Are you feeling motivated?

NOW 2015 is well underway do you feel motivated and have you created your resolutions for the year, or are you left after the Christmas break feeling sluggish, unwell and de-motivated?
Many people suffer the winter blues, especially in January and February, and look forward to the spring weather and lighter nights, before they can get motivated into achieving new things.
It takes emotional energy to motivate a person into action, especially following a holiday, or time of stress or illness. Many people do start a new year with determination to succeed at the things they haven’t yet quite achieved, or set new goals for themselves. A sense of determination and starting to create action plans can help to restore energy, as can hope and expectation of better things to come.
Very few people are totally happy with their lives, and either choose to make changes, or wish for things to change. Feeling motivated helps to change wishing into some form of action, however, the change that is required needs to be realistic and achievable in the first place. Many people struggle with confidence and self esteem issues, which can impact on their ability to create their required changes, and may feel reliant on others or circumstances to help create the change, and therefore feel stuck with how things are.
We all have the ability to change things in our lives. The mistake people often make is setting the bar too high, and then failure quickly follows. This then leads to de-motivation, and quickly the person may give up. If instead, only one or two small goals are set, and these are then achieved, motivation to continue tends to follow. A structured approach is often best, just like learning a new skill, we have to learn the basics, and then build on that as we acquire new knowledge. We also have to adapt to the new changes, as this is a process where it has to be reinforced by conscious reminders until we automatically carry out the new skill, way of thinking or action we have achieved.
Renewed confidence and self esteem comes, with the feel good factor that we have achieved something new, no matter how small or insignificant the change may first appear. Motivation to then continue this course of action, or lead onto something else, becomes stronger.
The difficulty however, that may arise, is that people can become complacent, and discount what they have achieved, or they may receive some knock to their confidence by outside influences, which then can result in a sense of failure. As the old adage says, ‘Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again’. You rarely, have to start right at the beginning again, if you reflect on your achievements so far. You just start at where you left off, and revisit what needs to happen next.
The skill is not giving up on yourself, and believing in what you wish to achieve, and that you are worth it! Shoot for the star, and remember, there are human footprints on the moon – believe in yourself to achieve your goals.
If you require help and support in achieving your goals for 2015, please contact me or my associate, Cate on: 01925 658322 to arrange an Initial Consultation.