January motivation flagging?

Many of us develop a habit of ‘beating ourselves up’ for not sustaining our motivation. Does this sound like something you do?

Let's put the beating stick down for a moment, and reflect on the reasons for this lack of motivation and also look at the tools we can use to stay motivated. Some therapies such as NLP and Hypnotherapy can be particularly helpful by supporting us and our motivation via subconscious messages. Counselling can also help boost our motivation, by removing unhelpful subconscious thinking, or past habits and behaviours, which can sabotage us or act as hidden barriers to our success, both now and in the future.

A classic scenario a New Year resolution to diet. All goes well for a few days, maybe even a few weeks and then one evening you find yourself having a few chocolates. Your inner voice, that harsh critic, attacks you with a vengeance for your weakness. Before you know it, you feel so bad about yourself that you might as well eat the whole box of chocolates.

So where do you start? The first steps are to merely become aware of what your inner critic is saying. Don’t try to ignore it or pretend you don’t hear it. It’s telling you something. Maybe your inner critic feels that by pointing out these things, it will help you to be ‘good’ or ‘perfect’. You might be thinking “But it’s trying to sabotage me. Those thoughts are negative and unhelpful and I am left criticising myself, and going round on a vicious cycle of failure.”

If that is the case let's focus on your end goals instead. Visualise and imagine how you would look, how it would feel to actually have already achieved those goals. Imagine being that future you. Now try to tune into your inner critic, listen to the argument in your head. If you are failing to reach your goals there may well be a conflict between what it is you consciously want, and what your inner critic is saying. You need to strike up a deal between the two parts of you in order to resolve the issue, and free you up to take action towards your goals. 

This work may also involve looking at the bigger reasons, the higher purposes of your goals, and what your values truly are. Then ultimately, it's about giving yourself the support you need in establishing those important things.  If you feel you may need some help and support through this process a qualified counsellor will be able to help you stay motivated and overcome your inner critic.