Photo by Alice Dietrich on Unsplash
“It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.”
― Lou Holtz
How far can you swim without stopping for a rest? Could you swim for seven miles? Better yet, could you swim for seven straight miles while handcuffed?
Egyptian swimmer Shehab Allam can. Allam currently holds the Guinness World Record for the farthest distance swimming while handcuffed. To achieve such a feat requires an enormous amount of skill, yes. But maybe even more so, it requires motivation.
What is Motivation?
Motivation is the incentivizing power that drives us to achieve goals. It’s the invisible force that carries you along your journey to a better self and pushes you through the trials and troubles along the way.
Motivation can be influenced by a number of factors: How much you want to achieve your goal, the benefit you can attain by achieving it, and even the loss resulting from not achieving your goal.
Motivation can also be affected by the type of goal it is or your own expectations of the journey your goal will lead you on.
Why is Motivation Important?
Motivation is the driving force behind all goals, dreams, and endeavors, and is absolutely essential. Without this drive, it would be nearly impossible to accomplish what we want or need to complete. Motivation aids in our understanding and visualizing goals. Moreover, our motivation actually helps us cope with the challenges we face — and can even provide answers to unexpected complications.
5 Tips to Getting and Staying Motivated
Keeping that motivation is critical to staying on track, and ultimately, achieving our goals and dreams. With this cruciality in mind, we’ve come up with the following five tips to getting and staying motivated on your journey:
Set clear and achievable goals. Articulating concise goals that are both practical and challenging are the objective here. To achieve a goal, you need to clearly define and quantify what achieving that goal looks like. Ambiguous or impossible goals can never be accomplished. Check out The Hicks Fix’s ‘Lifestyle and Livelihood Goals’ Worksheet to learn how to set clear and achievable goals that are right for you.
Have a plan. Like setting a vague goal, having an ill-conceived plan or no plan at all can only lead to failure. Create a clear plan that aims to achieve its purpose. Not sure where to start? Learn how to plan for your purpose here.
Harvest a good support system. No one can accomplish their goals completely alone – we all need a bit of help sometimes. The right support system is absolutely essential to realizing your dreams. Surrounding yourself with family, friends, or associates who truly support you can provide you with the encouragement and motivation you need to become the best version of yourself.
Review your goals regularly. The most advantageous way of staying on track with your goals is to take stock of where you are in your journey regularly. Are you where you should be? Has your progress dwindled over time?If so, why? Are the goals you set still attainable? Are your goals too challenging — or maybe not challenging enough? Pause along your journey to reflect on where you are, where you’ve come from, and where you’re going.
Reward yourself along the way. One effective way to stay motivated and focused on your objective is to give yourself small rewards along the way. Break your large goal into many smaller objectives, and give yourself a ‘pat on the back’ after every small achievement. These small rewards give you a taste of the sense of fulfillment and gratification you can experience when you finally meet your overall goal. Incentivize and excite yourself with small rewards to stay motivated and on track.
Motivation is crucial to achieving goals and realizing dreams. This invisible force propels each one of us to our end destinations: a better self. Although most of us probably won’t ever swim seven miles handcuffed, we can achieve the realization and actualization of our visions — with the right motivation.
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