We all go through periods when we want to be motivated but simply can't dredge up enough energy to have that Monday motivation at the start of a new week.
Perhaps you have goals that genuinely excite you, but you struggle to get into the headspace required to pursue them.
If you haven’t started off your week motivated, that sluggish feeling can follow you throughout the rest of the week.
Whether you want to engage in a creative project, put in a great day's performance at work or commit to a fitness program, if you're not motivated it can feel almost impossible to get started.
So, what can you do if you need a motivation boost?
In this article, we'll explore the most significant changes you can make to get that Monday motivation you need. We'll explain what motivation actually is, explore some of the factors that reduce it and suggest techniques that can help transform your feelings at the start of a new week.
What Is Motivation?
Regardless of your specific goal, being appropriately motivated plays a huge role in determining success.
It's often helpful to think of motivation as having three core components – instigation, persistence, and energy.
Firstly, instigation involves choosing to start a particular behavior, such as signing up for a new class.
Secondly, persistence involves making sustained effort to keep pursuing your goal even when it's difficult.
To continue with the class example, persistence involves sticking with the course material even when you're tired or lack time.
Finally, the energy component of motivation is determined by how much concentration and intensity you devote to your goal.
To motivate yourself, you need to learn how to make changes that impact all three of these components.
It's also worth thinking about the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivations come from external sources – for example, acclaim from others, prizes, and for attracting money.
Meanwhile, intrinsic motivations come from within you and relate to personal gratification or to living in accordance with your values.
How To Motivate Yourself?
Now that you've started thinking about motivation in a bit more depth. Let's turn to the question of how you can get motivated so that you're ready to tackle life on a Monday morning.
As noted above, the attitude you have at the very start of the week plays a major part in how that week goes, so changing your Monday motivation can make all the difference.
Begin the week with determination, focus and good feelings and that positivity will follow you all the way to the weekend!
In contrast, if you fall into a dip or a rut, you'll find it hard to drag yourself out of that in the middle of the week – especially when your energy begins to flag.
We'll work our way through six distinct things you can do to shift how you feel on a Monday morning, tackling both physical and mental well-being.
As you read through our tips and techniques, think about how you can start to apply them to your own routine.
Get A Head Start – Prepare In Advance
In other words, prepare in advance for whatever you have to do on Monday.
You can do this in a range of different ways, all of which have a positive impact. For example, even just setting out your work clothes for the next day prevents you from having to rush in the morning, allowing you to start the day in with positive thinking and a proactive mindset.
There's a special value to preparing in advance for things that you might try to avoid.
If you want to go for a workout, packing your gym bag and putting it at the front door makes it much harder to make excuses for skipping your exercise session.
The same goes for a healthy eating plan – setting the kitchen up with all the ingredients you need for a green smoothie can help you avoid reaching for sugary cereal.
No matter what you get a head start on, you spark more of a will to achieve that goal.
Part of the reason for this is that you have a reduced number of decisions to make and steps to take, cutting down opportunities to get annoyed, disillusioned or tired.
You can also set aside notes that help you to motivate you in the morning.
Reading a message that says “You can do it!” might just give you that extra boost you need to go for a run.
Meanwhile, a note with positive affirmations like “Today is going to be a wonderful day” can once again help your Monday motivation cultivate a positive mindset, to be more productive and determined.
Monday Motivation Quotes For Work
- “Don’t give up. The beginning is always the hardest. Life rewards those who work hard at it.”
- “Inner work is finding joy in work. Our real work is heart work and soul work.”
- “Be happy with what you have while working for what you want.”
- “Working hard is important. But there is something that matters even more. Believing in yourself.”
- “If you can't stop thinking about it, don't stop working for it”
Meditating: Tune In To Your Greater Self
In basic terms, meditation helps you enter into a calm, focused mindset, encouraging you to let go of extraneous thoughts and worries. You may wish to try using a meditation guide.
You can use it to simply soothe and center yourself, or you can use it in service of a particular goal.
As the morning meditation quotes below suggest, meditation has a range of incredible impacts on both body and mind. For example, meditation benefits include reduced heart rate and blood pressure, improved management of anxiety, and increased positivity towards both others and yourself.
It also boosts your attention span, helping you to keep going longer during the day. When you cultivate a meditation practice over several weeks, your brain actually begins to change.
Regular meditators report higher levels of energy and motivation, as well as an enhanced capacity to regulate their own emotions.
An ideal Monday motivation or any morning meditation would involve taking at least ten minutes for deep breathing and a simple energy-boosting exercise.
Start out just by sitting comfortably with your eyes closed, breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth.
You'll notice thoughts and images crossing your mind, but try to let them pass without sustained attention. Next, picture gold light pouring into your body, filling you up from your feet to the top of your head. Imagine it like sunlight, warming and relaxing you.
Once you've completed the visualization, open your eyes. You'll emerge in a state of mindful motivation, reading to tackle your day.
Morning Meditation Quotes
- “To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.”
- “Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
- “Your goal is not to battle with the mind, but to witness the mind.”
- “Meditation is like a gym in which you develop the powerful mental muscles of calm and insight.”
- “Meditation and concentration are the way to a life of serenity.”
Visualization For Motivation
Visualizing your goals is a powerful, effective way to set up a great day.
This kind of future self-motivation revolves around building up a vivid image of how you'd like the day. So, start as described above, by sitting and engaging in deep breathing for a few minutes.
Next, imagine what your day will look like – the good things that will happen, how motivated you'll feel, and how you'll pursue your goals. Do your best to add as many details as possible.
What sounds will you hear? Who will you speak to? What will the surroundings me like? The more “real” the image seems, the better.
The power of your thoughts can completely shift your attitude toward your goal.
This process – creative visualization – is used by a huge number of personal development experts, sportspeople and celebrities. It's also a technique that those who follow the Law of Attraction subscribe to.
Don't underestimate the power of the mind – the more you visualize what you want from life, the more the universe falls in line with that image.
Other benefits of visualization include the sustained positivity you can get from visualizing the future.
While the above exercise focuses on positive visualization of the upcoming day, you can just as easily use the same technique to imagine a day next week, next month or three years down the line. Regularly picturing the life you want helps you stay motivated to pursue that life, even when it's challenging to do.
Morning Visualization Quotes
- “Visualize the most amazing life imaginable to you. Close your eyes and see it clearly. Then hold the vision for as long as you can. Now consider it done.”
- “Visualize what you want to do before you do it. Visualization is so powerful that when you know what you want, you will get it.”
- “Visualization. It may be the most important part of your mental package.”
- “Make sure you visualize what you really want, not what someone else wants for you.”
- “The clearer you are when visualizing your dreams, the brighter the spotlight will be to lead you on the right path.”
Fitness Motivation
In addition, being fitter tends to boost self-esteem. However, you might not have considered that regularly working out can also keep you motivated and energized.
Firstly, exercise is proven to enhance mood, as it stimulates the release of endorphins and other brain chemicals that make you feel good.
Working out reliably leaves you less anxious, more optimistic and more relaxed. Plus, if you're stressed out, strenuous physical workout motivation helps you burn through some of that tension.
As well as making you feel generally more positive, exercise increases blood flow to your brain, and this may help to improve brain function.
For example, some research on the impact of exercise suggests it makes you process information more quickly, help to regulate sleep, and (In the longer term) improves energy.
For all of these reasons, adding an exercise routine to your life is an easy and rewarding way to improve your Monday motivation.
And don't forget that you don't need to sign up for a gym to get these benefits – if money or time are obstacles to a gym membership, working out at home can offer all the same benefits.
Even just five or ten minutes of extra exercise per day can make all the difference.
Morning Fitness Motivation Quotes
- “The only bad workout is the one that didn't happen.”
- “Sweat is fat crying.”
- “The voice in your head that tells you that you can’t do it is a liar!”
- “Never say that the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon.”
- “Wake up with determination. Go to bed with satisfaction.”
Hydration Motivation
In fact, staying hydrated is at least as important as exercise, both for your overall health and for your motivation.
Consequently, you should make sure you start the day by having at least a full pint of water – this helps to compensate for dehydration during sleep.
So, why is hydration important for your Monday motivation?
At least partly because the benefits of hydration include maintaining and enhancing general brain function.
When you're hydrated, it's easier to focus and your energy levels are higher.
In fact, feeling unusually tired is an early symptom of dehydration.
Hydration also promotes a positive mood, which then feeds into your drive and determination to achieve your goals.
In contrast, dehydration makes you feel sluggish and low.
For example, a recent study showed that women who were mildly dehydrated not only reported feeling more fatigued but also noted more feelings of melancholy and more negative thoughts.
Plus, dehydration comes with headaches, and it's hard to be enthusiastic about anything when you're in pain.
As well as having a pint of water when you wake up, don't forget to top up your hydration throughout the day in order to stay alert, active and motivated.
Morning Hydration Motivation
- “Stay cool and stay motivated.”
- “When you drink water and stay hydrated all the time, it’s good for all the organs in your body!”
- “Drink water like it is going out of style.”
- “Stay hydrated and sleep well. Being beautiful on the inside is what matters most!”
- “Eating healthy and keeping hydrated does wonders; it centers my mood and helps me keep a sharp mind.”
Sleep Motivation
Finally, sleep is an underrated but crucial contributor to your Monday motivation, and to your quality of life more broadly. Like hydration,
good sleep comes with benefits, and a lack thereof comes with significant costs that impede your goals.
There are plenty of reasons why sleep is important. For example, when you sleep, your memory works better – you recall information easier, and you'll process new information faster.
Meanwhile, you can focus and pay attention for longer, which is an asset to just about anything you might want to do with your day.
Other documented benefits of sleeping early and getting enough sleep include generally increased productivity, and better performance across the board.
The benefits of sleep on mental health also include lower stress levels. When your stress levels are lower, it's easier to have a positive mindset that keeps you working towards change.
In contrast, if you're sleep deprived then your ability to regulate your feelings declines because of the tight link between sleep and emotions. Given the psychological effects of sleep deprivation, you'll likely have a bad mood, and paying attention is much harder.
In fact, when you're exhausted, even things you normally enjoy can become tiresome or prohibitively difficult.
Experts vary in their recommendations, but most sleep quotes suggest 7-9 hours of sleep per night as the optimal time.
To make it easier to get a restful night in bed, cut back on screen time shortly before sleep and consider doing something relaxing (like taking a bath or reading a few chapters of a book) this will greatly increase your Monday motivation.
Sleep Quotes
- “When I wake up, I am reborn.”
- “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
- “Wake up every morning with the thought that something wonderful is going to happen.”
- “Always remember to fall asleep with a dream and wake up with a purpose.”
- “Good night – may you fall asleep in the arms of a dream, so beautiful, you'll cry when you awake.”
Use Self-Hypnosis For Monday Motivation
Self-hypnosis for motivation can really help you with a much better mindset with approaching a new week. By consistently using this, you'll notice:
- Your energy level renewing themselves and rising each second you are crushing your goals.
- And goals and dreams are becoming clearer and clearer.
- Your days of seeking motivation externally being a thing of the past, as the current and future ‘YOU' tunes into your greater self.
Try increasing motivation with self-hypnosis to achieve your potential and achieve your weekly goals.
The post Monday Motivation: How To Motivate Yourself For The Week appeared first on The Law Of Attraction.
* This article was originally published here
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