Maintaining Motivation

It doesn’t matter what this is applied to, it’s vital that you learn this skill. Whether you’re building your own business, training to reach a high level of skill, learning to play an instrument, learning a new language … whatever. You need to stay motivated, otherwise it’s horrifically easy to become discouraged and, eventually, give up on your dream.

It happens so easily. And it happens stealthily too, so you probably don’t even notice it’s happening. You’re working towards your goal, making steady progress day after day, and then, for no apparent reason you hit a slow spot. Well, it happens. But then it gets worse. Things don’t seem to go to plan anymore, you start to struggle to get ideas and to get started, and you gradually realise, with a bit of a sick feeling inside, that you’re losing steam and you might be heading for a complete stop.

Losing momentum can signal the death of a dream

All your plans to reach that goal seem unattainable now. Instead of seeing the goal realised, all you can see in your mind now is yet another failed dream fizzling out and leaving you feeling dejected. This is the feeling of abject failure. I know, I’ve experienced it. I’m pretty sure you have too. It’s a very, very common scenario, and it’s one that always, but always, leaves a terribly bitter taste in the mouth.

It’s pretty easy to get motivated. You only have to get a clear picture in your mind of what you want to achieve and develop a strong desire to achieve it. You’ll become motivated almost automatically. It’s not all that hard. The hard part is how to deal with the lack of motivation that almost inevitably happens somewhere along the line.

You need a plan to get started, that much is obvious. And you need a plan to start making progress too. What you need now is a plan to keep you moving towards the completion of your goal, a plan to deal with the tricky, sneaky moments when it all seems worthless and it seems so much easier to quit and do something else.

You need a plan

One of the simplest ways to reignite your motivation is to use affirmations. I know, it’s an old method, and one that sometimes gets a bad press, but it works and that’s the only thing that matters.

Let’s say you’re learning a new language. You’ve been meaning to learn Spanish, let’s say, for years, for what seems like forever, and you’re going to do it this time, no matter what. This is it, this is the feeling of being highly motivated! You talk yourself into it. You tell yourself that spending just fifteen minutes a day learning Spanish will do the trick. It’s the steady accumulation of knowledge that will do it. You don’t need to spend hours at a time on this quest, just a manageable fifteen minutes a day. The more you think about it, the more motivated you feel.

You start off with high motivation

And you kick off. You use Duolingo, for example. It’s a free method and you can use it on your PC, or on your phone, so it’s convenient. You have no excuses. To make it more interesting, you start to use Anki as well, and you start loading your Anki list with all the words and phrases you think will come in most useful in normal, everyday conversation. Anki, by the way, is a deceptively simple flash card system you can use to learn any new thing, but it’s remarkably effective. It’s like having a really good teacher standing by, prompting you to learn things afresh just as you’re on the verge of forgetting them. Good choice! As long as you spend a few minutes every day reviewing your Spanish list in Anki, as well as doing your Duolingo fifteen minutes, you can’t go wrong.

Days and weeks pass, and you see some definite progress. Yes, this really can work! You feel good about it. This method will definitely reap rewards. Then something happens, probably something not related to learning Spanish at all. Something that feels wrong and somehow makes you lose interest in learning Spanish. You probably can’t even recognise what it was that made you feel differently about your goal, but now it just doesn’t seem that important. And now things are different. You can’t even seem to find fifteen minutes to do a bit of Spanish on Duolingo anymore. You’ve hit the wall, and you can feel your motivation leaking away.

Using affirmations can keep you on track

That’s when having a plan makes all the difference. That’s when your affirmations show their true worth. Because they’re not for when you feel you’re losing motivation, they’re for every day! You can use them any way you like. You can literally have the affirmations written on a stack of small cards, the size of credit cards, and take them out of your pocket and go through them every day, whenever you have a spare minute or two. But hey, we’re not living in the stone age anymore, there’s better ways.

The way I use them is to have them on flash cards on FastStone Image Viewer. I can then literally flash them on the screen one after another at random at the touch of a keyboard key, and just as fast or as slow as I feel like.

Imagine how powerful this can be! Seeing motivational words and phrases flashed on the screen in front of you, every single day. Drip, drip, drip … dripping that positivity into your subconscious mind. Wow, that’s powerful! The cards could show phrases like:

• I LEARN SPANISH EASILY
• LEARNING LANGUAGES IS EASY FOR ME
• I LOVE SPANISH!
• I EASILY ABSORB NEW WORDS EVERY DAY
• I AM HIGHLY MOTIVATED
• MY SPANISH IMPROVES EVERY DAY
• I NEVER QUIT
• I LEARN A BIT MORE EACH DAY
• LEARNING SPANISH IS FUN!
• STUDYING EVERY DAY IS THE KEY

That’s just ten cards. Imagine how much better it would be if you could come up with ten more … or even more than that. And you’ll be seeing these coming at you, at random, and in big, clear lettering, every day. How can this not have a positive effect on your subconscious!

Incidentally, you can use Stencil or Canva or any of the free image creation softwares to produce your cards, and then easily copy them to FastStone, so there’s on excuse. You don’t have to be a Photoshop expert to do this. And all the software you need is free! Of course that can be a drawback in a way … if you realise it can all be achieved for free, you might automatically see it as not worth very much. Well that’s a mistake. These softwares are excellent, and the fact that they’re free is just a bonus.

The key is to keep using your flash cards every day

Spend a few minutes every morning using your flash cards. It’s like giving your subconscious mind an invigorating shower! It builds motivation steadily, day after day, and it reinforces and strengthens the motivation that you started with.

Remember, that motivation that you had when you started was natural. It was the product of your desire to learn the language teamed up with your choice of methods (using Duolingo, using Anki, maybe spending a few minutes each day listening to Spanish radio or watching Spanish TV, or whatever other method you can think of). You started with all this motivation, but it’s almost inevitable that it will dwindle and fade.

But not if you keep topping it up every day by looking at your flash cards! Before you use them in the morning, and as you are using them, keep in mind that this mental programming is effective. Keep telling yourself that your mind is open to these positive messages. And keep flashing the cards on screen just as fast as you like, or slower, if you want to ponder a particular one now and again.

Find the method that works best for you

Flash cards aren’t the only way to stay motivated, but they are an effective way. And as long as you can find just one effective way to stay motivated you can keep learning and keep improving. Because the only way you can stop learning Spanish and fall by the wayside is to become a victim of lack of motivation.

Because what you believed in the beginning is still true; you can learn Spanish in just fifteen minutes a day, and you do have fifteen minutes a day to spare, everyone does.

So come up with a plan to learn Spanish, or whatever it is you want to achieve. But also come up with a plan to stay motivated. Because one without the other can leave you open to starting yet another quest for improving your life that ends in disappointment and a feeling of failure.

Plan to stay motivated!

Don’t let it happen to you. Plan for success! And that means planning to keep learning, day after day, no matter what happens in the outside world, and no matter how unsettling things appear.

Because we all have fifteen minutes a day to devote to our dream. The only question now is will we keep doing it, day after day, until we actually achieve what we set out to achieve. And only you can answer that one!