4 Secret Elements of Staying Motivated During a Crisis

During a turbulent time like this, it’s easy to feel like you are at the bottom of a pit, lost, and helpless. The daily barrage of news regarding the pandemic can lead to mental fatigue and emotional exhaustion. What should you do to stay motivated and keep your mind free of negative thoughts?

The fundamentals of motivation and self-motivation

To simply put, motivation is the desire or willingness to do something. Your motivation level can be affected by intrinsic (internal) factors, such as your love for your job, or extrinsic (external) factors, you work because of the rewards you will get.

Read more: Motivation – How does it work for sales?

Self-motivation is the force from within yourself that drives you to do things. Self-motivation plays an important role in an individual’s personal development as well as emotional intelligence. When you feel motivated, you tend to be more productive, more creative, you feel less stressed and more energised. Research has shown that people who are constantly self-motivated can be more successful in life and dare to achieve their dreams.

How to build and retain self-motivation

By committing to following the below four basic principles, you will be able to build and retain your own self-motivation.

1. Focus and strong goals

Setting specific goals will give us a clear vision as well as guidance. It is also worth noted that it is much better if you focus on a few goals at a time and actually achieve it instead of overwhelming yourself with everything and not getting anywhere. 

2. Self-confidence/ Self-efficacy

Trust yourself and your abilities because without confidence, without the “You can do it” mentality, it would be rather hard to convince others to put their trust in you.

Read more: Are you infected with “fear of being wrong” phobia?

3. A motivating environment

Immerse yourself in an environment that stimulates motivation or finding a mentor, a role model that can help guide you through your adventure of finding yourself.

4. Positive thinking

A positive emotion might not help you to change the world, but when coupling it with self-motivation, you definitely can identify more opportunities and options in life. When you are feeling positive, you are more motivated to learn and to obtain new skills or further enhance your existing ones. Furthermore, a positive perspective generally makes life easier, causes less stress, and you tend to take care of yourself better and you can recover from an illness faster.

Just like with skills, positive thinking and self-motivating can be trained and turned into a daily habit. You just got to find the suitable method that fits your needs and wants and apply that to your work and life.

How to apply the power of positive thinking in your day-to-day activities

• Write down your thoughts throughout the day
• Challenge negative thoughts & replace them with positive ones
• Visualise yourself achieving your goals
• Develop affirmations (mantras) & repeat to yourself throughout the day. These affirmations should remind you of what you want to achieve, and why you will achieve it
• Practice positive thinking until you automatically think about yourself and the world in a positive way, every day
• A positive manager would see the goodness in any bad situation, and generally, their employees would feel much more comfortable interacting with this type of manager.  

Read more: You might be critical but be an optimistic leader

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