Self Help Motivation Techniques

Using following self help motivation techniques can help you to make positive changes in your life and make them stick.

Self help often gets a bad rap. Have you ever read a self help book that offered promises of a changed life, only to find your life back to normal patterns a short time later? It’s easy to blame the quality of the book, or suggest that the techniques don’t work. While self help books can vary in quality, there are other factors that impact whether you stick with a specific method.

The most important factor is to keep your motivation high while trying to apply a self help method. The following self help motivation techniques will help you to stick with the improvement you’re trying to make.

Focus on One Thing

I’m guilty of getting all motivated and wanting to make changes my life, then deciding to tackle everything at once, from diet and exercise to socialization and spiritual changes.

Unfortunately when I do this, after a couple of days I’m overwhelmed and lose motivation to follow through with any of it, then I end up back where I started. That’s why the first self help motivation technique I would suggest applying is to decide on only one change to make, then focus your energy on that one thing.

By focusing your attention and energy on just one thing, you will be able to better drill down to what you really want to accomplish in that area, and your motivation will remain higher over a longer time period. It’s also easier when you make one change at a time to evaluate the effect it’s having on your life, and whether the change is something that you want to make permanent.

Review

Immediately after reading a self help book, the information and methods are fresh in your mind, but as time goes by, your memory of the information will fade. You may remember some of the larger concepts, but the details for the application of the information will fade. That’s why this second self help motivation technique is repetition. It is critical to continually review the methods or information that you’re trying to apply in your life.

I have a couple of methods that I use whenever I read a self help book that I’m trying to apply in my life. First of all if I am really serious about applying the information, I never just read the book once and put it away.

My initial reading is usually to get me familiar with the information, during the reading I’ll highlight important passages or make notes of questions. I’ll then go through and review the important highlights and write down in a journal or notepad what I think the important points are and how I’m going to apply them in my life.

Then while trying to make the change, I’ll review both my notes and re-read sections of the book that I need a refresher or areas in which I’m struggling to apply. Using these reviewing methods keeps the information fresh in my mind and helps me to stay better motivated in applying the information to my life.

Evaluate

The last self help motivation technique is to evaluate the effectiveness of the information. First, you need to set a specific time period in which to apply the information, at least 30 days, sometimes more depending on what you are trying to do. Set a goal to consistently apply the information for at least 30 days, then at the end of the period, sit down and examine how your life has changed. I find it helpful to keep a daily log of my experiences, then at the end of the time period, I review my notes and see how my attitudes, my feelings, and my effectiveness has changed.

If there has been an overall positive shift, I’ll stick with the new behavior, if there are issues, I’ll evaluate if I want to make some corrective changes or if I just want to drop it all together. I also evaluate the cost/benefit of making the change permanent. Sometimes a change can result in positive results, but it can be very difficult to make consistent or cause problems in other areas. It’s important to evaluate the change in the larger perspective of your life.

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