Recently I was asked to provide some secret sauce for an Australian Defence magazine on staying motivated.

I’m not going to replicate the full report here, so you can check out the source article “My Secrets To Getting & Staying Motivated”.

But here’s a summary of steps Anyone can do now on staying motivated.

Most of these are in the form of questions.

I always suggest you ask yourself questions and take the questions and answers seriously. As a coach, I recommend finding someone impartial but safe to ask the questions and then follow them up with more, even deeper questions to get to the hidden heart of a topic.

But if you don’t have someone nearby, you can start with yourself – to self-coach. It’s just harder to be honest and take the time to answer them properly.

But get assistance if you can.

So here are a few questions that you should ask yourself:

1/ What is it that I want to change?

Sounds easy, but most of us are far too vague. “I want to make more money” is far far too vague. Be specific. How much, and by when is the minimum needed. Vagueness leads to discontent. If you can’t answer this specifically, you’ll never know when you’ve got what you wanted.

2/ What will happen if I don’t make changes?

Follow the rabbit down the hole and see where it goes.

Ask “What next?” and then “What then?”, etc., four or more times to get through the onion layers to what will really happen if you don’t make the changes you need to.

3/ What could I avoid (pain) and gain (benefit) if I succeed?

This is similar to but not the same as question two. Be specific about the pains you want to avoid and the value you seek to gain from staying motivated through change.

4/ What is the cost of change vs no change? … Is it worth it?

Cost may be financial, but it might be more valuable. It might be relationships, mental or physical well-being or time. Or other things.

Count the cost of action and the cost of inaction.

Decide whether it’s really worth the cost. Not every problem needs to be solved, sometimes the right decision may be to learn to live with it.

5/ If yes, what major goals (<5), when achieved, would show that I’ve succeeded?

Some people set goals, others think they don’t work. But regardless of your personality, you will be many times more likely (some studies have it at 75% more likely) to get goals done if they are written down.

But don’t have too many major goals. By major goals I mean BIG goals like getting a new qualification or starting a new job or achieving a new product launch for your business. Too many major goals at once will risk conflict between them and risk you losing vital motivation, so keep your major goals list to five or less at a time.

6/ What has stopped me from achieving these up to now?

If you’ve tried before, what’s caused you to stop and give up? We see this a lot with people who start exercising or going to the gym and give up within 28 days. Identify the reasons why you’ve ‘failed’ before (failed = just means not yet succeeded) to give you a strategy to overcome the same obstacles next time.

7/ Do I 100% believe I can achieve these goals?

Anyone in elite sports will tell you that you need to achieve strong belief to win consistently.  The top 2 inches are vital to you staying the course.

If you don’t believe, get a friend to help you identify why and work through the thoughts that come into your head.

Believe if you want to achieve, otherwise, when something hard comes along, you will retreat to those thoughts that told you “I told you that you couldn’t do it, so give up.”  Don’t let that voice go unchallenged in your head.

8/ Create an action plan to achieve these goals (work backwards from your goals to where you are today)

Goals aren’t enough. You need an action plan.  The level of detail is up to you, but if you can identify the end goal and work backwards listing a set of milestones, then do it.

From there, determine what actions you need to take over the next week (or whatever period) to get to the first milestone.  It’s amazingly powerful when you have a list of things to do when you get up on Monday morning that you know are going to advance you to your first milestone.

9/ How will I manage my thoughts and emotions that will try and stop me from making changes?

The mental game needs to be won to achieve hard things, and that means overcoming the debilitating negative self-talk that stops you from taking action.  Things like:

• “I can’t be bothered” – replace it with “I’ll do that now and get it over with.”
• “I’m no good at that” – replace with “I can work at it until I am good at it.”
• “I’ve failed again” – replace with “That didn’t work, what can I try next?”

Self-talk is giving instructions to your brain.  Make sure they are instructions that move you forward and motivate you to your goals, not ones that hold you back.

10/ What other resources do I need to help me stay the course to completion?

Very few of us are good at everything or have every resource we need at our fingertips to get to our goals.

So don’t be too proud to ask for help, to delegate or look for resources to help you move forward. It can be super encouraging and motivating when we’ve leveraged our time by having others help us achieve some major steps forward.

For the full article, check out Staying Motivated at guymulloncoaching.com

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Originally published at Real Men 24/7. Image by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash.