Motivation

The New Year is always a great time to kick-start our goals, get back to the gym, and generally work on being a better version of ourselves in the coming year. But there’s a clear catch; if you aren’t feeling particularly motivated to get going on those goals, you may start to feel a bit of the New-Year-Same-Old-Me blues.

Now there’s nothing wrong with being the same old you, I’m sure you were already pretty great to begin with, but the beauty of life is that we constantly get opportunities to grow, learn, improve and level-up, regardless of the day of the year. If you find yourself hitting a motivational brick wall, here are a few ideas to get yourself moving (or at the very least to get yourself thinking about moving!).

For me, motivation can feel a lot like creativity at times. You can’t always force it, and when you do, the product isn’t always a winner. Motivation can be an evasive beast, but here are a few quick tips to clear your mind and get cracking on those fantastic goals for 2020.

Clearing Mental Clutter

First of all, you may be hitting the motivational brick wall because your brain feels like a bee hive, or like a bowl of custard. Feeling off center, anxious or overwhelmed can have  huge impact on our motivation towards achieving goals and doing the things we know we should be doing to be well. Clearing your mental clutter can be a great way to make space for motivation, and can be done through the good old practice of mediation, yoga, and general self care. If you find yourself feeling low about being unmotivated, get onto the floor (or a comfy mat) and try some simple yoga poses (f you don’t know any do a quick google or pop on a YouTube tutorial). Whilst you’re stretching out your body, practice deep breathing. Slowly breathe in, and slowly breathe out. Continue to stretch and breathe, and bring your body into a calm state. If your mind keeps jumping around whilst you’re doing this, try to actively imagine a place that brings you peace. It can be a memory of a beautiful scene from your travels, your favourite chilled out song, a mantra, or whatever brings you feelings of deep calm. Keep going until you feel your anxiety dissipate. Engaging in a simple, relaxing practice like this will help to clear your mental clutter, and allow you to reset.

Clearing Physical Clutter

I don’t know about you, but I cannot work, be creative or feel motivated in a messy space. Sometimes your physical surroundings can be wreaking havoc on your mental state without you even realising, so have a good look around and ask yourself; would I feel better if this space looked different? A fortnight ago, after I did a yoga and deep breathing session to calm myself after a hectic week, I cleaned up my study space, brought more plants in to put on the windowsill, reorganised my vision board and then did a tarot reading. This is an example of a process that works for me in terms of clearing physical and emotional clutter. This practice then made room for me to focus on my goals, and recaptured my motivation to achieve the things I had been feeling crap about not achieving so far this year.

Just Get Up and Do It

Perhaps the simplest idea of them all is to just force yourself to get up, and do it. Even if you drag your feet every step of the way, sometimes just doing something is far superior to doing nothing.

If you’re feeling slack and like you’re wasting the day, put on your shoes and go for a walk. If you cant bear the thought of going out of the house, roll onto the floor and do a big stretch. If you’re beating yourself up about not having written/painted/created in awhile (aka. me), just sit down and do it. Don’t expect a masterpiece, just know that re-starting a habit takes work, and with time it will become easy again and you will be so thankful that you started.

Just start. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Big love,

Kirsty