Motivation,  Self Care,  Self Improvement

Self-Driven: 7 Tips For Constant Motivation Through Hard Times

Here is the thing about being self-driven.

It comes to us naturally, in waves, when we are introduced to something new and exciting.

A project, job, relationship, friendship or hobby could bring feelings of excitement and inspiration.

However, at some point the newness of this thing will wear off and that is when knowing yourself and understanding how to motivate yourself becomes crucial.

Are you self-driven?

For most of us, we need help self-motivating. Sometimes we feel inspired, but most of the time we are chipping away at to-do lists and talking ourselves into making uninspired moves.

What looks like intrinsic motivation on the outside is usually a combination of self-awareness and good planning skills.

Why cant I self-motivate?

So, lets tackle self-awareness first.

This is important to self-driven behavior because when you are aware of your thoughts and actions you can make correction to them until you have your desired outcome.

For instance, if your goal is to start doing yoga, but you have zero experience, someone with self-awareness will start with beginner’s yoga.

Whereas, someone with little self-awareness may try an advanced yoga that only serves to unmotivate and defeat them.

Self-awareness allows you to take an honest assessment of where you are at in life so that you can begin to make a realistic plan.

Making a realistic plan to achieve your goals is the next step to getting and staying motivated.

goal setting and planning to become more self-driven

Taking tiny, achievable steps towards helps you to feel progress and achievement every day.

Often, we will look at where we are in relation to our goal and feel discouraged.

We see this huge gap and feel overwhelmed and lost as to where to start to get achieve this goal.

The better approach is to ask yourself what could you do today, to get one step closer to your goal? Then, just begin.

Take a step, any step no matter how small, toward accomplishing your goals every single day.

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 In a week, month or year all the tiny steps you took will add up to something you can feel proud of!

We want to achieve our goals, but we really don’t want to be bothered with the work or details and so the gap between where we are and where we want to be, starts to look bigger and bigger.

Do not obsess over the end goal or the gap in between where you are and where you want to be.

This is unmotivating and overwhelming.

You can visualize, meditate, and manifest as much as you want but unless you are willing to take action towards turning your dream into a reality, then it will continue to stay a dream.

The best way to feel more self-driven is to become proactive.

Accomplishing tiny goals, every day is empowering because it leads to feelings of accomplishment and these feelings are what fuel our motivational fire.

Motivation is a masculine, active energy. Meaning it is created by action and fueled by action. So, the more you accomplish, the more motivated you will become.

7 ways to become self-driven:

The following 5 tips to get and stay self-motivated will help you tremendously if you are willing to take an honest assessment of yourself and your life through self-awareness.

After you figure out where you are at and where you want to be, you can then make a plan to close the gap between you and your goals.

1. Productive procrastination

Put simply, productive procrastination is choosing your distractions instead of letting your distractions choose you.

To productively procrastinate you have to have other things to do in place of your main tasks.

This could include a hobby, side gig, reading, writing, journaling, meditating, researching, learning, networking etc.

It is unique for everyone.

The point is to have a few productive options you can turn to when you aren’t in the mood to tackle the bigger goals.

You can use these “lesser” goals to still be productive while you find the self-drive and energy to dig into your loftier tasks.

2. Motivation and mindset

Read a mindset or motivational book. This is my favorite way to motivate myself!

It will put you in the frame of mind you want. Pick a book that relates to the area you are having trouble getting motivate in.

If you want to get fit read a book about diet, health or someones inspiring journey with health and fitness.

Maybe you want more self-drive to become an entrepreneur or make more money at your current job is your goal.

Find a book about manifesting, power of positive thinking or maybe something more logical and fact based like investment for entrepreneurs.

The list is endless.

The point is that the book is used as a tool to support your goals and serve as a motivational piece to snap you out of laziness and negative habits.

3. Start a morning routine to fuel all your self- driven goals

Morning Motivation and morning routine to motivate you to become more self-driven

Alright every successful person you have ever heard about has a powerful morning routine, that usually starts at the butt crack of dawn, but nonetheless they have a morning routine and so should you.

Your morning sets the tone for your entire day. If you start your day rushing, tense, stressed and totally out of alignment with your goals then the rest of your day will follow suit.

If you want to be successful, joyful, compassionate, inspired and self-driven, you are going to have to cultivate those things in the morning with a morning routine.

4. Put rewards and consequences in order when you are not feeling self-driven.

This is a powerful one because it does a few things for you:

1) creates will power

2) helps you to practice following through

3) steers you away from bad habits and negative behavior.

It is pretty simple, all you have to do is set a goal and then set a consequence if you do not follow through on that goal.

You guys please don’t set yourself up to fail either.

Are you setting yourself up to fail? Be more self-driven.

Set a small, realistic goal that you know shouldn’t be a problem to get done unless you choose not to.

The consequence needs to be strong enough that you won’t want to break your promise to yourself.

For instance if you want to work out 3 days a week after work and you only work out once.

Then a good consequence would be to wake up at 4:00 am to work out the following week.

The trick here is to punish yourself with positive habits, not negative ones.

Do not punish yourself by not eating or working out everyday the following week.

This type of consequence will burn you out.

When you go to extremes, you add negative associations to the positive habits you are trying to instill.

It makes you 4 times as likely to not only give up on these habits.

Also, you will begin to avoid the new habit you are trying to work toward because of this negative and burnout associations.

Just like your goals, make your consequences realistic and positive too.

5. Show yourself compassion, love and self-care to revive self-motivation.

self care and self love is so important to being a self-driven person

IT IS OK TO REST!!!!!

In fact, it is imperative to take time off and feed your soul.

Just make sure that when you take a break it is for self care, not just being lazy.

Truly give back to yourself so that you have the energy and inspiration to get back into to the game of life.

If you make a mistake note it and keep moving.

Beating yourself up with negative self-talk isn’t a way to handle setbacks.

If you fall of the motivation wagon don’t tell yourself, you are a failure.

All you need to do is become aware of what happened and why it happened and then plan to overcome and avoid it happening again.

6. Drop the negative self talk and limiting beliefs.

This is the poison that sucks your energy, passion and joy from your mind and body.

If you what success, abundance, health and happiness you have got to identify and convert negative self talk and limiting beliefs NOW.

The longer you wait the more damage they do! If your life, mind, health or happiness is less than what you hoped for their is a 100% chance negative self talk and limiting beliefs are responsible it.

7. Hire a life coach

A life coach can help you find and heal limiting beliefs, negative self talk and toxic patterns and habits that prevent you from happiness and success.

They keep you accountable and push you just enough to keep you reaching for your best self.

Your lifestyle and mental health are what keep you from feeling satisfied and proud of yourself and your life.

Getting your life back on track requires some form of coaching. If you can self coach that’s great, but if you can’t I created this free mini life coaching course to get your life back on track!

Sign up below to become more mindful, relaxed and successful with your free 5-day anxiety relief challenge! BONUS once you finish this course you will receive one free 60 minute coaching session!

This is my list for getting and staying motivated and self-driven! If you enjoyed it….

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Comment below and let us know how you get and stay motivated!

3 Comments

  • Dasia

    This was a great read! I still struggle with self-motivation sometimes but I will definitely try some of these tips. I find them really helpful!

    • Alexis Henderson

      Dasia! Self- motivation is hard for so many of us. I find that routines have helped me the most. Its all about building momentum. Thank you for posting. Have a stunning day<3