Figuring out how to motivate yourself has its own set of challenges.
But motivating yourself to change your financial life?
How do I do that?
Is it even possible?
Yes, it is, some of the harmful habits you have developed over the years aren’t your fault.
It is your brain’s fault in how it interpreted those actions.
For instance, willpower failures occur when willpower strength is exhausted by another self control task.
An example, constantly avoiding chocolate in your diet could lead to more impulsive purchases as an award (The Strength Model of Self Control Study).
The study also found self control can be drained through exertion. This fatigued state is referred to as “ego-depletion.”
In today’s post you will learn:
- The way your brain processes temptation
- How to actually get started motivating yourself
- Ways to trick your brain and motivate yourself naturally
What Does it Mean to Motivate Yourself?
The most difficult part of trying to change your financial life is finding the motivation.
I struggled with my motivation for years so I know you are too!
My debt pay off journey should have started in March of 2016 but it actually didn’t start until July of 2017.
What held me back was my lack of motivation and giving into temptation.
I was going through a divorce and retail therapy was healing me (or so I thought).
The following information I’m about to share with you is what I wish I had at the very beginning to encourage me to start sooner.
Ok what is motivation exactly?
It is the ability to keep moving toward your goal after experiencing disappointment or setbacks.
Motivation Consists of 4 Parts:
- Personal drive to change or adapt a harmful habit
- Commitment to your goal
- The initiative to act now
- Optimism – resilience to keep going when a challenge arises.
In your financial life a challenge could be a broken refrigerator, broken plumbing line (happened to me 4 weeks prior to this writing), or your car breaks down.
The key is to keep your motivation alive by remembering part 3, initiative, and part 4, your optimism.
When things feel like they are falling apart. Stand back up, re-evaluate, and start toward your goal again.
Adapting to what life throws at you will keep you on track.
Also, it’s good to know what type of award systems work for your personality or situation.
The way to figure this out is to know what motivator type you are experiencing.
Types of Motivators
- Intrinsic – For goals you want to achieve. The reward is internal. You experience a high level of satisfaction just performing the task.
- Ex: Streaming your favorite Netflix show after a long stressful day.
- Extrinsic – Goals you have to achieve. The rewards are completely external. Can be in the form of money, power, high performance marks in the workplace, staying employed, etc.
- Ex: Job promotion with increase in pay.
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How to Trick the Brain to Resist Temptation?
The part of your brain responsible for temptation or the ability to resist temptation is the left lateral prefrontal cortex. It is located slightly above your left ear.
Doesn’t sound very scary, does it?
A March 2010 study shows when the left lateral prefrontal cortex is impaired, we give in to temptation.
This is where severe cases of shopping addicts are born (seat of temptation).
Every time you perform a bad habit you are strengthening the behavior in the brain.
Let’s say you buy a $500 purse you really don’t need. You just want it because it makes you feel happy.
If you were to complete purchases like this on a regular basis. It teaches your brain this is an important task for you.
Your brain creates an auto-pilot function to replicate this type of impulse buy without requiring you to think about it consciously.
Before you know it, you’ll have 20 purses you don’t need or have room to store.
The threat, your brain only needs a few days to enact this auto-pilot scenario.
In their book, “You Are Not Your Brain” by Jeffrey Schwartz and Rebecca Gladding MD, they outline 4 steps to breaking this cycle in detail.
The 4 Steps to Retrain Your Brain
- Relabel – Recognize the temptation by making a mental note but do not give in.
- Reframe the Experience – Your brain is creating the urge; not you
- Refocus – Replace the urge with the healthier action/habit. Make it as fun as possible.
- Revalue – The urge is just a feeling and has no control over you. You don’t need to pay attention or prioritize the urge.
Keep in mind, the more obstacles you put between you and your urge the easier it will be to say no.
More Articles You May Be Interested In:
How To Break A Bad Habit In Your Finances
What Is Financial Anxiety and How to Calm It
How to Motivate Yourself?
Have you ever heard of “change talk?”
It is the process of voicing what you’re unhappy about and how you’d like to change it.
You can either voice it out loud or mentally to yourself.
The idea is to strengthen your commitment toward goals you want to achieve.
It also emphasizes your own choices and reasons toward the change (Psyche).
4 Steps to Motivate Yourself with Change Talk:
- Focusing – Clearly identify the issue you want to change; make a list.
- Evocation – From your list, choose what’s the most important and why. Prioritize your list with one being the highest.
- Build Your confidence – What are your character strengths? Write down past successes. What helped you become successful in those situations? Find hope and inspiration. What do you find inspiring or hopeful?
- Create a plan – reflect on how you will make the change happen. Imagine the final goal. How does your life look and feel? What are the steps to get there?
It doesn’t hurt to try utilizing a SMART Goal – the goal needs to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Without an ending date defined to reach your goal you will never get there.
Ways to Motivate Yourself Naturally?
Motivating yourself is quite the challenge when your brain puts bad habits on auto-pilot.
The best way to break the cycle is by finding external motivators that come naturally to you.
Check out the list below!
Find a Favorite List of Motivational Speakers
Look at Ted Talks, podcasts, and blogs. I love listening to podcasts on the castbox app since it’s free.
My favorite podcast is the She Means Business Show. It keeps me motivated with my blog.
Inspiring Stories
Where to find: books, facebook communities supporting your ending goal, YouTube, documentaries, favorite tv shows (fiction or fact), etc.
I know the last one is weird but sometimes characters are written so well it motivates you to complete a hard task.
Temperance from Bones and Becket from Castle are inspirational for me to be persistent.
Read Anything at Least 20 Minutes per Day
Just reading news stories could help spark motivation for you. You never know where you will find motivational affirmations or quotes.
You can use what you read to create a cellphone wallpaper or a vision board you can put up in your house.
The visual can do wonders!
Google Searches to Try
Type in the word “Motivational” in front of each. I also added the links to make it easier.
Learn, Learn, Learn
The more information you have on how to achieve your goal. The easier it will be to become motivated.
If you aren’t sure how to reach your goal start researching, googling, and reaching out to people in the facebook communities.
Someone else has been where you are. Find them! You just found at least one already. 😊
Self Motivation Journaling
Create a list of your past successes and what helped you reach those successes.
Then going forward when you have a small money win write it down in your self motivation journal.
Since the experience is fresh in your mind you can write out complete details.
This is my secret weapon. The more detail I have in the story, especially when there is a setback, the more motivational it is.
The story could also spark an idea when reading it in the future.
Concluding Thoughts
Does all of this sound easier said than done?
I strongly agree with you.
However, practice will make perfect. Try only one motivator to get you started.
Aim for sticking to it for 7 days. You can do anything for 7 days.
At the end of that week, re-evaluate if it’s working. You’re not looking for perfection here.
If you missed a few days it’s ok, try your motivator for another week.
After week 2, if you missed more days than what you participated in when using the motivator. Then try another one.
The best thing about this exercise is once you find your perfect motivator(s).
It will only take 30 days to instill it has a new habit.
Once you have that, the rest will fall into place.
Want to learn more about motivation? Check out the posts below!
How To Break A Bad Habit In Your Finances
What Is Financial Anxiety and How to Calm It
References
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00534.x
https://www.livescience.com/8174-seat-temptation-brain.html
https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-get-motivated-to-make-positive-changes-in-your-life
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