth mindset. A growth mindset is the belief that your skills and intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work.

In life, not everything goes according to plan, and we don’t always see sunshine and rainbows. When we encounter setbacks or failures, we should view them as opportunities for learning and personal growth rather than giving in to fear and doubt. A growth mindset promotes continuous learning and improvement, helping individuals steer clear of negativity and stay motivated to achieve their ultimate goals. Remember, those who never experience setbacks or failures are often the ones who avoid trying anything new or making positive changes in their lives.

Example: A businessman who possesses a growth mindset. When faced with market crises, this businessman views the challenges as opportunities to innovate and improve, rather than insurmountable obstacles that would lead him to take a step back and cut his business operations.

4. Maintain Discipline

As M. Scott Peck, the renowned American psychiatrist, stated in his world-famous book ‘The Road Less Traveled,

“Without discipline, we can solve nothing. With only some discipline, we can solve only some problems. With total discipline, we can solve all problems.”

Therefore, anyone aspiring to achieve something must lead a disciplined life. To do so, they can create a daily routine to accomplish their goals and maintain consistency in their pursuit, which, in turn, helps them stay motivated.

Example: Imagine a person aspiring to become a successful writer. To achieve this goal, this person follows a routine that involves setting aside dedicated hours for writing, reading, and research, while also maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

5. Embrace Your Short Achievements

Achieving something you deem important in your life is not easy; it requires effort and unwavering commitment. Motivation, our friend, accompanies us on this journey. However, this path can be long and fraught with setbacks, which should be seen as opportunities for growth. Along the way, you’ll also achieve smaller milestones on your route to your ultimate goal. If you approach this journey with unwavering seriousness and relentless hard work, you may find yourself fatigued and losing motivation. It’s essential to maintain a positive outlook throughout this journey to stay motivated in your endeavors. One effective way to infuse positivity into this journey is by celebrating the small achievements along the way to your ‘WHY.’

Example: Let’s consider a girl who aims to lose weight. To achieve her goal, she follows a strict diet, exercises regularly, and maintains a consistent sleep schedule. Her ultimate target is to reach a specific weight (her ‘WHY’), and she’s steadily progressing toward that goal. After weeks of dedicated effort, she successfully shed 5 kilograms. As a reward and to celebrate this milestone, she treats herself to a small strawberry cupcake, which happens to be her comfort food.

Final Thoughts

Self-motivation is a powerful tool on our journey to achieving our life goals. While external sources of motivation may provide temporary boosts, lasting motivation springs from our inner resolve. To embark on this path, it’s essential to first identify our ‘WHY,’ set clear goals, cultivate a growth mindset, maintain discipline, and, lastly, celebrate our small achievements. All of these strategies will help us keep our desire to achieve our ultimate goal alive. Remember, the road to success is often long and challenging, but with unwavering commitment and the right mindset, we can reach our ‘WHY’ and shape the lives we aspire to live.