1. Get an accountability partner. This may be your husband, your friend, your children, a neighbor, your mom, or any breathing body that can remind you or hold you accountable for what you want to accomplish for that day.
In the instance of exercise, I joined a running club that meets every Saturday for long runs. Over time, we have built friendships and get together during the week to keep our accountability high for our exercise. It is much more motivating to get up at 5:30am to exercise when you know your buddies are waiting for you. When you are hitting the pavement by yourself, it is much more difficult to follow through when you are self powered.
In the instance of housework, I have operated on the same theme as my motivation for exercise. My best friend and I have just come up with a brilliant idea for housecleaning. We will do it together. I hate doing floors and she hates dusting so we have a team. One Monday we clean her house and the next Monday we clean my house. Both of our houses stay clean and we don't have to do what we despise plus it is much more fun to do hum drum activities with a friend.
2. Envision the end result. Visualize how your house looks when it is clean, imagine yourself crossing the finish line of a race, create a vision of what you look like 10 pounds lighter. Put a picture of yourself when you were thinner on the mirror or on the refrigerator to keep you motivated when you want to grab a snack.
3. Utilize Resources Available to You. Use the phone app called My Fitness Pal. I use My Fitness Pal all the time. It will let me search every restaurant that I may be eating at and how many calories the dish has so that I can eat where I want to but make a good choice while I am there. There are many websites available to help keep you on track with weight loss and fitness goals. There are also many sites that will help you stay organized. Search on Pinterest for pages about how to deep clean your house or keep your house clean. It is amazing what is out there on the web that can give you a plan. If you want to start exercising, get Couch to 5K free download to get you started. Here is the link to get that: http://www.djsteveboy.com/1day25k.html
4. Remove Distractions that Hinder your Progress. This may be social media. This may be food. This may be shopping. This step could be the hardest one to conquer since sometimes we don't even know what is hindering us from making progress.
5. Reward Yourself when you Accomplish Something. Tell yourself you can't look at Facebook until you fold and put away the laundry. You can't have a snack until you sort through the mound of paperwork on your work desk. You can go to the shopping center after you get groceries and put them away. Rewarding yourself is great motivation to be productive.
5 1/2. Identify What your "Despised Tasks" Are. For some, going to the grocery may be the worst task ever. For some it may be laundry, for others it may be going to work every day. If you reward yourself for doing the despised tasks first, then you will find yourself on a path to motivation and pride on a daily basis.
Today enjoy some motivation and reap the benefits of feeling accomplished. I challenge you to motivate yourself to achieve a goal today. Comment and let me know what you did :)
Thanks for reading my blog! Big things are on the horizon for Fun Thoughts on Life so stay tuned for the big announcement in another week! Subscribe to receive updates on the right. I wouldn't be blogging if you all weren't reading. So thank you for reading!
Jennifer
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