How to Stay Motivated to Achieve Your Goals.
How can you stay motivated to actually achieve your goals? Today I’m going to walk you through how I stayed motivated to actually achieve my dream of becoming a full-time blogger.
The fact that I’m even writing this post goes to show people can change and find the motivation to achieve their goals. See people use to make fun of me for being the kind of person you couldn’t leave alone because I would get distracted.
Now here I am a full-time blogger who earns over $400,000 a year without anyone standing over my shoulder forcing me to stay on task lol.
So how do you find the motivation to begin?
Starting is truly one of the hardest parts of becoming successful. Before I actually started blogging I thought about it for months, if not years. I would see bloggers on Instagram, and Pinterest and dream about what my life could look like if I was a full-time blogger who got to travel, shop without guilt, and buy my dream home.
Fast forward to the week I actually started my blog here is how I found the motivation to start:
A secret Pinterest board / Instagram folder.
Right before I started my blog I got really into Pinterest. The week before I started my blog I created a secret board, and the premise of the board was “If I were a successful blogger” for an hour every day I would pin stuff to this board that I thought I would be able to have or achieve if I became successful.
I pinned Gucci purses, Hawaii vacations, outfits, cars, houses, and everything else I saw that I would want if money and time weren’t an issue. This really helped me realize how badly I wanted a life that was better than the one I was living.
Nowadays you could do this on Pinterest like I did or you could save stuff on Instagram in folders.
A “No BS What would it take” list.
If you listen to the Impact Theory podcast you might have an idea of what this is. If you don’t here is a brief description. Lisa and Tom Bilyeu started a company called Quest Nutrition. Maybe you’ve heard of Quest Bars? Anyway when they have a big idea, or big goal one of them will say to the other “No BS what would it take?” and then the other has to list what it would take.
I started my blog in early 2016 and I hadn’t heard that story yet but what I did was basically the same thing. I sat down with a piece of paper and wrote out everything I would need to start a blog that could become successful. The list looked something like this:
To learn what I need to start a blog. (which I searched on Pinterest which is what helped me come up with all the following items on the list)
Self-hosted Blog hosting that comes with WordPress.
A domain name.
A topic to talk about.
To learn what a blog legally needs to have.
A theme/design for my blog.
To learn how to share a blog on social media.
To learn how to make pins for Pinterest.
To learn how to monetize a blog.
To learn how to schedule blog content.
To learn how to schedule social media posts.
A content calendar.
If you want to learn how to start a blog you can click here, I made a blog post walking you through it step-by-step for free so you don’t have to go searching the depths of the Internet like I did lol.
A planner with a purpose.
After a week of pinning what my life could look like If I became a successful blogger, I decided to make the no BS list, and after I had the no BS list I knew I had to go for it. The only issue was I was a full-time nursing student, new wife, and I was working basically full-time. I had no free time on my hands yet I wanted to try and build a successful blog.
So I knew if I was actually going to achieve this I had to be realistic with myself. I sat down with a planner and I planed out time for everything I had to do like go to class, work, study, do homework. Then in any blank space, I could find I would add things from my to-do list. So the first week all I got done was research blogging and sign up for hosting.
Then in the second week, I got my blog design together and started writing blog posts.
Then in the third week, I started learning about Pinterest and social media for bloggers.
As I achieved things from my list I would cross them off, and on the journey, as I would learn new things I had to do to be a successful blogger I would add them to my original list.
Every Sunday I set an alarm in my phone for 7:30 pm, and after it went off as soon as I got a little free time I would sit down with my planner, my list, and plan out my next week.
I had to be realistic, I couldn’t finish a whole website in a week with no experience. That’s an important thing to remember as you start your journey of achieving your dream life you have to be intentional, and also realistic if you plan to start a blog, write posts, and make money all in the first week you’ll become disappointed when you don’t archive it. Then if that continues you’ll quit because you just keep disappointing yourself. Slow and steady wins the race here.
After weeks and weeks of just biting off a little and making progress, I started getting traffic, then I started making money. It all worked out because I worked realistically and didn’t try and force myself to do more than I understood.
Stopped comparing my brand new blog to successful bloggers.
If you’ve ever started a blog you’ve probably come to realize that designing, and setting up a blog is harder than it should be. I thought when I started I was going to have a perfect-looking blog right away.
Turns out those perfect-looking blogs you see on the internet took a lot of time or a lot of money to create.
With blogging or any goal, the only way you are going to be able to keep pushing forward without doubting yourself is by not comparing where you are now to the inspiring people you want to be like.
Enjoy their content, use it as motivation but do not compare. It took me 5 years of constantly learning about blogging to get my blog how it looks now and I still want it to look better.
However, it’s important to note my blog was successful when it was just a white background with black text and nothing interesting about it. You don’t need a great-looking website to find blogging success.
So how do you stay motivated once you find the initial motivation to get started?
Write down your top 5-10 big goals every morning (make this a habit/routine).
Add new pins / insta pics to your dream life board every day.
Get a goal planner and track your goals daily. (here’s the one I use and love)
Continue to not compare your blog or achievement on your goal to anything else.
Reschedule things as soon as you realize you didn’t give yourself enough time or weren’t prepared. Keeping your schedule/planner up to date will help you see how hard you are working will motivate you to not quit because you’ve already put so much into it.
Here is a cute photo from the Cultivate What Matters website for the goal planner I use because mine doesn’t look this cute.
Basically, all of this to say the keys to getting and staying motivated to truly change your life and achieve your dreams is:
Find a way to visualize your dreams daily such as a secret Pinterest board or Instagram folder.
Plan out and schedule a realistic for you right now amount of time to work on your goals each week. Don’t schedule weeks at a time. Schedule each week that way you don’t put too much, or too little on your plate.
Make working on your goal a daily habit. Even if you can only do the smallest amount of work on it each day progress is progress. Once working on your goal becomes a habit (you do it weekly for more than 6 weeks) it gets much easier. It truly becomes part of your identity and working on it no longer feels like your pushing yourself.
This practice works for any goal you have not just blogging. You can use this for finding success in weight loss, or anything else you want to achieve. You’ve got this! Let’s go chase your dreams!