Tag

Goals

Browsing

It is hardly a secret that the key to successfully accomplishing one goal after another is staying motivated. There are, of course, tasks which successful people may not like at all, yet they find motivation to complete them because they recognize how each particular task serves a greater goal.

So how to stay motivated most of the time? Here are 5 simple yet effective ways on how to be motivated and get what you want:

1. Find Your Good Reasons

Anything you do, no matter how simple, has a number of good reasons behind it.

You may not be able to find good reasons to do some tasks at first but, if you take just a few moments to analyze them, you will easily spot something good. We also have many tasks which don’t need any reasoning at all – we’ve been doing them for so long that they feel natural.

If you’re ever stuck with some tasks you hate and there seems to be no motivation to complete it whatsoever, here’s what you need to do: find your good reasons.

Even when you set goals, there needs to be reasons behind these goals. They may not be obvious, but stay at it until you see some, as this will bring your motivation back and will help you finish the task.

Some ideas for what a good reason can be:

  • A material reward – quite often, you will get paid for doing something you normally don’t like doing at all.
  • Personal gain – you will learn something new or will perhaps improve yourself in a certain way.
  • A feeling of accomplishment – at least you’ll be able to walk away feeling great about finding the motivation and courage to complete such a tedious task.
  • A step closer to your bigger goal – even the biggest accomplishments in history have started small and relied on simple and far less pleasant tasks than you might be working on. Every task you complete brings you closer to the ultimate goal, and acknowledging this always feels good.

2. Make It Fun

When it comes to motivation, attitude is everything. Different people may have completely opposite feelings towards the same task: some will hate it, others will love it.
Why do you think this happens? It’s simple: some of us find ways to make any task interesting and fun to do!

Take sports for example. Visiting your local gym daily for a half-an-hour workout session sounds rather boring to some. Yet many others love the idea!

They like exercising not only because they recognize the good reasons behind it, but simply because it’s fun! At certain time of their daily schedule, they find going to gym to be the best thing to do, simply because nothing else will fit their time and lifestyle so perfectly.

Depending on how you look at it, you can have fun doing just about anything! Just look for ways of having fun, and you’ll find them!

A simple approach is to start working on any task by asking yourself a few questions:

  • How can I enjoy this task?
  • What can I do to make this task fun for myself and possibly for others?
  • How can I make this work the best part of my day?
  • As long as you learn to have the definite expectation of any task being potentially enjoyable, you will start to feel motivated.

Some of you will probably think of a thing or two which are valid exceptions from this statement, like something you always hate doing no matter how hard you try making it fun. You’re probably right, and that’s why I don’t claim everything to be fun.

However, most tasks have a great potential of being enjoyable, and so looking for ways to have fun while working is definitely a good habit to acquire.

3. Change Your Approach And Don’t Give Up

When something doesn’t feel right, it’s always a good time to take a moment and look for a different approach for the task.

You may be doing everything correctly and most efficiently, but such approach isn’t necessarily the most motivating one. Quite often, you can find a number of obvious tweaks to your current approach which will both change your experience and open up new possibilities.

That’s why saying “one way or another” is so common — if you really want to accomplish your goal, there is always a way; and most likely, there’s more than one way.

If a certain approach doesn’t work for you, find another one, and keep trying until you find the one which will both keep you motivated and get you the desired results.

Some people think that trying a different approach means giving up. They take pride in being really stubborn and refusing to try any other options on their way towards the goal.

My opinion on this is that the power of focus is great, but

you should be focusing on your goal, and not limiting your options by focusing on just one way to accomplish it.

4. Recognize Your Progress

Everything you may be working on can be easily split into smaller parts and stages. For most goals, it is quite natural to split the process of accomplishing them into smaller tasks and milestones. There are a few reasons behind doing this, and one of them is tracking your progress.

We track our progress automatically with most activities. But to stay motivated, you need to recognize your progress, not merely track it.

Here’s how tracking and recognizing your progress is different:

Tracking is merely taking a note of having reached a certain stage in your process. Recognizing is taking time to look at a bigger picture and realize where exactly you are, and how much more you have left to do

For example, if you’re going to read a book, always start by going through the contents table. Getting familiar with chapter titles and memorizing their total number will make it easier for you to recognize your progress as you read. Confirming how many pages your book has before starting it is also a good idea.

You see, reading any book you will be automatically looking at page numbers and chapter titles, but without knowing the total number of pages, this information will have little meaning.

Somehow, it is human nature to always want things to happen in short term or even at once. Even though we split complex tasks into simpler actions, we don’t quite feel the satisfaction until all is done and the task is fully complete.

For many scenarios though, the task is so vast that such approach will drain all the motivation out of you long before you have a chance to reach your goal. That’s why it is important to always take small steps and recognize the positive different and progress made. This is how your motivation can sustain in long term.

5. Reward Yourself

This is a trick everyone likes: rewarding yourself is always pleasant. This is also one of the easiest and at the same time most powerful ways to stay motivated!

Feeling down about doing something? Dread the idea of working on some task? Hate the whole idea of working? You’re not alone.

Right from the beginning, agree on some deliverables which will justify yourself getting rewarded. As soon as you get one of the agreed results, take time to reward yourself in some way.

For some tasks, just taking a break and relaxing for a few minutes will do.

For others, you may want to get a fresh cup of coffee and even treat yourself a dessert.

For even bigger and more demanding tasks, reward yourself by doing something even more enjoyable, like going to a cinema or taking a trip to some place nice, or even buying yourself something.

Your progress may not seem to others like anything worth celebrating but, take time and do it anyway! It is your task and your reward, so any ways to stay motivated are good.

The more you reward yourself for the honestly made progress, the more motivated you will feel about reaching new milestones, thus finally accomplishing your goal.

Mix and Match for the Best Effect!

Now that you have these five ways of staying motivated, it is a good moment to give you the key to them all: mix and match!

Pick one of the techniques and apply it to your situation. If it doesn’t work, or if you simply want to get more motivated, try another technique right away. Mix different approaches and match them to your task for the best results.

Just think about it: Finding good reasons to work on your task is bound to helping you feel better; and identifying ways to make it fun will help you enjoy the task even more.

Or, if you plan a few points for easier tracking of your progress and on top of that, agree on rewarding yourself as you go; this will make you feel most motivated about anything you have to work through.

It is that time of the year where so many things are flying around, especially as it touches the new year that is less than three weeks from now. 

While it is good to make plans ahead for the new year, it is also important to ask yourself one important question:

“Should I really learn something new in 2021?”

Take a pause and ask yourself and try to answer it before you continue reading.

It is necessary to be intentional about what you want to learn and with whom you want to learn the something new.
Beyond learning something new, it is great to be intentional about spending time asking yourself the thing you are exactly curious about. What does your soul need? What would be of great benefit to your mind? Body? How would it improve your overall wellness and even your finances?

Reflect on what you want to learn and don’t just set out on learning something new just because you think you have to be in on the newest thing. Don’t set out on something new because you need something to fill a void or keep you “busy”.

The times you set out to learn something new just because, you can tell that you weren’t committed overall, you felt so unsatisfied and you ran off to yet another new thing just to satisfy your persistent and insatiable quest for the “answer”.

Now is the time to sit back and pay attention to your desires and where it leads. Trust what beckons you to learn something new and to be more realistic about what you have time to take in.

Here are the prompts you can use to focus your learning to what really matters:

1. What do I want to learn if time and money were no object?

Consider anything and everything. For the next month, the next six months, the next year, the next five years.

2. What’s my motivation in wanting to learn _____ (insert what you want to learn)?

This question helps will help you ferret out if your motivation is related to fears of not being enough or getting THE ANSWER.

NB: “because it would be fun” is a great answer.

3. How might I grow by learning __________?

By learning about programming, you might grow and develop your problem solving skills. By learning about dress making, you might learn how to enjoy the process and journey of a thing even as you look forward to its outcome.

4. How could I learn this for free? Who could I ask for help?

There is so much great information in books, on the Internet, in your friends’ and colleagues’ brains, and already on your hard drive – all those programs and classes you’ve already bought!
All those bookmarks you spent 2020 saving and you’ve never gone back to reading, all those tabs you have opened in your browser.

If cobbling together your learning feels too hard, stop and ask yourself if you really want to learn this or if you just want to buy something that will make you feel like you learned it? Then go back and consider your motivation.

5. How will I measure my progress? What will be enough?

This question addresses the hungry ghost feeling of always wanting more, more, more, or signing up to learn something so you will finally be ready to do what you want. This question helps you get more clear on what exactly you want to learn. Maybe all you really want to learn is how to do this itsy-bitsy budgeting thing that you can learn from your friend who is an accountant rather than signing up for a two-year course in financial management.

6. Do I have time for this learning?

You may deeply desire to take your fitness seriously or get a Ph.D. in data visualization, but if there isn’t enough time, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment and waste.

7. Am I using learning as an excuse to wait to take action on a desire?

Learning can become a way fear convinces you to wait until you know a little bit more, have another certification or degree, or feel a little more confident, and then you can do what you want to do.

If that is why you want to learn, I beg you to first:

  • Use some of your materials and make a new dress. Practice that tailoring knowledge you already have.
  • Teach your subject to a group of friends in your living room.
  • Give a presentation at work on your subject.

There are a million ways in every field to create and share your ideas. Do that before you learn something new. Please!

And finally,

8. What learning would give you true pleasure?

Too often we sign on to learn things we think we should learn to prove ourselves to someone else, or because we are still pursuing a goal that we no longer care about. Why don’t we skip that in 2021?

Here’s to learning and growing until our very last breath.

“Have you ever felt like a friend or family is jealous of you”?

“Do you have friends who love to compete with you”?

Nothing feels worse than achieving a goal or becoming successful in an endeavor and discovering that the people around you don’t feel proud or positive about it – but rather, they feel jealous. A person’s jealous feelings can cause them to act unkindly towards us, especially in the face of our own achievements or success.

Everyone has felt this unpleasant emotion at least once in their lives, and most likely much more than that. It seems much harder to deal with when other people feel jealous towards us, though. After all, we can control how we feel, but we can’t control other people’s emotions. Recognizing the signs that someone is jealous of you can be the first step to fixing it.

Here are 7 signs if someone’s jealous of you ;

1. Downplay your Success

No matter what you achieve or how hard you worked to do so, jealous people will always try to make it seem like it was a fluke, or that you didn’t work as hard as you did to achieve your success. The reasons that they come up with may be rude or condescending. Rising to their bait will only make them more likely to talk poorly. Stay humble but firm in your achievements. If you brag, they may be more likely to stay jealous of you.

People who will envy you the most are the ones who are in need the most of what you possess, says M.Farouk Radwan, MSc.

2. False Praise

When someone is jealous of you, they’re often the first to give you a compliment that sounds sincere, or seems to be dripping with passive aggression. However, you’ll find that these people will be rolling their eyes the minute you leave the room.

They would rather pretend they’re not jealous than address the issue. One way to turn it back around is to give them sincere compliments when something good happens to them. It may help them see that you’re a genuine person, and help curb their jealousy.

3. Flaunting their Success

Someone who is jealous of you may be more inclined to flaunt their success more than it’s really worth flaunting. They may be more inclined to flaunt their own achievements while you’re celebrating your own. These are the type of people to get engaged at a wedding.

But why do they flaunt their success in the first place?

Because chances are, they’re not as successful as you are. Author Bob Bly states, “There are always people who are filled with negative thoughts — not only about others whom they envy (you) but also about themselves and their perceived failure to having achieved their goals (which are often to own their own business or be richer than they are).

While it may be frustrating, getting upset is only going to make them feel more justified in their behavior. Instead, offer them sincere praise in their achievements. Leading by example is a good way to alter someone’s behavior.

4. They’re are Imitating You

Someone who is jealous of you alternatively wants to be better than you, and also be just like you. They may imitate the way you talk or the way you dress in order to feel better about themselves. Instead of allowing this to upset you, try to encourage them to go their own way. When they’re doing their own thing, give them positive reinforcement. Show them that they don’t have to be you to be great, and that they can be their own person.

5. They’re are competitive

Jealous people tend to be highly competitive, because they always want to be the one reaping the success or as clinical psychologist Melanie Greenberg says, they are “either insecure or arrogant and want to prove superiority.

While it can be tempting to take them down a peg, refuse to make the competition unhealthy, or even refuse to participate. If they try to argue with you about a job promotion, just simply tell them: “It isn’t a competition.” Refusing to play into their game will make them less likely to try and continue to one up you.

jealousy

6. Celebrating your failures

Someone who is jealous is going to privately feel very good about when you make mistakes, or get reprimanded or corrected at work or school. While they may never show it, they’re often secretly enjoying your failures. Handle your mistakes with grace! You can always remind them that making mistakes are part of life and learning. If you’re not upset, they’re not getting the enjoyment out of it that they thought they would.

7. They gossip behind your back

Jealous people will always find a way to talk about you behind your back. It’s not fun, and the things they say can be malicious and hurtful. The best way to deal with someone who does this may be just to confront them directly.

Since jealous people don’t tend to be outwardly confrontational, talking to them seriously about what they’re doing may be enough to get them to rethink their behavior, or to get it to stop entirely.

My final thoughts

Dealing with someone else’s jealousy can be a tricky situation. You may feel the desire to just tell them off. But, dealing with a jealous person in a non-confrontational and positive manner is ultimately better for both you and the other person. They may feel a lot of self-esteem issues that they need to work through, and getting upset with them won’t fix or deal with their jealous tendencies. Knowing the signs of a jealous person will make it easier to fix and handle in a positive and productive manner.

– Esther Ijewere™©

Kindly like, follow, share and drop your comments. *winks*

Follow me on my social media accounts;

Instagram: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/estherijewere/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/esther.ijewere

What is the first thing we do when we get into an argument with our men? For many of us, the answer is to call or send a message to our female friends immediately it happens. When that heavy feeling of anger takes over, you feel like you need an outlet now, right? Someone who you can be 100% real with, someone who you can bitch, whine and complain to, and most importantly, someone who will take your side. Am I right? I know I’ve certainly been there before.

It’s especially easy to fall into this trap when your relationship is still new because you want the approval of your closest girls, you want everyone to like him, you want them to tell you that you picked a good one. Whether it’s your best friend, mom, or sister, you get peace of mind from being able to vent to them about an argument that happened with him. Talking it out with them helps you get your head on straight and gain more clarity before going back to your guy and then actually dealing with the situation. But really, how much is that actually serving you and your relationship with him?

Sure, the girls want what’s best for us but there are some reasons why you might want to think twice before dishing the details to them again and these reasons are very important.
Every woman has a different outlook on men and relationships through their own individual experiences, but your outlook is the only one that matters.

It could be that she’s been your best friend since primary or secondary school, maybe you tell each other everything, and maybe she’s a woman with high standards whose opinion you respect a lot. But, if she’s single or if she’s in an unhappy relationship, her opinions might sway you in a different direction than you would’ve gone if you hadn’t asked for her input.
Even if she means well, if she’s unhappy in her own relationship, or if she’s subconsciously feeling left out because she’s single, there’s a chance she might have a biased outlook on men and relationships in general. Or, she might have underlying negative feelings towards men. The result of all of this will come out in the way she talks to you about your relationship. And, I hate to say it, but there is always going to be a certain amount of “man bashers” out there. You know the type who always talk about how all men only want one thing, how they’re all cheaters, liars, etc. If you’ve got women like this running in your circle of friends, it’s possible that you’re more likely to start having those same thought patterns. The women we’re closest to always influence our decisions.
Another thing to look at is whether or not you have fair weathered friends in your circle. It’s not pretty, but jealousy happens. It’s human nature. But pay attention, because a jealous friend, whether they have malicious intent or not might not always be looking at your needs first, their main concern might be what makes them feel best.

Family members will always take your side.
There is a reason you shouldn’t involve your family members in your relationship. Be it when the relationship is just fresh or when you guys are married. Unless it gets way beyond your hands before you bring them in. The fact of the matter is, people get into arguments, people mess up, and sometimes your partner will let you down.

You have to accept that as a part of life.

Your partner is not going to be perfect all the time. It’s impossible for things to be peachy ALL of the time. But when you go airing your dirty laundry to your sister and your mom, they’re likely going to look at the situation from your side, because they’re your family and they never want to see you hurting, no matter whose “fault” it is. Their opinion will almost always be biased. You’re better off sticking to telling them the good stuff about your guy rather than the bad stuff. In addition to this, I’ve always found mom-advice to be a little bit off base when it comes to dating. Not because she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but because if she’s in a happy marriage where she’s been playing mom and wife for the last 40 years, then the way she interacts with her husband is going to be very different from the way you interact with your boyfriend. You’ve been dating your man only for a year, and she’s been with her husband for 40 years, so don’t take her word for it when she tells you to do something nice for your boyfriend like cooking him a five star dinner when he’s being a little distant. The relationship dynamics aren’t the same, and therefore her advice isn’t going to get you the best results. Men of those days are quite different from the babies we have now. Yes I said babies because that’s what the men of these days are. But you could try though…you just might be lucky.

Your mind will start to feel cluttered.
Once you get into the habit of telling your girlfriends everything, it can be a hard one to break. Pretty soon you realize that it becomes more like “word vomit” anything he does or says that causes a shadow of a doubt in your mind, or that slightly bothers you, you go and tell them. You start talking to all of your girlfriends about your relationship, and pretty soon, you have ten different opinions on one situation, when the only opinion that should matter, is yours!

When you tell others the intimate details of your love life, you’re giving them permission to influence you. Their reactions and words influence you, and when you start getting a million different perspectives, you can’t even hear your own inner voice anymore. You stop going with your gut and intuition, and you start depending on other people’s reasoning and advice. All this will do is create drama in your mind and in your relationship, and you’ll likely end up doing something you regret because someone else thought you should do it. Then a month later when you’ve been detoxed of all the other voices cluttering your mind, you’ll probably realize that you did something you wished you hadn’t.

It’s Disrespectful.
Not only is it disrespectful to your guy, but it’s disrespectful to your relationship. A woman who took pride in her relationship wouldn’t go around telling everyone the details of an argument she had that morning. It lowers the value of your relationship. Your relationship is something precious that you should protect and honour, not a hot topic of entertainment. It’s also disrespectful to him. Do you see him talking to his buddies and telling them the intimate details of your conversations? Most guys don’t do this. They keep things to themselves for the most part. They don’t go around blabbing about their fight from last night. How would he feel if he knew you were telling everyone (or even just one friend) about the personal stuff between you two? It’s the ultimate disrespect to a guy. I would even take it so far as to say that some look at this as a form of betrayal.

Lack of Intimacy.
This one is a biggie. It prevents you from becoming intimate with him! Believe me, I can totally empathize getting all worked up about something and wanting to go to a girlfriend so you can explode and let it all out. But by doing that, not only are you hurting your relationship in other ways, you’re also stopping yourself from becoming closer to him. And isn’t that the reason why you’re upset in the first place? You’re feeling detached from him in some way, angry or annoyed with him, or uncomfortable about something, and you want to make that better. It takes some emotional bravery and vulnerability to go to your guy and tell him if something is bothering you, and let him in on the inner details of your mind. But instead of telling him, you tell your girlfriends, your relationship isn’t benefiting in any way. And in the long run, it will prevent you from learning how to better your communication skills for future problems.
The moral of the story is that if you often find yourself discussing issues within your relationship to anyone other than your partner, try keeping things private for a few weeks and see if your relationship improves in any way. I strongly believe it will. Give it a try. Keep your friends and family out of it and you will see it lasting a long while.

To our hapiness. Cheers.

By: Kemi Amushan

A goal yet to be identified cannot be tracked. That said, the journey of keeping the eyes on the goal starts with identifying what the goal is. May I also add at this point that a goal only ruminated upon usually does not enjoy actuation. Write it down! Again I say, WRITE THE VISION DOWN!

The crux of this article is not on why you need to write the vision down, hence my not dwelling on it however, for the sake of emphasis, write your vision down, you can run faster when you see your template.

Keeping your eyes on the goal… First off, having identified your goal (s), how about identifying your priorities? One of the grounding forces of your success is the ability to identify what is expedient per time, more like, what is needful. A lot of businesses/endeavours with potentials have suffered demises simply because the anchor did not focus on priorities.

Distractions will always come. I do not only mean distractions in the capes of unimportant issues, I am talking about distractions in the sense of pertinent matters but that are not supposed for the present. Things that will propel you but are not supposed to be the focus at the time.

May I also call your attention to a form of distraction strikingly common when you are pressing towards a goal? Other people’s self-limiting beliefs. Now, I do not want you thinking all these people are evil and do not want you to be successful because, some are only operating on fear… fear of the unknown. They would rather you remain at the ‘familiar’ zone. However/Whatever is the basis for these projected beliefs, know that often times, people are projecting the struggles they have within. These struggles are not yours. They are the inadequacies and fears of these people. Again, IDENTIFY YOUR GOALS. Out of fear/love/hated/envy and so forth, people will try hard to distract you, convince you that your plans are too lofty, that your plans are not feasible. You can choose to listen or ignore in which case; the latter is ultimately workable when you have identified your goals.

KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE GOAL (1)

Being beautiful is undoubtedly important, but it isn’t everything. A girl who is not so good-looking still can have many guys falling for her. The secret to attracting guys is not just being beautiful, as it definitely requires more than that.

The following traits make women desirable in the eyes of men:

  1. Your dress sense

Boys love women who are well-groomed, so take advantage of this. Girls often are confused about what to wear on their date so that their guy won’t be able to resist praising them. Wear something that is tasteful and looks great on you whenever he is around. A girl with a good dress sense knows how to look beautiful, as well as casual.

The common belief that whoever loves you won’t judge you is not true always. Wouldn’t you feel disappointed if your guy dressed in an untidy manner?

2. A tempting fragrance

Let your fragrance work for you when you say goodbye to him with a hug. Guys love it when their girl smells great. Spray the perfume on your wrists, around the neck, behind the ears and under the collarbone to ensure your fragrance lasts.

You can wear different fragrances on different occasions. Buy a variety of perfumes and see which works best for you. Luckily, you don’t have to step outside your home to buy them. With several fragrance e-stores available, you can grab great online deals on perfumes. Purchase an invigorating perfume and make it hard for your crush to resist the attraction.

3. High emotional IQ (EQ)

Being a girl, it is often expected that you will have deep emotions. That doesn’t at all mean that you fill your eyes with tears every time you hear a sad story, though. A woman with a high emotional IQ (also known as EQ) can encourage and inspire her man whenever he needs motivation. She will say the right things at the right time, instead of creating unnecessary drama.

4. Smile a lot (of course, not unnecessarily)

Guys go crazy for a girl’s smile. Your smile should be genuine and sweet. Don’t force a smile- otherwise, your guy may think of you as a freak. Also, when you are with him, give him all your attention and laugh at his jokes. Show him that you are happy with him. He will do the rest.

5. Debate with him and don’t lose it

An attractive, vacuous girl will be interesting only for a few hours. Most men want a girl who possesses knowledge of world affairs and can debate with them logically. Genuine guys actually love it when you show them that you have a high IQ.”

6. Don’t be judgmental

If you don’t like something about your crush, you can share your honest opinion with him. At the same time, don’t insult him for it and don’t make an issue of it. Having an opinion is good but being rude or negative about it is not appreciated.

7. Don’t show him that you are all his

Even if you want him very much, let him work hard for it. Don’t try too hard to please your guy, because otherwise he will take you for granted. Spend time with him and make sure that he starts liking you too before you express your love for him. Knowing how to make a guy chase you works wonders in your favor.

8. You should be passionate about something

Having a hobby and being passionate about it impresses guys. Girls with hobbies such as surfing, golfing, and driving really make men crazy for them. The common belief that says ‘men cultivate hobbies, women cultivate relationships’ is not true anymore.

9. Be kind to others

Needless to say, this is very important. Talk politely to everyone and be warm to others. This is important not just for impressing your guy, but also for the sake of humanity.

Source: Lifehack.org