Seven Proven Ways to Keep Motivated and More Cheery in Challenging Times

We all make thousands of choices every day. Additionally, the choices we make shape our lives and sculpt our future. Choices can help us keep motivated and in momentum or stuck and struggling. Moreover, many of the decisions we make are from our unconscious mind, which means we aren’t aware of them. In addition, when we feel stress, we lack willpower and fall back into our old comfortable, and often unhelpful habits. Furthermore, this leads us to feel even less motivated so it’s harder to make wise choices. How therefore can we make wise choices more often? The answer can be found below. Seven proven ways to keep yourself motivated, make wiser choices and feel more cheery in challenging times.

1. Abundant and Positive Mindset

Please note having an abundant and positive mindset doesn’t mean walking around like a smiling Buddha, pretending to be happy all day long! Embracing a positive and abundant mindset means bouncing back quicker and not letting a negative experience define how you show up. More important, it’s what is going on in the inside of you that matters. When you commit to focusing on seeing the best in yourself and expect good things, magic happens. Equally important, our brains have a negativity bias, so cultivating an optimistic and positive attitude is essential. Furthermore, Dr Richard Wisemann, who wrote a book called ‘The Luck Factor’, terms this a luck mindset.

One of the conclusions from his experiments shows that people who consider themselves to have a luck mindset have more luck! Lucky people generate their own good fortune because they are adept at noticing and creating opportunities. In addition, they listen to their intuition, have resilience (grit) and make better decisions because of their positive expectations. And all of these transform back luck into good luck. Surely a great way to keep motivated and cheery and build your own mindset for success?

2. Find your GRIT to Keep Motivated

Developing determination and courage is essential for achieving and accomplishing great things. Furthermore, grit illustrates the strength of your character. Grit is about how you respond and bounce back. How you challenge and push yourself and find courage to stay strong in challenging times.

Remember, it’s tough times that help you grow and develop grit. 

“You find out what you are made of in the times when things don’t go your way, not when things are working well for you.” Cate Campbell

If you need a kick-start, write down all the adversities and challenges you have overcome in your life. In addition, how they have helped you become the amazing person you are. Taking time to do this will help you shine the light on your strengths and your abilities to overcome adversity.

3. Establish Routines and Habits

One of our innate traits is that we are inherently lazy. And of course, this is counter productive to establishing good habits and routines which takes discipline and commitment. While discipline equals freedom, sticking to doing what we say will do is the first step. Next, we must repeat and continue. Acting consistently helps us feel good about ourselves and is the only way to lock in new habits. Roy F. Baumeister, who wrote the book ‘Willpower: Rediscovering the greatest human strength’, argues that willpower plays a part in all our decision-making, and it fluctuates.

The most successful people, he contends, don’t have a super-strong willpower when making decisions. They conserve willpower by developing habits and routines, which help them keep motivated. Once built, habits and routines help them reduce the amount of stress in their lives. Moreover, they can then save energy and use their self-control or willpower not to get through crises but avoid them. Successful habit makers understand the necessity of making important decisions early before fatigue sent in.

Steven Pinker, a world-renowned cognitive scientist at Harvard, when reviewing Baumeister’s work says:

 “Together with intelligence, self-control turns out to be the best predictor of a successful and satisfying life.”

To negate stress, decision fatigue and keep motivated, adhere to this strategy:

1. Decide what you will do.
2. Make a plan.
3. Stick to it whether or not you feel like it.
4. Rinse and repeat.

Routines conserve your precious energy and helps keep your brain functioning optimally. Furthermore, as habits are run in the subconscious mind which is way more powerful than the conscious mind, they often feel out of your conscious control. This leads to not doing the things you know you should. Consequently, routines and habits help you do what you say you will do and you feel good. Moreover, as we driven by how we feel you are likely to keep motivated and stronger in challenging times.

4. Adopting a Mindset of Continual Improvement is a Great Way to Keep Motivated

Keep curious about how you are performing. Practice reviewing your day and reflecting on what you did well. Furthermore, with an attitude of kindness and curiosity ask yourself what you could improve and do better tomorrow? By creating a habit of continual improvement, over the long term you will compound small changes into massive results. Moreover, you will feel good about your improvements and your sense of confidence and self will improve. In addition, it adds to the growth mindset, as popularised by Carol Dweck in her book, ‘Mindset – Changing the Way You Think to Develop Your Potential.’

5. Develop unshakeable self-belief to help yourself keep motivated

Embrace your personal power and become your biggest supporter. Too often we compare ourselves to others which only diminishes our sense of worth and power. Moreover it opens the door for the ugly Imposter syndrome to creep in. 

Imposter Syndrome diminishes our sense of self-worth and holds us back from stepping up to greater opportunities. Furthermore, it depletes energy and when your energy is depleted your thinking has a tendency to default towards the negative. When you are feeling vulnerable you are more prone to letting bad news and more negativity seep into and permeate your brain and pull you into a downhill spiral. Moreover, how you feel and what you think shapes your choices and decisions. Consider belief as a muscle. You can grow it and develop it; use it or lose it. Commit to building unshakeable belief and seek out an expert if you need help. 

Finally, the more you do the things you say you will do, in the eyes of others, you are seen as someone who has integrity and is dependable.

6. Work diligently on becoming self-aware

Self-awareness is a key skill to develop and crucial for life and wellbeing. Furthermore, in the workplace it is essential for connecting, building rapport and showing empathy to your staff or colleagues. Essentially, it is taking time to focus on yourself. Being aware of of your various traits. How you feel, what you are thinking and saying to yourself and what behaviours you are doing. Importantly, only with awareness can you change and keep motivated. One of the best ways to get started is to become a curious observer of your thoughts. Research says that 80% of our self talk is negative.

This means you must listen carefully to those whispers and negative voices. Specifically, ensure you replace any unhelpful statements with positive ones that direct you towards what you want. A second great way is to review your life. Take a few minutes to review each day and week. This is a task I strongly encourage all my clients to make a lifelong habit and is one embraced and used by highly successful people..

7. Become an eloquent communicator

Finally, communication is the basis of everything. This includes how you communicate with yourself and others. Start first with ensuring you speak kindly and positively to yourself, and practice becoming a great listener as well as a speaker.

‘The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.’ Peter Drucker 

There are many tips and keys about how to communicate better. A newer one comes from neuroscience and is called compassionate communication. Compassion, according to neuroscientist, Mark Waldman has to be learned, so to become an eloquent communicate, it is vital to learn better ways to communicate. Furthermore most communication comes from non verbal cues, which makes words one of the less important components. 

Taking time to learn more about communication models, learning to express yourself thoughtfully, non judgmentally and empathetically are a great start. Additionally, they will help you make better decisions and choices. Furthermore, learning is a great way to keep motivated.

‘“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of very part of your life.” Brian Tracy