Tool-Kit to Surviving Crisis

On the way to living the life of your successful and happy self, you will experience critical moments from time to time in spite of any careful planning or preparation. Every day is a new one and your circumstances may change occasionally. The weather, a bad-hair day, catching the flu, your period, your colleague’s remark, your friend’s unexpectedly long call, an e-mail with bad news, etc. might all affect your mood; it is up to you in what way. It is hard to resist and stick to your newly created habits/diet and daily/weekly routine if some unpleasant events appear in your life. However, it is not impossible, especially if you saved up some motivation and willpower from the times when you kick-started the whole process and felt energetic, powerful and unbeatable.

In the beginning of your lifestyle changing project you are armed with a strong and solid intention and due to this, your motivation levels are above the clouds. Yet, they can easily drop, especially in case of some unfavorable happenings. Whenever you feel stressed, overwhelmed and are about to give up, stop for a second or two. It is so easy to get lost in the rat race. Due to the challenges of your job and/or private life, you are likely to forget about what you really want in life. You need to slow down sometimes and ask yourself, what makes you really happy? Take your time to remind yourself of the reasons of your aims.

• Why did you want to change?
• Why did you start the whole process?
• What have you done so far in order to reach your goal?
• Were your efforts successful?

Be objective and make a list of all the successes that you have gained since you started to put your plans into action. Try to overcome failures quickly knowing that these are just part of your development. Show gratitude; accept what you have reached so far and what you have got at the moment; no matter how few you think you own. Being impatient and greedy will not help you. On the contrary, appreciating the moment and practicing self-love will support you in surviving the difficult periods when you lack motivation. Actually, a small inventory of your recent successes, a quick reminder of your original plans and a little revision of your strategies can keep you going. Relax, take a deep-breath, think a little bit and don’t forget to re-charge your batteries and Voilà: Welcome, my good old friend, Enthusiasm.

Now that you are freshly inspired by your own happiness about your recent results, keep in mind what Maria Brilaki suggested in her latest article. She presented some of the features that differentiate successful people from those who will never succeed. The essence of this video could also be related to this subject. A short summary of the main characteristics of successful people based on these two sources:

1. they stick to their passion
2. they never complain
3. they avoid being negative
4. they don’t give up

Easier said than done, right? Yet, this is their secret, it is so simple and you can do it too.

Until you reach this level where you are in the flow of happiness and success, you are going to work hard on yourself day by day. You can choose the difficult way with fears and insecurity by setting up unrealistic goals and overwhelming yourself with complicated tasks OR you can try easy: you can create a motivating, supporting and loving environment with using positive and inspiring triggers that help you stick to your goals. If your plans are realistic and you are willing to start with small steps, you just need to follow your strategy but don't forget to be flexible and adaptable in case of inconvenient conditions. Now, all what you need is to be social. Share your ideas, plans and latest results with friends and family, so that they can act as mentors or supervisors and can celebrate with you as well. To get you going, you can actually “use” human triggers apart from the tools mentioned above. They can check-in on you regularly and give you some support in the most critical moments.

Summary: Accepting what you have, being patient and showing gratitude can increase your motivation levels in difficult times when you are about to give up. If you create a supporting environment and always choose positivity, success is guaranteed. Prepare for the worst: when you are enthusiastic, spare some motivation for times when you are close to throw in the towel. Finally, ask your friends or family members to help you when you need some extra inspiration. That’s it! 

Sources:
Brilaki, Maria: Surprisingly Unstuck              Kaiser, Shannon: Find Your Happy!

Why Motivation is not the Key to Success?

Today, I would like to show you an amazing video that I watched recently and it really affected me to the core. Have you ever felt that you just need more motivation or willpower to finally start something new in your life? Personally, I have been blaming myself a lot because I have not really lived the life that I wanted and I have been planning to change this for so long. However, even if I had taken few steps in order to achieve something, I only got limited results or no results at all. Until I watched the video, I thought that the main reason behind my recent failures and lack of success is that I am weak, lazy and not motivated and qualified enough.

As I am a jobseeker at the moment and have faced lots of stressful and unsuccessful job-interviews in the last month, I have had a feeling that I need to change something in order to get the job that I really want. In the video below, one of my favourite life-coaches, Caroline Zwick interviews her friend, Maria Brilaki, who is an engineer, entrepreneur, psychologist, head of the “Fitness Reloaded” project and author of a wonderful book called Surprisingly Unstuck.  Maria talks about habit-creation and the role of motivation and willpower in achieving your goals. You will be surprised to hear Maria saying that motivation actually has almost nothing to do with your success or failure. 

It was a relief to understand that motivation is basically only a tool for finding your inspiration. When you want to change something in your life or want to start something new, in the beginning you are always very enthusiastic and energetic. Due to the high level of motivation you truly believe in yourself and your success. However, as most of us might have experienced in case of New Year’s Resolutions, for example, motivation can easily drop or disappear completely. The reason for this is simple: your level of motivation decreases right after it made you kick-start your new habits.

picture: Fengshuidana

Habits are part of our everyday life, as well as making decisions that is actually a kind of thinking habit. In one of the up-coming posts, I will tell you more about thinking habits, such as the power of thoughts, positive thinking and self-fulfilling prophecies. But now, let’s see why do we create habits at all and what are they for? How can we establish a new habit and why do we struggle to keep on dieting or exercising regularly? If you are interested in these questions and also want to know what planning and organisation has to do with success, click here to watch the video.