Mindful Ways to Motivate Yourself When You're in a Slump

Sometimes when you’re feeling stuck, you know you need to make changes but almost everything sounds too mentally taxing or counterintuitive. Even though it’s important to make habit changes that you know will help you to be more consistent while working towards your goals, sometimes the act of slowing down first will actually help you build up the momentum you need to be productive again.

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If you’ve fallen into a slump and are looking for ways to feel motivated again, here are some creative thought exercises you can do to grow your confidence so you can start to be more productive.

Focus on the big picture

Sweating the small stuff day after day will only lead to burn out. Without looking at your goals and progress as a whole, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you will always be stuck where you are now.

Make it a habit to focus on the big picture of what you want to achieve instead of overanalyzing your failures or shortcomings. Allow yourself to recognize that it’s a process and that it often takes a lot of effort and consistency over a long period of time to get there. Don’t place pressure on yourself to meet unrealistic standards like achieving success overnight.

Remember, setbacks are temporary. Your life could look completely different a year or two from now.

Remind yourself of your “why”

While feeling lost, you often lose sight of yourself and what you want to achieve. If you’re thinking that you can’t even recognize the big picture anymore, it’s time to return to your “why”.

Your why is your personal mission statement that encompasses your core values and guiding principles. It acts as an internal compass that will always point you in the right direction.

Making sure that the decisions you make daily align with your why can be a big motivator as it helps you drown out the noise and distractions so you can focus on what really matters. It’s a reminder of how personal your goals are to you and why they are so important.

Learn to encourage yourself

After re-establishing your foundation for the vision you had of what you want your life to look like, you can begin the process of reaffirming your dreams as motivation to work towards them. Start by looking back on the progress you’ve made so far to remind yourself of how far you’ve come.

Create a list of affirmations that you can say out loud or write down as daily reminders that you are capable of doing what you want to do. To take this a step further you can visualize how your life will change once you reach your goals. Start by thinking about how changing your life will affect everything from your personal relationships to your surroundings.

Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to seek some external validation as well. Revisit mentors and people who inspire you and have achieved what you want to achieve. Remember not to compare your journey with theirs, but to get inspired by the fact that it is possible to achieve your dreams.

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Feeling Down?

When you’ve been working towards a goal or on a project for a very long time and don’t feel like you’re anywhere near reaching your end goal, you may feel too overwhelmed to keep trying.

Use these three steps to fight back against burn out and overwhelm:

Focus on the bigger picture instead of getting lost in the details.
Use your “why” as a motivator to be mindful of what’s really important.
Learn to encourage yourself so that you don’t get constantly stressed out about how much more needs to be done.

Take these steps to remain hopeful about what’s to come instead of convincing yourself of all the reasons why you’ll never accomplish what you want and glean to gain a new perspective of the situation.