Motivation

By Heidi Michaels,  Champion Mindset Life Coach

Motivation. We all need it during different points of our lives, our days, our weeks.  It is hardly a secret that motivation is the key to successfully accomplishing your goals.  Yet, motivation can be elusive; hard to find at times.  Lost motivation can cause us to feel we have no energy or that we need something or someone to give us a push.  Staying motivated to make changes in our lives like exercising, eating healthy, or finishing a project that is hanging over our heads can be challenging.  Finding motivation to complete something that is not giving instant gratification can be the hardest.
The key to motivation is to recognize how a particular task serves a greater goal or the bigger picture.

Need motivation?  Here are a few ideas you can try:

1) Find the Good Reasons

If you’re stuck with a task you hate and there seems to be no motivation to complete it whatsoever, here’s what you need to do: find your good reasons. Anything you do, no matter how simple, has a number of good reasons behind it. Take a few moments to analyze them, find something good about each task and how it contributes to your bigger picture.
Some ideas for what a good reason can be:

• a material reward – quite often, you will get paid for doing something you normally don’t like doing at all
• personal gain – What will you learn or how will you improve yourself by completing this task?
• a feeling of accomplishment – Think about how great you’ll feel when you complete it.  You’ll feel great about finding the motivation and courage to complete the task
• a step closer to your bigger goal –Every task you complete brings you closer to your ultimate goal!  Acknowledging this always feels good.  Break down the bigger tasks into smaller more manageable ones.

2) Make it fun

When it comes to motivation, attitude is everything. Find ways to make any task interesting and fun to do!
A simple approach is to start by asking yourself a few questions:

• How can I enjoy this task?
• What can I do to make this task fun for myself and possibly for others?
• How can I make this work the best part of my day?
• In what ways does completing this task bring me closer to my desired goals?

Motivation can also be spurred on by a buddy.  Enlist the help of a friend, a mentor or a coach .  They can be your accountability partner which can make all the difference in the world!

3) Take different approach

If you really want to accomplish your goal, there is always a way. And most likely, there’s more than one way. If a certain approach doesn’t work for you, find another one, and keep trying until you find the one which will both keep you motivated and get you the desired results.

Get creative!  Some ideas:  Ask a friend to help you, find out how other people go about accomplishing these tasks, put music on and dance your way through it.  Don’t feel like working out today?  Get dressed and just go…you don’t have to workout when you get to the gym, you can stand there, you can watch.  But just go.

 4) Recognize your progress; acknowledge your accomplishments!

To stay motivated, you need to recognize and acknowledge your progress.
Set yourself “milestones’ to reach.  A milestone is a benchmark, a point that you’d like to reach within a certain time frame.  When you complete each milestone, stop, acknowledge the work you put in, how far you have come and how good it feels to achieve it!  Keeping track of your progress should be something measurable and visible. Write down your milestones and cross them off as you complete them!

One strategy I use with my clients is to put a quarter or a dollar in a glass jar each time they complete a milestone.  For example, a milestone might be to go to the gym three times a week.  Each time they return from the gym, they put a quarter or a dollar a glass jar.  This is a visual way to recognize and acknowledge progress.  At the end of three months, my clients can use that money to celebrate and reward themselves for  their accomplishments!

5) Reward Yourself

Rewarding yourself is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to stay motivated!

Before you begin the task agree on some deliverables.

Providing yourself with some sort of healthy treat whether it’s a walk, a lunch with a friend, a manicure or just taking a break and relaxing for a few minutes will reward you for time well spent!

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Heidi Michaels is a Professional life and sports performance coach.  She coaches  people to develop their “Game Within the Game”  and to become their best self in life, sport or business. She has an office in Katonah, NY.  She may be contacted at heidi@heidimichaels.com or visit her website at www.heidimichaels.com.

Tips to Staying Present

By Heidi Michaels

We live in a fast paced world.  Everyday we are pulled and pushed in many directions and we often feel the pace of life is way too fast – leaving us huffing and puffing to keep up.  My clients often struggle with knowing they want to slow down but fear, if they do, that they will fall behind, feel “less than” or lazy.

I truly believe that we all have our own rhythm.  Some have a slower rhythm some have a faster rhythm but what’s important is honoring that rhythm.  I, myself, have a fast rhythm.  That does not mean that honoring my pace feels like I am sprinting as fast as I can all day long.  It really means that I enjoy a certain pace to my day… however, it can often get too fast or too slow for me.

The key to finding your rhythm and staying in your rhythm is all about being present.  Being present – in the moment.  What I mean by this is not going so fast through the day that the  focus is on the next thing that needs to get completed and not going so slow that I’m bored and feeling impatient.  Rather moving through the day in the pace that feels just right and adjusting when it gets off.

Want to get a feel for how fast you are going? Try this:  Stand with your eyes closed.  (Take note of the time before you close your eyes.)  When you think two minutes has passed open your eyes.  Notice the time.  How long did you last?  Did it feel like two minutes felt like a life time?

The key to being present?  Paying attention to what’s right in front of you.
Here are some additional tips to staying present:

1. Go for walk.  As you walk notice the grass, the trees, the cars that go by.  Be conscious of the world around you.  Pretend you’ve never seen these things before…and just be curious.
2. At a stop light take the moment to breathe – notice your breath.  As you breathe out…imagine letting go of all your stress.  As you breathe in imagine clean, fresh, calm air filling your lungs and body.  Be thankful for this “stop” time.
3. While sitting at your desk – Wiggle your toes.  Connect to your body, your toes…and really feel your toes wiggle.
4. Get out in nature!  Go outside.  Look up at the clouds, listen to the birds, feel the breeze.
5. Do something new – take a new route to work – it opens up your awareness and consciousness.
6. Observe – watch what is going on, notice body language, listen for intonations in someone’s voice.  Listen with all your senses.
7. Focus all of your attention on the task at hand.  Whatever you are doing… bring your full attention to what you need to do to accomplish that task.

Being present does take discipline. It can be a challenge to break our habit of living in the past and future. If you find yourself going backward or forward in time, try to stay present by reminding yourself gently that the only time is now and that the only place is here. The more you do it, the easier it will become and you will find yourself having more moments where you are completely aware of the details.

Heidi Michaels is a life and sports performance coach. For more information go to www.heidimichaels.com or call her at (914) 232-7004.

Get Yourself Unstuck: 10 Simple Reminders

by Heidi Michaels

I’m usually pretty efficient about getting things done but I have to admit I can procrastinate on certain things until it drives me crazy!  I’ll admit, I procrastinate about paying my bills.  It’s a chore I just don’t enjoy, yet it’s important to me that bills are paid on time.  While I know that the best remedy to procrastination is, of course, action,  the key is finding the energy and the will-power to get moving!

Whether you a constant or occasional procrastinator here are 10 Simple Reminders to try the next time you are procrastinating and want to get moving!

1. Recall your values. Your actions should always match the values you hold for yourself.  If they don’t, you will find it hard to summon the energy to act.  To re-align with your core values ask yourself “What’s important about completing this task?  What will it give you?”  Focus on that.
2. Once you’re moving, keep going Create a short, written plan and take action on it today.  Keep it simple and start with the most important task first.  You don’t have to attack the whole project now…take small steps!  Balance the time spent planning with the time spent doing.  Stuckness and procrastination reside in our minds…action is the best antidote. Get out of your head and into action.
3. Make an appointment with yourself. Put YOU on your calendar. Determine how much time you can realistically dedicate to the task and work it into your schedule.  Don’t leave it for when you have a spare minute. (That spare minute never comes along!)
4. Chunk it down. Break up the project into small increments.  Say 30 minutes.  When time is up do something else. Most importantly acknowledge your progress.
5. Progress not perfection. Don’t try to do everything perfectly.  Perfectionism often causes procrastination and all or nothing thinking.  Instead, aim for progress.  Any small step towards completion is an accomplishment.
6. Eat the Frog. According to Brian Tracy’s book of the same title, do the worst task (or part of the task) first and get it out of the way.  Once you tackle that, the rest is easy.
7. Make it fun. Put on some music, invite a friend to help, make a game of it.
8. Be accountable. Giving your word to someone else is a great tool to facilitate results.  Remember, you don’t have to do it alone.  Find an accountability partner who will help you keep your aim on progress, help problem solve, and celebrate success with you!
9. Remember, our minds create the project to be much bigger than it really is. Once you take action you will realize it’s not so bad afterall. Just imagine how good you will feel in completing the task or project.
10. Reward yourself! Reward yourself along the way.  Focus on what you are doing…not what you have not  yet finished.  Focus on complimenting yourself not finding fault with yourself.  Reward yourself with a simple pleasure like reading a book or going for a walk.

Learn more life management tips at www.heidimichaels.com