Achieving goals is a matter of motivation. Unfortunately, lack of motivation can happen to all of us, but we cannot afford that this will stop us on our way to success.

My recent way to kick motivation is especially interesting for people who spend a lot of time online. I find it easy, nice and effective. What it is and how it works?

Read about it, watch about it, discuss about it….

…about your task, about what you have to do and about your goal.

Let’s say that I should go today to the gym, but my motivation to do so is about zero. What I do? I read some articles about strength training on my favorite blog concerning this topic.

Need to kick myself for a martial arts training? I watch a kung-fu movie or I visit Youtube for a good fighting, action-packed clip.

Feeling lack of motivation to work on my blog? I read Problogger.

Do you see the pattern? Get interested in your task by reading about it on blogs or other sites. Watch movies or clips; get involved into discussion on forum or chats. This way you gain knowledge which would be helpful in achieving your goal, you set mind in your goal’s direction and you increase your motivation.

Of course, you must do some trials and errors. Some channels will very easily trigger your motivation, some not. Sometimes tasks related to your goal are so unattractive, that you will find it hard to motivate yourself in anyway. But in many cases I found this idea working pretty well.

Good idea for start is to look into our childhood and find this pattern there. Do you remember how much you wanted to play football after watching a good play at TV or how much you wanted to be a kung-fu master after seeing Enter the Dragon? Do you remember how much you wanted to travel across the world after reading a great adventure story? Find out how this idea worked on you in the past. Feel it again. Then it would be way much easier to use it today. Since now, consciously.

photo credit: scottfeldstein

Stary Browar is an award-winning shopping, art and business centre in Poznan. It is located exactly on my 10 minutes way I everyday cover on foot, from my car to the office and back.

I love Stary Browar and I love shopping there. Most often I do quite unnecessary shopping. It is good for my pleasure, but not so good for my savings, and if you read my last post about saving money, you know that this idea is very important for me.

Almost everyday I pass near Stary Browar and it is very tempting to come in. And when I decide to come in, it is very likely that I will spend some money on not so necessary stuff. As I don’t want to buy unnecessary stuff five times per week (each time I cover my way to/from office), I had to coupe with this temptation.

Below is my short guide on how to restrain from unnecessary shopping. Try following steps:

Don’t take debit/credit cards and cash when you don’t need it.

This way you will not be able to buy anything. When I go to work, I need only some money for lunch and fruit. I don’t take more cash, so I know I will not spend it or lose it.

Visit shopping mall when you don’t carry any debit/credit cards or cash.

Sounds a little stupid. Connected with the previous one. The idea is to teach yourself that you can walk through the shopping centre/mall or market, watch exhibitions, products and in the end you don’t buy anything.

Visit shopping mall only to buy one necessary item.

You have some money with you and you go to the shopping mall. But you also know what you want to buy and this is something you really need. Buy only what you planned and then keep in mind the feeling connected with not buying anything at all, like I described in previous paragraph.

Allow yourself to buy something unnecessary.

When I started learning to control my shopping urge, I allowed myself to buy not so necessary item once per seven days. I scheduled one day of week for this. With time and practice, I’ve got better and better at controlling my buying temptations and I found myself not buying anything even when I had my inner permission to do so.

Avoid visiting and passing nearby shopping malls.

Simple and effective. But this one doesn’t work for me as Stary Browar is on my optimal route to work.

photo credit: ralphbijker

One of my most effective methods to start a new project, habit or any activity is to begin with one, very small and simple step.

I learned this idea from one of my favorite blogger Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. If you have never ever read Zen Habits, I highly encourage you, to do so. This blog covers topics like achieving goals, productivity, being organized, GTD, motivation, simplifying any many others. You can start with Leo’s latest post about simplifying life, where he lists his best articles concerning this subject.

Why one simple step?

• Easy to set and execute
• Engages you and puts you on track toward your goal
• Gives you a momentum for next steps

For me, it is usually enough. This first step is both easy to set and to execute. You can reward yourself right after it. Having finished first step, you are already involved in something new and you have already successfully performed your first task. It is quite motivating, it pushes you further.

Sometimes, we can’t see a clear path to our goal. Very often we hesitate to start, because of that. Our small step is also helpful in such case. Even after very small step, our goal is getting closer to us. Therefore, we would be able to see new directions and possibilities. We can take another small step and another one. Three steps later, we would see and know much more than before the first step. From that point it should be also easier to see the path leading to the goal.

I used it many times. This blog is a perfect example. I was thinking about starting it since January 2008. For over a month I took no action at all. There were always so many things on my head, I was afraid of failure; I didn’t actually know how to start.

Then, one cold day in February, I decided to buy at least a domain with my name. Small, simple step. It triggered me very well. With domain I took also a hosting and then all things got the right momentum.

It is good I took this step and bought the domain and hosting. Otherwise I would probably hesitate quite a long time with starting my blog.

photo credit: Alé

Where can you use this idea?

Be creative, use your mind.

Open a saving account. Then start saving money.
Borrow a book about investing. Start investing on a stock market.
Buy a domain. Launch your own online business.
Register to a new social media. Use it to promote your online business.
Start exercising 5 minutes per day. Subscribe to a fitness club.
Buy a bottle of mineral water. Drink it during a day.
Start writing your post/article with preparing a good headline.
…

As you can see, there are endless possibilities. I’m sure you will be able to fit this idea into achieving any of your goals.

One of my readers, Wesoly Terrorysta translated my post about food habits to Polish and published it on his blog (of course with my permission). He added his own opinion in his post. In general he agreed with all points except the last one, which is:

Sleep more. You don’t eat or spend money then.

I definitely don’t have the feeling that I have to defense my advice, but this made me into short reflection mode.

First of all, this last point was mainly for fun. One of my former co-workers was a big fan of shopping. He always spent a lot of money this way. In order to decrease expenditures, he tried to apply two rules:

1. Work a lot of time at office.
2. Sleep a lot.

Whether you work or sleep, you don’t spend money. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? Of course he didn’t take this approach 100% seriously.

I liked it so much that when I was writing my post about food habits, I decided to add this one as a final point. That’s it.

Sleep more. You don’t eat or spend money then.

But there is a lot of truth in this point. Many people sleep not enough time. This is really bad for health and in future it can cost them a lot of money.

Another point is that I’m much more productive after calm, long, rejuvenating sleep. It is very important for me to sleep well and enough time, especially as I do a lot of workouts almost everyday.

Before sleep, it is good to slightly decrease temperature in your sleeping room. Turn down your heating. This helps to fall asleep easier and you also save money. When you sleep, you don’t use lights, computer and TV, so you are also saving money on electricity.

Last but not least, if you have any source of passive income, you simply earn when you sleep. Amazing.

Probably, there are even more interesting advantages related to sleeping. One thing for sure, I hate when I have to start a new day after sleeping not enough hours.

Good night.

photo credit: said&done