Discover how you can find your motivation and use it to overcome challenges, work around roadblocks and find the drive to persist in 2021.

Ah, motivation – a widely discussed, powerful potion that seems to be the one common component of every success story. With the new year in full swing, motivation will be your greatest tool in accomplishing your goals. This almighty tool is so often discussed, yet most of us are struggling to tap into our motivation to create our own triumphs. If you’re feeling discouraged, there is great news – we all have motivators, we just need to determine what they are and know how to effectively use them If you are wondering how you, too, can best consume this magical elixir, then you’ve come to the right place!

What do you wish to accomplish?

When we seek motivation, it is usually to help us achieve something. What is your end goal? Do you want to connect to a certain amount of professionals and land a job you love during next 10 net-working events? Do you want to get a promotion by the end of the year? Whatever it is, you will need motivation to achieve it. If you’re feeling like you want to accomplish something in your career, but you’re not sure what, you can ask yourself the following guiding questions:

• What is my vision for my career?
• What type of experiences do I want to have?
• What type of impact do I want to have?

These questions will help you filter out any outside influences (things that tend to drain your motivation as they are negative) and aid you in defining your true end goal.

What motivates you?

Determining what factors motivate you to achieve your end goal is the most important step. A helpful exercise to conduct is to separate your motivators into two categories: intrinsic (non-tangible/more emotional) and extrinsic (tangible/often monetary). Then, further narrow them down into must-haves, nice-to-haves, and trade-offs. This will help you gain a deeper awareness of what is important to you and what motivates you to achieve your goal.

For example, if you were looking for a new job and you decided to make a list of motivators, examples of extrinsic motivators would be: high salary, bonuses, paid time-off, benefits, and the ability to receive a promotion. Some intrinsic motivators might be: feeling satisfied in your job, enjoyment of work, if the job has learning and development programs, or receiving recognition and praise. If you need more ideas, a list of extrinsic and intrinsic motivators is available here.

How can you use motivation to reach your end goal?

Now that you know what motivates you, you need to know how to use it in order to reach your end goal. One way to go about this is to conquer smaller goals as one overarching goal might become overwhelming. Setting small goals to gain progress will help you stay on track without losing motivation. Keeping with the promotion example, the following smaller goals would help achieve the end goal:

• Ask for more responsibilities – for example, help someone senior to you with a project
• Develop a bond with your boss – Set up a coffee meeting with your manager to touch base bi-weekly
• Work hard to quantify your results – keep a record of everything you do that enhances the company’s bottom line, that puts the company or your department in a good light, that is creative and innovative, and that shows your loyalty and commitment to the organization

Celebrate once you’ve made each stride. Take pride in your progress, and relish in the fact that you’re one small step closer. Each of these steps accumulates until you are miles ahead of where you started and before you know it, you’ll reach your desired outcome!

How can you continue to stay motivated?

Setting goals is the easy part, staying accountable is not! When you stay accountable, you remain on track and continue to conquer those smaller goals in a timely manner. While it is normal to fall off sometimes, what is important is that you get going again. Consider asking a professional coach, mentor, colleague or friend to be your accountability partner so that they nag you (in the nicest way possible) and you feel a greater obligation to stay on the right path.

You might also want to surround yourself with like-minded and motivated people, if you haven’t already. For example, if you are seeking a promotion, try to bond with higher-level employees and give them a hand wherever necessary.

On the whole, we all possess the ability to succeed, we just need to tap into our motivators and set smaller goals in order to help us master our aspirations! With the start of a new year, it is time to turn your dreams into a reality.