How to Motivate Yourself to Continuous Self-Improvement

written by: Kosjenka Muk

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Insufficient intensity and continuity of work on personal growth are the reason why many people have the feeling that their efforts do not produce enough results. At the first glance this might look like a simple problem and that the solution requires just a bit more of discipline, but very often much subtler and less conscious levels of problems are also present. That might be some or all of the following:

• fear to confront the unpleasant or unknown parts of oneself

• unconscious fear of our infantile parts to endanger the relationships with people who are important to us, since many limiting beliefs we strive to change were created exactly to preserve of those bonds

• fear of change and the unknown

• feelings of rebellion that make every form of self-discipline feel hostile and imposed, feelings usually connected to the previous experiences of discipline

• life-style in which we force ourselves rationally into a specific schedule, instead of following our natural rhythms and the messages of our emotions, thus naturally increasing suppression and resistance

• unconscious attachment to suffering.

Attachment to suffering is a very complex and interesting idea, described by Eva Pierrakos in the book called “Creating Union”. The author believes that, as children, to defend ourselves from the pain and to handle it easier, we learn to enjoy suffering. In extreme cases, the result can be masochism - or sadism, when pleasure is projected to the suffering of others. But to some esxtent this pattern is present in everyone and is manifested through pleasure in complaining, retelling unpleasant events, in playing victim etc. The basic problem of this pattern is the unconscious fear that if we give up the suffering we will also lose the pleasure we gain from it.

Maybe you will like to resolve some of the above mentioned elements by directly searching for the causes, possible unpleasant episodes which created those patterns. But some of them are just the ways in which we function as human beings, and it would not make much sense to search for a specific situation in which the pattern originated.

Apart from for those emotional, unconscious obstacles, there are also simpler ones, e.g. forgetting, lack of time or focus due to the outer circumstances that draw your attention away. This can be the way in which you cover and rationalize the unconscious self sabotage, though. Some people might feel guilty or ashamed if they take time for themselves by saying “no“ to others, who afterwards can have all sorts of comments about their work on personal growth. If this is not a particularly difficult problem, you can solve it by specifying in advance the time for yourself, and explaining to your family why this is so important to you and what could be the benefits for them too.

Lack of motivation to work on personal growth can also occur simply because we do not know what the reward is – we are simply not familiar with the feelings of freedom, easiness, love for ourselves and specific life changes that we could achieve, or we might perceive them as too far in the future to motivate us.

Some of the ways in which you can motivate yourself are the following:

• Basic and most important: remind yourself over and over again, and try to imagine as intensively as possible, all the beautiful results and feelings you can achieve with continuous work

• A bit harsher way is “negative motivation“, which means imagining how your life and health will look like in five or ten years if nothing changes...

• Try to choose exercises which you will enjoy, which you will be motivated to do because of the enjoyment in the process itself, and not only because of results.

• Do at least a little bit. Even short exercise is better than no exercise.
  
  
• If you feel resistance, take time to admit it and explore it.
  
  
• Try to work at the times of the day when you spontaneously feel like it instead of imposing rigid schedules.
  
  
• Make a list of the ideas you find most important and exercises you can use, reminding yourself by regularly rereading the list.
  
  
• If you wish, you can implement rewards as motivation: decide how you will reward yourself after the specific period of continuous work (try not to make the reward to be some kind of food that creates addiction or something that you know is not good for you).
  
  
• Remind yourself that the more you learn from less intense situations and grow every day, there is less chance that you will attract serious crisis or disease that would force you to be motivated.
  
  
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© Kosjenka Muk. All rights reserved.

 

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