3 Strategies for Staying Motivated
By Melissa Tosetti
We live in an achiever culture. Unfortunately, that culture can subconsciously prevent us from staying successful.
It can be so much more interesting to strive toward something new than to continue the tasks to maintain a goal-focused habit. Even if something is working, we can easily stray just for the stimulus of doing something new.
Maintenance mode requires a different set of motivations and tactics than achieving your goal in the first place. Here are three tips to help you keep the ground you’ve gained.
1. Keep It Fresh
The number one key to success when it comes to maintenance is figuring out how to keep things fresh. For example:
Problem: Your goal is to cook four meals at home each week, but you find yourself making the same dishes again and again.
Solution: Your new goal could be to try one new recipe each week so you have something different to look forward to.
Look at the habits you tend to fall down on and brainstorm ideas for how to keep them interesting.
2. Choose Your Companions Wisely
Are the people you follow on Instagram aligned with the person you want to be? Do the majority of your friends have similar values and behaviors?
Another key tactic for staying motivated is to find people that think and act the way you want to think and act. Be aware of how you might get triggered around non-like-minded friends to stray from your goals.
I’m not saying to ditch your friends and drop your social media account. Just be aware if you’re getting triggered away from your good habits. If you are, start to know how and when you’re getting triggered and if appropriate, who is triggering you. This gives you the initial data you need to understand why you’re getting thrown off course so you can create a plan for how to stay on track.
3. Don’t Break the Chain
Sometimes our habits dissolve because we feel like we’re not making progress. This is challenging because some habits need longer to implement before you see results. If your willpower wanes before you see those results, you’re likely to stop implementing the habit and will never achieve your goal.
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear introduces the Seinfeld Strategy. When a young comedian asked Jerry Seinfeld for advice, he told him that in order to become a better comedian, he needs to practice writing new material every day. He suggested purchasing a wall calendar and every day the comedian wrote new material to mark it on his wall calendar. After a week, he’d see the consistency of his practice and wouldn’t want to break the chain of days working on material.
If your goal is to track your spending every day, consider using a wall calendar to keep track of your progress. This is a tactic I’ve been using for years and can attest that it works. A key to making this tip work is to make the tracker highly visible! (Hence the wall calendar)
Bonus Strategy: Remember what you’re saving for. Keep your goals in mind. It’s much more motivating to implement a habit for a specific goal than to implement a habit for the sake of the habit.
If your goal is to save money to replace a car, post photos of the car you want to buy where you can regularly see it.
If your goal is not quite so fun like building or rebuilding your emergency fund, think about it as a stepping stone that needs to be crossed before achieving a more fun goal like that new car.
Melissa Tosetti is a cash flow planning expert, founder of The Savvy Life and author of the international bestseller Living The Savvy Life.
For the past eight years, she’s worked with over 625 individuals and families to create Spending Plans.
To learn about the Spending Plan process, visit The Savvy Life’s Home Page. If you’d like to learn about how The Savvy Life works with financial advisors and their clients visit: The Savvy Life Advisor’s Page.
