Motivate Yourself to Work Harder: 6 Tricks

Success takes time–sometimes longer than you'd like. If you're not careful, it's easy to become discouraged, and that makes it harder to achieve the success you deserve.

Here's a simple, seven-step plan to get your mojo back:

1. Define your purpose. Why are you working? Why are you doing this work? Only you can answer these questions. Some individuals are drawn to certain kinds of work, while others are individuals are simply looking for a payday or to feed their families. No purpose is inherently “better” than any other–but you need to know your purpose, so that the prospect of fulfilling of that purpose keeps you motivated.

2. Tie your purpose to your company's goals. Now that you’ve identified why you’re working, deliberately envision your company's offering (what it makes, provides or sells) as the vehicle through which you can fulfill your purpose. The more closely you associate, in your mind, your purpose with your company's product, the easier you’ll be able to motivate yourself to do what’s necessary to get your job done.

3. Tie your purpose to your team's success. If you're working with other people, they're depending upon you to get your job done. Fulfilling your purpose thus helps them become successful too–which means that you're having a positive impact on other people's lives.

4. Create ambitious goals for yourself. Now that you’ve got everything aligned, it’s time to set ambitious goals that, if achieved, will create success for yourself, your products, and your company. Pick exciting goals that will will inspire you to achieve them.

5. Create a workable but flexible plan. Now that you've got goals, create a step-by-step plan that constantly brings you closer to your goals. That will help you build additional confidence, commitment and the feeling that you’re in control of your destiny. Hint: If you aren’t sure how to build a plan that will work, get the help of somebody who’s already achieved what you want to achieve.

6. Take massive action ... starting now. Success is now just a matter of executing that plan, adjusting as necessary to achieve your goals. To start on the right foot, as soon as your write your plan, immediately take some action to achieve that plan. Motivation feeds on action. You want to build momentum that will continue to carry you toward your goal.

The main point here is to do all of this consciously, to make certain that everything in your work life is aligned.

BY GEOFFREY JAMES Feeling low on motivation? Use these sure-fire techniques to recharge your batteries.