4 Skills You Cannot Do Without if You Want to Master Your Motivation

Do you find you procrastinate to get things done?

Reaching our personal and professional dreams depends entirely upon our ability to motivate ourselves. You can have all the talent and resources in the world but without self-motivation you won't get very far.

So what can you do to ensure your motivation stays in peak form?

Implement these four critical skills into your own life to master your motivation.

Risk Management

1. Does the idea of taking risks inspire you to take action or weaken your resolve? All of us take risks at one point or another - whether its an investment or a new job or a new business.
2. I've had choices:
3. Live life as someone who stutters OR take risks, I decided to face my fear and use my voice to improve my life.
4. Risk starting a wellness business OR do nothing at all. We decided to take a leap of faith and make a difference in people's lives.
5. Tackling the right risks has as much to do with self-confidence as it does with the actual risk itself. Take small risks to build your confidence. You'll learn when it's best to take action and when to take a step back.

Accepting Constructive Feedback

1. No one likes criticism; it can shake our confidence and leave our motivation waning. However, when we train ourselves to listen for the constructive feedback, even if it�۪s not presented in a constructive way, we give ourselves an opportunity to grow and get stronger.
2. In 2001, when I started working in public health, most of my work was outdoors and I was the only female at the time. I noticed some of my male counterparts wore black jeans so I decided to wear jeans too, BUT I wore blue ones. My manager called me into his office and told me to stop wearing blue jeans. He was quite blunt and I felt so embarrassed that I went home early that day. I was so upset at him and my confidence was down in the dumps. Interesting isn't it that I was creating a victim mindset.
3. It was only after speaking to my husband that night, I realized that I needed to look at this as feedback and ask myself, "What have I learned from this experience?" and "What can I do differently?"
4. I realized my manager's intent. He cared enough to tell me that the image I was portraying in the field of Public Heath could be improved.
5. What helpful messages can you gain from the insights of others rather than taking up a victim mindset?

Dealing With Setbacks

1. Overcoming obstacles to keep our drive alive requires resilience. In the movie, The African Queen, both Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn's characters must navigate a treacherous river to reach their final destination and confront dangerous killers. En route they overcome enemy gunfire, dangerous rapids, hunger and illness, as well as facing their own, and each other's shortcomings only to end up giving up on their goal, unaware it's just around the next bend.
2. Are setbacks making you quit before you reach your goal?
3. When my husband and I started the wellness centre, we faced many obstacles and I wanted to quit several times. Obstacles from financial crisis to staff changes and attracting new clients! We persevered and kept on telling ourselves that it would get better and tweaked our marketing and staff training. Now that we're 7 years into the business, its stable.
4. Dig deep, be flexible and find your strength - your success may be just around the next bend.

Setting High, but Achievable Goals

1. We either tend to set goals that are too ambitious or not ambitious enough. Think like 'Goldilocks' and find the goal that is 'just right' - a goal that pushes you just enough to keep yourself engaged and motivated, but not too big that it feels impossible and discourages you from even trying.
2. I highly recommend you read this blog post to understand how to reach your goals:
3. 4 Surefire Ways to Reach Your Goals in 2017

By developing your self-motivation skills you'll begin to notice increased productivity, and efficiency, and you will experience more happiness in your life.

Incorporating even one of these new skills into your daily routine means you too can keep your self-motivation high and get to work on finding more success and fulfilling your dreams!