10 Effective Strategies to Raise Your Motivation

If you want to be successful in anything, you have to be motivated. It goes hand-in-hand, like peanut butter and jelly, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, or Ranch on pizza… hey, don’t judge me. Anyway, no matter how important motivation is to becoming successful in literally anything, it can be really hard to come by at times. That is why I decided to share with you different ways that I raise my motivation! Don’t worry, I know what I am talking about. *insert finger guns or winking face* These are my top 10 most effective strategies to raise your motivation.

Let’s go!

10 Effective Ways To Raise Your Motivation

Music

The first tip I have for you is to listen to music. Whatever gets you going and makes you feel good. I listen to music pretty much all day.

I only recently realized it actually. If I am cleaning, showering, cooking, working out, writing… no matter what I am doing, I have music playing.

Granted, it isn’t always the same type of music. For instance, right now I happen to be listening to a fantasy music video on Youtube.

I have found I write best when I have this epic kind of instrumental music playing in the background.

When I am cooking it is usually Michael Buble or my Italian cooking playlist on Pandora.

Working out is usually Kpop or hip hop.

I have different types of music for everything that I do. That way, when I play it, it gets me in the right mindset for the task that I am doing and I find it easier to get things done. And I don’t dread whatever it is I have to do. It is pretty effective.

Check out my list of songs by emotion and my list of the best songs to workout to for inspiration.

Inspirational Quote

An inspirational quote can actually be very beneficial when you are trying to get your mind in the right place to do something.

It can be like that little kick in the pants that you need.

Some people have inspirational quotes plastered all over their office or bedroom. They write things down on sticky notes and post those up everywhere. Some people, like me, have entire Pinterest boards dedicated to quotes.

Sometimes you don’t really have the right words to express how you are feeling, but someone else does. Find a quote that means something to you and put it someplace you look every day.

I made a background image for my computer with the quote “Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo”. That quote really means a lot to me, so I put it somewhere I would always see it.

It helps me to remember that no matter what, I have to keep going. The only true failure I will ever have is if I quit.

Here is a list of 50 short inspirational quotes from Good Houskeeping.

Here are a couple inspirational quotes in case you need some help finding one:

-“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” – Suzy Kassem

-“Work until you no longer have to introduce yourself.”

-“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

-“Discipline is doing what needs to be done, even when you don’t want to do it.”

-“Great things never came from comfort zones.”

My next tip on my list of effective strategies to raise your motivation is…

Take A Break

A small, but very important tip on this list of effective strategies to raise your motivation is to take a break.

I am the absolute worst at this. Once I start something, I have a very hard time stopping until everything is done. And not just finished, but done correctly.

Needless to say, this is still something I am working on, but it is very important.

If you do things the way I do, you look at a task and the time commitment it is going to take and become overwhelmed by that fact and generally don’t ever start or you keep putting it off until you absolutely have to do it.

But, if you allow yourself to take breaks in the middle, you are able to mentally handle a large task, because now it doesn’t seem as daunting. Which brings me to my next tip…

Break Tasks Down Into Bite-size Pieces

Going along with the last tip, you need to take large tasks and break them down into smaller tasks.

Say you have to clean your whole house because it hasn’t had a good cleaning in a while.

Just thinking about everything that would have to be done already makes me want to shut down and nope out of that situation. But, if you instead break it down into smaller tasks, it doesn’t seem as bad.

Ok, you have to clean the house.

Break that down into rooms.

From there you can break it down further into specific things you need to do in each room.

Bathroom, spray down the tub/shower. As that is sitting, put cleaner in the toilet and sink. Now those are sitting so you can wipe down mirrors, vacuum/sweep the floor.

Take a break.

Then scrub the tub, rinse. Wipe down the sink, rinse. Clean the toilet…

You can break things down as many times as you need to until whatever it is you have to do doesn’t seem like this giant burden and it becomes just a list of very small and manageable tasks.

And make sure as you are going through the small tasks, you take a break! See how that tied in? Cool huh?

Shorten Your To-Do List

As you are figuring out all of the things you need to do, you need to ask yourself if everything on your to-do list is actually needed.

Do you really need to do every one of those things today? If not, move them off the list for a day that you don’t have 4 million things to do.

This will raise your motivation just because you won’t feel so overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done.

A lot of times, the things we need to get done just feels like a weight on our back. The more weight you put on your back, the harder it is to move. Eventually, you won’t move at all because the weight is too much.

If you look through what needs to be done, you can decide what weight you can take off your back for the time being.

Now you are a little bit lighter and are able to move a bit more. Now you can start with the smallest and easiest tasks. You are now marking things off your list which takes more weight off your back, leaving you able to do heavier tasks, and so on…

Want to know another one of my most effective strategies to raise your motivation? Keep reading.

Add Something You Have Already Done To Your To-Do List

This may seem a little crazy and counterproductive, but hear me out. What is the most satisfying part of a to-do list? Other than writing one if you like those kinds of things? Marking things off that list.

Checking things off our lists triggers that little section of our brain that releases dopamine… the “happy juice” we have naturally inside of us. This is key to raising our motivation and staying productive.

It’s a little trick that I do on those days that I feel particularly unmotivated.

I make a list of things I need to do, and one or two things that I have already done that day, or recently. I can then mark those things off the list, releasing that small amount of happiness.

Now I feel more motivated to get the other things on the list done so I can check off those boxes too.

Besides, once you are done with that list, is there anything that satisfying?

Rest

Something that can be grossly overlooked is rest. Everyone has heard the whole 7-9 hours of sleep a night, blah blah blah. But most people don’t actually understand how important rest is for every aspect of our lives.

Think about the last time you needed to do something, but you just could not get yourself up to do it. Were you rested? Or were you incredibly tired?

Now, I’m not saying that you can’t get things done while you are tired. Some people work just fine on little to no sleep.

I, however, am so not one of those people.

I get cranky, I can’t focus on anything and I don’t want to do anything but sleep. How can I get anything done when I am like that?

When you don’t get enough sleep, your cognitive functions decrease. Essentially, if you don’t get enough rest, your brain won’t work at its best ability. How can anyone be motivated to do anything in that state?

If I get enough sleep though, watch out… you really can’t stop me from working. I get so many things done, and I feel amazing after I do. It’s that crazy dopamine again.

Change Of Scenery

Sometimes, all you need to bring back some of your motivation, is to change your scenery.

Change your surroundings.

For example, I started writing this inside at my desk, I am now currently sitting outside. That small change allowed me to keep writing.

I was starting to feel a bit unmotivated to write, so I picked up my stuff and moved someplace else. It helped immensely.

Doing the same thing in the same place day after day an lead you to feel a bit down, a little bit like you have cabin fever.

One quick way to change that is to move what you are doing someplace else.

You don’t have to cross state lines for this, or even get into your car. Just moving from one room to another, or just going out into your own yard if you have one, can make all the difference.

I tend to get a bit stifled if I am stuck in one place for too long, like my desk.

I do pretty much everything there, edit photos, write my book and blog posts, make my dreamcatchers, and any other crafts I happen to be doing at the time.

Sometimes I need to just pick up all my stuff and move to another room. After I do that, I am able to continue working without feeling like I am suffocating. It is a very quick and easy way to raise your motivation.

Workout

What is next on my list of effective strategies to raise your motivation? Do a workout.

Before you jump ship here, just know that I am not telling you to go out and join CrossFit. You don’t even have to do anything that serious, just a little something to get your body moving and blood flowing.

For me, that usually means turning on some music (yeah that again) and dancing. I’ll either do Zumba or play Just Dance, or sometimes I’ll just turn on music videos and dance around like a buffoon.

You can do yoga, or pilates, or a workout in the gym with weights, or at home. It is whatever you want to do.

Go for a run or a hike… anything. It can even be just a few minutes.

My workouts that aren’t dance related usually take me about 10-20 minutes.

Working out is obviously good for your body in many ways, but it is great for your brain too… and that is what is important in keeping that motivation up.

A workout makes your heart beat faster which brings more oxygen to your brain. Working out raises your endorphins which lowers stress and raises all those happy feelings.

I won’t get into all the science behind it, but working out is an amazing way to raise your motivation because of the release of those endorphins. Better mood=more motivation.

Focus On Yourself

Probably the biggest and most important tip I have for you in raising your motivation is to focus on yourself, and don’t compare yourself with anyone else.

Most people have a hard time with this, especially in this day and age of social media. We are all so connected and we spend so much time looking at everyone else, seeing what they are doing and how they are living.

I can promise you, things are almost never as they appear online.

Why should we ever waste the time comparing ourselves with anyone else? Celebrities, Influencers, even just our own friends and families. These people are not you, and you are not them. No one has lived your life, nor could they.

One of the quickest ways to squash any motivation you have is to compare your situation with somebody else.

Say you want to start a blog, so you start looking up influential bloggers and people that are already successful.

You suddenly find yourself not learning how to start a blog, but comparing yourself to them. “I can’t take pictures like that.” “I can’t write like that.” “I’ll never be able to get the following this person has.”

Congratulations, you have now killed that motivation you had when you first came up with your idea to start a blog.

What you probably didn’t even stop to think about is how much time and energy that person has put into their blog.

They didn’t just wake up one day and there it all was sitting on a silver platter just waiting for them to log on.

They had to put tons of work into it.

You now have to find that motivation again. There is a reason people do those “24 hour no social media” challenges.

It isn’t good for your mental state to dwell on others. Focus on you. You have something inside of you that no one else has. There is something that only you can offer.

All you need to do it figure out what that is, where your passion lies, and grab it.

Once you can let go of unrealistic expectations for yourself, you can succeed in anything you set your mind to. Your motivation will skyrocket. You will be able to do anything.

And now that I feel like a motivational speaker, I’ll end it here for the day. I hope these effective strategies can raise your motivation to new levels.

Do you have any tricks that help you stay motivated? I would love to hear them! Let me know In the comment section so I can try them out.

See you soon!