• Motivation is way more than willpower. It’s a terrific force – internal or external - that controls, stimulates and maximizes our behaviour in order to achieve a goal, aspiration, job or role. Whether you’re a manager, a freelancer, an entrepreneur, or if you just want to achieve your latest goal, it’s essential to feel driven and inspired.

    Motivation isn’t an abstract concept, it’s actually in your brain: science shows that motivation produces Dopamine, which regulates the capability of learning (Hamid et al., 2015) so we can use it as our inner secret weapon!

    Let’s explore my Top 5 Tools for boosting your motivation and maximising your productivity!

  • 1. Start Small, Grow Big

    Big projects can be scary! It’s like climbing a mountain starting from the very bottom… but if you see an audacious goal merely as a group of smaller segments it won’t look so challenging anymore! Consider your gigantic projects as many different tasks and divide them over the days you have to complete the project. Use this simple tool to achieve your personal goals too: want to lose 10 pounds in 3 months? That’s about 3.5 pounds every month?

    2. Use the Pressure

    Working under pressure can be stressful, but not if you learn to lead the pressure towards your goals. Set tighter, more aggressive deadlines for your projects and stick to them! It’s pretty much the equivalent of setting your watch a few minutes fast. Science says that setting pressuring deadlines increases motivation (Lewis, Oyserman, 2015). As days pass by you feel the deadline coming closer and learn to use that extra pressure to your advantage.

    3. Find a Partner

    We all need support, in any aspect of our lives, and when it comes to motivation, encouragement is fundamental. It’s been proven that sharing your goal with someone else increases your motivation (Matthews, 2015). Participants in a study were 33% more likely to actually accomplish their goals when they wrote them down, shared them with another person, and then checked in with regular progress updates.

  • 4. Work Smarter, Not Harder

    Sounds easier said than done? Willpower is finite for each day, the more decisions you make, the more exhausted you’ll feel (Danziger et al., 2011) so make sure you won’t run out of gas midway.

    • Record your time. Check what you’re really doing for a couple of weeks, including time for chatting with your colleagues and commuting. When you find out how you already spend your time you’ll be able to create an idealised calendar of what that should look like and move gently towards it.
    • Work in blocks: either follow the ‘Pomodoro Method’ – divide your day into 25-minutes chunks separated by 5-minutes breaks; every 4 intervals you can take a longer break of 15/20 minutes; or work for 52 minutes at a time, then pause for 17 minutes; or find whatever works better for you.
    • Keep in mind that working smarter and not harder will increase your motivation (Carter, 2015) . Always remember to be flexible but set your boundaries, even if you’re the boss, as your life-work balance is fundamental to achieve goals

    5. Be Creative

    Creativity is the finest tool to be motivated! The best way to achieve it? Get into a state of flow, where nothing else matters but the project or task you are working on. As I’ve discussed before [CLICK HERE - Blog "Go With The Flow"], getting into a state of flow will lead to a deep intrinsic motivation and a sense of ecstasy that won’t make you perceive time or fatigue.

  • Feeling ready to start your new and exciting projects?

    Have a great motivated day,

     

    Andrew