What to Do When Demotivated…

About This Episode

Let’s talk about consistency. Especially when you are starting something new.

When you just started, you might feel that the excitement is there and you are motivated.

The story goes like this.

You want to start pursuing your dream of having your Ph.D. When you’re starting off, you’re excited to do all of these new things, embark on this new journey, and learn new things.

You got really focused, and you started building this momentum to make progress several months in.

You start to feel demotivated by the routines. You began to feel bored of having the same routine. And you feel like your journey is still further from where you want to go.

Looking at the milestones in front of you, you see that there are so many steps that you need to take before you actually reach there.

You might feel overwhelmed and demotivated and start to second guess whether you should even finish the study or make the right decision to do this.

The thing about self-control, self-discipline, and having this consistency and grit to accomplish your goals is that you have to accept it and realize that you are facing that challenging phase in your life.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”

– Jim Rohn

Some of us think that goals and accomplishments are based on luck and reserved for some people.

You might even think that you are not lucky enough.

And that’s the reason why you are not achieving what you want to accomplish in your life.

You start to compare yourself with other people, and you begin to say that other people have more support, have more money, and have more connections, which makes them accomplish their goals and accomplishments.

But in reality, is that their self-discipline and self-control actually what make them successful.

Being consistent in pursuing their goal is what brought them closer to what they want to achieve.

Therefore, in this podcast episode, I want to talk about the importance of being consistent in achieving your goals.

There are times that you might feel that you want to give up, right?

When that time arrives, think about why you started and really have time to yourself to slow down and reflect on the new things that you can begin to do to make goal-achieving more exciting.

Take risks to feel like you gain a little more momentum in the “lonely” middle, too.

So what I’m saying is that, let me go back to the example of your Ph.D. right.

Being consistent is really about making progress in what you do. But in the middle, sometimes you feel like you are alone and because you have to really focus your attention on doing your work, or studying this is the time where you have to really inject exciting things into your routine to build that momentum again.

Create another mini-goals that stretches you and excites you in the middle.

It is to make sure that you are reaching that milestone that you want to achieve.

For example, what motivates me is to be consistent in presenting my progress in front of other people every month.

And really making that presentation is valuable for other people to learn too.

It’s not just for me to only update the progress of my result, but in reality, I’m teaching others too.

When you understand something and teach other people, you are getting one step further in front of them and, most importantly, build your self-confidence.

And in turn, it would motivate you to push yourself forward.

And even though you feel like you are not prepared yet, you feel like you want to gain so many things first before presenting to others.

Really, you know, that’s actually not true at all.

You don’t have to be totally prepared before starting. 

Because you know when you are consistently giving to others, this helps you to really learn and understand the concept.

You might think that you’re not in a situation that you have an audience to really present whatever outcomes that you have made.

But the reality is that if you really look around you, there are opportunities for you to provide learning experiences, teaching other people around you.

So think about that. Maybe there are some groups that you can start to teach them, or you have members who want to learn members of you.

Your lab or at your workplace that wants to learn something from you.

Start being a mentor to others.

I think one of the ways for me to be consistent is by teaching other people around me.

When people are expecting something from me, it gives me a bit of encouragement and, I start to push myself even further so that I can reach my goals.

When the excitement is gone and the outcome is still far from reach, you need to figure out the activities you can do to build support and create consistency. 

This new exciting activity becomes a place that you can fall back to.

Another this is to reward yourself when you reach your milestones.

What I meant by that is not totally in terms of money but experience, such as giving yourself time to do things that you like to do and want to do.

Although I sometimes think we overindulge ourselves because we want to reward our effort. Instead of really pushing ourselves so that we somehow are rewarded with the hard work that we have done, we kind of celebrate it too much that sometimes it is hard for your to gain back momentum and dilutes the meaning of celebration when you actually make it to the milestones you want to get.

Therefore, make the reward just the right amount with the effort that you’ve put in.

For you to really acknowledge that you have accomplished the goal have that you set for a particular week, you need to get clarity of the most important tasks you have to get done that week.

I guess that’s the one habit that I have been doing for the past four years. To look at my week and set a clear goal – what is the plan I want to achieve that week.

And of course, this goal must be aligned with my monthly plan, yearly goal, and so on.

For example, if my goal for that year is to publish one Q1 paper.  So if you are in academics, you know the Q1 paper is a high-impact paper, and that’s actually the aim of our publication in the scientific field.

The first time I decided to publish the Q1 paper, I didn’t know the process, so I spent time researching where I actually wanted to get it published. Just thinking what the next step…

You don’t have to know ALL the steps right away to start. You just need to know enough to take the next 2-3 steps.

First, I search what is a reputable journal in my field of study. It was based on what other researchers had published before, which is frequently cited by others.

Then, I started to read the articles published in the journal almost every day.

This helps me learn how to start writing scientifically.

Then, I started to gain ideas on what experiments I could do for my research paper. Design the experiments, conduct them, get results and finally have the result published in the Journal publication that I want.

The journal that I mentioned is the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.

In my field of study, which is hydrogen energy, that’s the journal that everyone is referring to.

I’ll try to aim high, and I try to stretch a bit further so that I am more excited to pursue it.

Putting myself to my highest potential.

I get clear on my goal, take on the next step to reach that goal.

I break down; when should I finish writing that paper? So for me to complete that writing, by when should I have all the results of the experiments and so on.

To reverse engineer the goals that you want to achieve and get crystal clear of the leveraged ladders so that you can go in that direction.

When people ask me, how do you balance everything… the reality is that to really know how to focus your goal for that year, your plans for that month. For that week, when you are clear with that, you will know what your priority is every day, which helps you progress consistently.

Remember that you will face this demotivating time.

And during that time, it’s much more critical for you to not give up and understand the reason you started all of these and really dig down into your goal so that you can push yourself forward.

In conclusion, the next time you are stuck and feel demotivated to reach your goal, find a new exciting way to make you progress in the right direction.

Over to you…

And my question for you guys today would be,

“What’s stopping you from reaching your goal this year?”

Let’s talk about it over Instagram yourock.podcast in the comments.

One last announcement, the Limited Time Offer for The Success Accelerator, my 1:1 coaching program ends 4th Nov mid-night. To grab the opportunity to be coached by me throughout 2022, hope on to draliahmajid.com/coaching to learn more, and FREE discovery call with me before the 4th of Nov.

That’s all for today. I appreciate you guys for tuning in as always: remember to;

Subscribe for inspiration; start your day with intention, love what you do, and end your day with gratitude!

I’ll see you back on the next episode next Tuesday. 

Assalamualaikum.

If you like this episode, check out this episode next:

7 Easy Ways to Create Consistent Routine