Motivation and Emotion

Motivation and emotion are closely connected.

For example, you may have noticed that events that create strong emotions - positive or negative - motivate you in one way or another.

You may also have noticed that when you feel down and unhappy, your motivation is often in the dumps too.

When you realize that taking greater control over managing your motivation or emotion means you’ll have a tremendous amount of influence over the other, you’ll have unleashed a powerful way to take charge of your future.

When you’re ready to improve your drive, it’s important to remember this connection between motivation and emotion. You’ll need to recognize that while you may not have much control over your initial gut feelings to situations or events, you do have the ability to control how you respond to those feelings, thereby managing their intensity.

In other words, what you think about situations or events influences your feelings about them and in turn how you choose to respond to those feelings influences the impact they’ll have on your wellbeing. And when you can manage the intensity of those feelings, you have the power to recover more quickly and regain your motivation!

That’s a big idea! And it isn’t effortless to change our thoughts and reactions to various situations that we’ve carefully honed over the course of our lifetime. But with focus, patience, determination, and direction, it is quiet easily the most effective step to better managing your motivation and emotions. And that is a big step towards whatever self improvement goals you may have!

There are multiple ways to get your motivation and emotion headed in a positive direction and the one I want to share with you today is appreciating your accomplishments. There are two ways to do this.

The first way is to think back on and write down your past achievements. (If you’re in a really sour mood, this may feel nearly impossible to do!) With some time and patience, you should be able to come up with a decent list of things you are proud of having done. They don’t have to be world-changing accomplishments, just things that you’ve done that you feel good about.

Reflect on this list. Acknowledge what it took for you to be successful in each situation. What strengths did you use? What obstacles did you overcome? What made you proud of yourself? When you really start paying attention to the details of each of your past accomplishments, you’ll be surprised at the motivational boost you get from feeling proud and successful.

The second way to appreciate your accomplishments is to actually create and enjoy your own success now. Decide on something you’ve been putting off or that’s a real challenge to you or that would just be nice to finish and actually do it. Again, this doesn’t have to be losing 100 pounds. It could be something as simple (and possibly intimidating) as finally calling your credit card company to request a lower interest rate.

When you’ve reached your goal, notice how you feel. Notice the momentum you’ve just purposefully created. Enjoy the feeling of having marked something off your “to do” list. Feel the lift you get from this simple act!

You can see why it’s so important to have a better understanding of how motivation and emotion impact each other.

You really can have much more control of your future when you take some steps towards better managing your motivation and emotions.

And even though it’s not easy, it is within your grasp if you just decide to be committed, focused, and accountable!

If you need a support and accountability partner to help you get started, contact me today!

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