Staying motivated is a combination of internal and external factors that stimulate a desire to be continually interested and committed to attain a goal.

No matter what your situation is, staying motivated and hungry for success is perhaps one of the biggest challenges ever. To me motivation is considered as a form of behaviour and the impulse to react towards challenging situations.

The winners are the ones who have relentless power so great, that they make sure they don’t miss a day of motivation. In the end you’ll realise that motivation is a sense of freedom created by making key decisions for a better tomorrow.

Below are the 6 keys to staying motivated:

1. What’s your why?

The purpose, cause, or belief that inspires you to do what you do! Knowing your why is an important first step in creating a life you enjoy living. Quite often it is a discovery in finding out who you really are by gaining a much deeper insight into your talents, skills, passion and values.

Questions to help you discover your why:

1. What makes you come alive? What is your passion? A passion so powerful that makes you touch and inspire others bringing you satisfaction and fulfilment.
2. What are your strengths? This should be a reflex response; an innate ability that helps you adapt in any challenging situation. Skills are developed by hours and hours of beating on your craft.
3. How do you measure life?  All the success you have gained. Is it just accumulation? How do you bring value to life? do you use your success to help others or help change the world?

What then is the ultimate why? Is it to be the best human being? How do you want to be remembered to the future generation?

2. A vision

A vision helps us create what does not exist and seeing beyond the present reality. When we’re looking to define a vision, we conjure a bold statement that inspires us and drives us to want to get up every day to achieve it. Many successful organizations have been built on a vision or idea enabling them to incorporate strategies to achieve their goals.

Therefore having a vision is like a compass providing you with initiative in which direction to go. Your vision will therefore open doors of opportunities to a brighter future. If you really want a life that is better, happier you will intuitively make changes that are necessary for you to reach that life. Without clarity you will find yourself drifting aimlessly from task to task without an understanding of what bonds the individuals actions together and or the value created by the individual actions.

When you go through tough times your vision will help you overcome obstacles in life and will help you explain why you began in the first place. Therefore a vision is a powerful driving force giving you momentum to push away at resisting factors. Ask yourself where you see yourself in 5 years. How confidently would you be able to answer that question or how true to your statement will you be? Why then does it become difficult to answer this question?

The reason is because the lack of a well-defined vision and setting limits on ourselves. Anything is possible within a vision. When you construct your vision, why not vision big? Be creative and inventive in your vision. The sooner you take action the quicker you’ll be living your vision. Your vision maybe blurred at first but in time it becomes clearer as you work to make it come together.

3. Be positive

Our perceptions of reality, how we think about ourselves and the world around us, what we look for and what we take to be true are determined by our beliefs. What you think is what you become. Throughout life we have all faced setbacks and challenges having received advice from that close friend who often says “stay positive.” There are times where I’ve been upset that things aren’t working the way I want them to and it became hard to bear.

Therefore the first thing I ever did was to constantly work on self-development step by step enabling me to be more confident in acquiring my goals even during the rough times.  Everything happens for a reason and this is one of the simplest ways to acknowledge a negative situation and to move forward from it. Of course it takes time to process thoughts before you can move on. Believe in yourself and be brave enough to ask yourself what is the one good thing about this situation and what opportunity does this situation provide.

This will enable you to face failures and to look for solutions thus stimulating change from within. Choose positive affirmations such as “I am going to handle whatever comes my way”, “I’m getting better every day”, and “I am going to get there no matter what”. Whilst everybody is wishing, hoping, waiting, you’re fighting for what you want. Remind yourself of the countless blessings because there are so many beautiful reasons to be happy; your family, friends, your faith, your work. This cycle of reminding yourself in times of hardship will help you see the world in a different way and keep you going.

4. The right people

Why do we need them or what do we search for when surrounding ourselves with the “right people?” Ultimately we look for guidance and help in achieving our goals. As humans we constantly give and receive energy so it is important to be free of negative energy. Spending time with family, friends and successful, like-minded people, revitalises you and recharges your batteries.

Every time you spend time with the right people, explore their mind-set by engaging in stimulating conversations; extract valuable information that you can take away. As I progressed in life I took on positive traits of my role models making me the strong person I am today. I admired my role models for their professionalism and work ethic gathering words of advice. Visualizing them as a template for my success, translating their words into action. So begin with asking the right questions making you feel more confident and motivated in going further than you could of have imagined.

Staying committed to the ones who support and encourage us to reach our goals is a special relationship key to your motivation that often breaks when we feel that we have not spent time with people who matter to us most. Now the nightmarish people: filter out the negative energy from people who cannot seem to accept your ambition. I simply stay away as far as I can from negative people because I am allergic to them. I don’t despise negative and miserable people; I see them as people who I do not want to be; in fact they push me to be a better person.

5. The plan

In reality we cannot foresee everything and sometimes we strain ourselves by trying to achieve perfection in planning for a desired result. You can’t plan for every possible turn of events, but you can be well prepared to handle the majority of them. Therefore one must remain flexible and work to adapt to unexpected situations. Eliminate the doubts in your mind because manifesting your vision is based on plan that takes time and patience.

Challenge yourself in applying a consistent and controlled approach to your goals even on a daily routine. This trains your mind in figuring out ways to make adjustments that will eventually pay off.  If the plan does not work, don’t change the goal because it doesn’t mean that you are not worthy of it so alter the plan. A plan is useless without action, so develop the impetus to push yourself mentally and use all tools at hand to develop a strategy to break down both short term and long term goals into manageable tasks.

6. The promise

No one can do it but you, this is the reality now. Looking at yourself in the mirror and making it your personal responsibility to live to the best of your potential. You must have the urge to constantly believe that there is something out there better for you and you must work towards that dream. Don’t be too hard on yourself just because you have made bad decisions thus it is important to teach yourself to learn from mistakes and make the effort to grow.

Be in pursuit of a new meaning; that is the key to staying motivated! Thank you for reading my article!