How to Maintain the Willpower to Achieve Your Goals

Success takes a lot of hard work, and if you want to achieve your goals, you must work hard. But no one pushes themselves that hard or perspires that much without strong motivation and willpower. Some people, lose motivation over time and want to learn how to improve willpower so that they too can achieve success.

Whether you plan to write a book, start a business, or improve your health, you must first find the motivation and willpower to succeed.

The following tips will help you stay motivated for the long haul, persevering and perspiring until you achieve your goals.

1. Focus on the Positive

No one ever motivated themselves to achieve a goal they didn’t care about. Thus at the beginning of every endeavor, make a list of all the ways your goals will make a positive impact.

If you’re starting a business, think about how that company will increase save time and money for customers.

When writing a book, consider all the people who will read it, the lessons they’ll draw from it, and how they’ll use those lessons to improve their lives and the world.

And if you seek better health, imagine how you will be able to live longer, enjoy your life more, and do a better job of providing for and spending time with your family.

Here’s a video on how to stay motivated in any situation:

Listing positive impacts will motivate you in two major ways.

Focusing on the Positive Improves Your Mood

First, by improving your mood, they help you avoid the psychological and emotional factors that lead to procrastination.

You’re bound to get more work done when you feel good, especially if those positive feelings are tied to the work.

The earlier and more often you think of positive outcomes, the more productive you’ll be.

Listing Positives Shows You a Path to Success

Second, listing positives shows you the full stakes of success. It’s easy enough to ignore your goals if you have a vague idea of why you set them.

But when you consider specifically how your endeavors will improve your and others’ lives, you’ll have a clear sense of why they are valuable.

Thus both for your sake and those of your loved ones, you will press forward.

2. Set and Organize Your Goals

No matter how positive you’re feeling about your objectives, if you have a lot of them, it may still be hard to get started.

Whenever you’re feeling swamped by too many goals, make a list of all the different things you want to achieve.

There’s a good chance that many of your goals are closely related to each other and that achieving one will bring you closer to accomplishing another.

You can thus combine the two into a single goal.

This brings down the total number of things you need to achieve, making the list less daunting.

Rank Your Goals by Order of Importance

Once you’ve fully consolidated the list, rank each goal by order of importance. This lets you know which items you can work on first and which ones to save for later.

You thus won’t feel overwhelmed by the need to accomplish so many things at once. Consider setting SMART goals as well.

After prioritizing, take a look at any goals that rank near the bottom. Consider eliminating some of these goals, especially if they will not have as important an impact as the others.

This way, you can focus your time and energy on achieving the most important objectives as effectively as possible.

The initial list doesn’t have to be definitive, and you can always go back and change it over time.

But having a list helps you to keep track of your objectives and accomplish them systematically.

3. Motivation is Personal

Finally, remember that motivation is never a purely personal matter. Even if the goals we mentioned are for you in particular, they will impact other people, so you should enlist those people to help you stay on task.

Relatives want you to do well for your own sake, and they’re likely to benefit if you become healthier, wealthier, or more successful.

You should thus let your closest family members know about what you’re trying to accomplish, and invite them to intervene if you ever get distracted.

If your goals relate to your career, they will almost certainly impact your coworkers. Explain to them why they have a stake in your success, ask for their support, and offer to help them on their goals in return.

Use your goals to become closer with your friends. If you’re trying to be healthier, ask friends to work out with you. Likewise, if you’re starting a business, bring in friends with relevant experience as employees or consultants. This gets them by your side for the entire process.

Peers provide a consistent, lasting source of motivation.

As long as you trust them to look out for your best interests, they’ll push you toward accomplishing even your most difficult goals.

On the other hand:

Another one of my favorite ways to stay motivated is to spend time alone reading inspirational quotes from successful people. The right saying, at the right time, can really give me a fresh perspective and encourage me to push on as others have done before me.

What is the biggest single obstacle that stands between you and your goal, right now? Use this template to set and achieve your SMART goals effectively.