It is difficult to remain motivated when you feel like you have done everything possible to reach your goals. Despite your hard work, you still ended up feeling like a failure.
This does not mean the end of the road for you. Unless you have reached your personal goals, you must keep moving.
How to Remain Motivated
1. Acknowledge what you have previously achieved.
It is extremely important for you to also look back at what you have done and give yourself a pat on the back.
You have reached this far. Even if you have not yet achieved your top goals, for sure, there are small goals that you have already achieved.
You must be easy on yourself. Otherwise, you will always feel like you have failed in everything you do.
2. Rethink your goals.
If you have done everything and your goals are seemingly impossible to achieve, perhaps, you need to rethink your goals.
For those who wish to run a startup business, you might want to try a different niche where you can do better. If you are trying to achieve a career goal, you might consider taking a different path.
Sometimes, taking a step back to evaluate yourself would help a lot. Create new goals that are way more realistic and achievable.
Another strategy is to aim low. You might have set goals that are way too unrealistic. They were not feasible right from the start.
Being more realistic with the goals that you set for yourself would be much better.
Related: How to Accomplish Goals Faster Than You Can Imagine and Never Lose Motivation
3. Don’t feed on your sadness.
You will certainly feel bad about not achieving your goals. It is fine to feel the pain and think that you are a failure for a while.
After some time, you have to gather yourself and move on in order to remain motivated. You can’t feed on your sadness. This will surely make you feel even more depressed.
Try doing other things. Distract yourself by doing meaningful tasks or physical activities. Never pity yourself or blame yourself for everything that has happened.
4. Create a roadmap.
This time, your roadmap must be clearer. Your schedule must be more realistic. There should be a clear path towards success.
Of course, you can’t plan everything as you please. The point is for you to start creating a map that allows you to move forward and remain motivated.
There should also be some stops along the way for you to evaluate what you have done so far. There must also be smaller objectives for you to try to achieve.
5. Don’t try achieving everything on your own.
The biggest stumbling block in your life is not being able to share your entire experience with anyone.
Whether it is the joy or pain of the process, you must have someone to share it with.
Having other people by your side will keep you sane. They will tell you if you are doing a great job or if you should think again. When you are down, at least someone will be there to listen to you.
It does not matter whether or not this person provides you with the right advice. The point is that there is someone out there whom you can count on when you are feeling down.
6. Give yourself a treat.
There is nothing wrong with trying to treat yourself to something good when you feel like you have achieved something.
This should not be limited to success though. Even if you felt like you have failed, you should still treat yourself.
Go to a spa. Head to your favorite ice cream parlor. Cook your favorite dishes.
There are many ways for you to remain motivated when you feel like things are starting to fall apart.
Sometimes, the key to success is your personal outlook on life.
Better yet, you should have your happy routine. This is a set of activities you instantly do when you feel like you are feeling depressed or you are not feeling your personal worth at all.
7. Did you really fail?
Finally, before you think that you are a failure and you have not achieved a lot in life, try going back to your inner core and ask yourself again if you have really failed. Perhaps, you feel like you are a failure because you think that way.
The truth is that you have already achieved far more than what you have set to begin with. The problem is that along the way, you keep changing goals to a point that you no longer appreciate the small successes you have experienced.
8. Never lose hope.
In the movie Changeling, a mother kept on looking for her son who was lost. Despite all efforts to find him, the son was never found. In the end, the son was not found. Despite that, it felt like a happy ending because the mother’s last statement still talked about hope. She has found light despite not having achieved that one goal of finding her son.
This should also be the same for you.
Whatever happens along the way, to remain motivated you must not lose hope.
Even if you have done a lot or you felt like you have tried everything possible, you should still keep your hopes up. You will always find problems along the way. It is up to you on how to make the most of the situation.
Related: What to Do in The Face of Hopelessness: 7 Ways to Free Yourself from It
For instance, you are searching for business signs. You are searching for that one sign to lead you to the place where you need something.
Not all business signs are done the same way. Some are extremely difficult to find due to the size of the signs or the color of the text and images used.
You might have tried looking for them in several areas but to no avail. Even if you feel like you want to give up, you don’t. You know that you will still find this place eventually.
This should be your spirit.
Even if you feel like a failure and even if you have done everything humanly possible to achieve your goals in whatever field you have chosen in life, you should just keep pushing ahead.
Failures should challenge you to do even better. Most of all, think of everything that you have already done. This is not the time to back down. If anything, this is the time for you to remain motivated and take your efforts to a next level.
Where Do The Most Motivated People in America Live, According to Researchers
A healthy rivalry exists between the many and varied states of America, with each region believing that they lead the nation in their particular area of expertise. But also that they are generally stronger, smarter, and probably better looking than their neighbors.
New research seeks to add data to the debate over which state might be considered the most motivated in the country.
Motivation, when it comes to creating drive towards a goal, can be divided into three factors: activation, persistence, and intensity.
- Activation is the actual getting it together to get started.
- Persistence is seeing it through without quitting.
- Intensity is how focused you are while you do so.
After analyzing these factors, this study has shown that Coloradans are the most motivated people in America:
States That Eat The Most Fruit & Vegetables
Take fruit and vegetable consumption.
It may not exactly be climbing a mountain or steering your start-up through a depression, but motivating yourself to eat your five-a-day at least four days each week is reckoned to show persistence and intensity.
It’s easy to pick up an apple in the morning (activation). But to follow it up with four more fruits and veggies each day as the week progresses shows a longer-term form of focus and determination towards improving your health.
A whopping 64% of people in Vermont manage just this, suggesting that people from that state have the kind of long-term grit to keep going once they get started.
States That Feel Active And Productive
It’s the getting started, however, that they struggle with – which is indicated by the fact that people in Vermont are second-lowest rated for feeling active and productive.
These are ‘activation’ traits – they require you to get up and get started.
So while people from Vermont have a claim to be the most motivated in the States, it is undermined by their unwillingness to get up and about!
States That Exercise The Most
Hawaii comes top when exercise is measured in terms of number of residents who exercise for at least 30 minutes, three or more days per week. Hawaiians are also in the top five when it comes to eating their fruit and veg.
Of course, these are generalizations, but it is a good opportunity to think about your own levels of activation, persistence, and intensity.
If you find that one trait is lacking and the others are thriving, paying just a bit more attention to that weaker area could help you to shift your overall motivation levels into the next gear – and leave your rivals in the dust.
About The Author
This is a guest post by Ella, who works in Saber Sign Solutions, a business sign-maker company.