{"id":41694,"date":"2020-06-11T07:57:39","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T11:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=41694"},"modified":"2020-06-10T07:59:27","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T11:59:27","slug":"4-ways-im-helping-myself-stay-self-motivated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2020\/06\/11\/4-ways-im-helping-myself-stay-self-motivated\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Ways I\u2019m Helping Myself Stay Self-Motivated"},"content":{"rendered":"Now that many of us are working from home with minimal supervision and more flexible deadlines, I\u2019m finding it more important than ever to stay self-motivated. Whether it be my summer job, a long-term goal, or just the up-coming school year, quarantine is making me really understand the importance of self-motivation!\r\n\r\nI often find it hard to stay motivated and on-task, sometimes getting distracted easily. But, I\u2019ve found that these tips have really helped me stay on-task, meet deadlines, and hold myself accountable.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"A<\/a>\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. Turn goals into concrete tasks\r\nHaving a big goal or project can be intimidating and feel too vague to start working on easily. Because of this, I always make sure to break down any goal I need to complete into concrete steps, and allocate each step to a certain day or time of the week.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nFor example, if I need to write an essay, I\u2019ll break down the essay into all its component parts\u2014thinking about the question, developing a research plan, researching, writing a rough draft, and editing. Then, I\u2019ll organize my schedule around these tasks, setting firm deadlines as to when I have to get each task done. I find this really helpful because it makes abstract or large goals seem concrete and simple, and helps me stay motivated because all I need to do is get done the task for the day.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n
    \"a<\/a>
    Scheduling my days!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n2) \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Keep yourself accountable\r\n<\/span>Even though I don't have a direct supervisor, I always find it helpful to keep myself accountable in some way! Whether this be updating a family member or friend about your progress for the day, or even writing down in a journal whether you were able to accomplish your tasks for the day, keeping yourself accountable in some way helps raise the stakes of getting your work done.\r\n\r\n3) \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>Reward yourself\r\n<\/span>There\u2019s no way you can stay self-motivated if you\u2019re burnt out! I have a whole other blog article<\/a> on this topic, but basically I think it\u2019s key to take time off and reward yourself for your hard work.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"A<\/a>\r\n\r\nThough everyone\u2019s different, I find it a lot more effective to set time aside in your day to work, and then reward yourself later, as opposed to alternating between working and rewarding yourself. Setting firm cut-off times, like always stopping work after dinner, also helps me work harder and more efficiently because I know I\u2019ll have time off later.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n4) \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Stay positive\u00a0\r\n<\/span>I find it impossible to stay self-motivated if I have a negative attitude towards what I\u2019m doing. If I'm feeling down about my work, I'll make sure to take time off to reflect on what I'm doing and how I can adopt a more positive mind-set. If I'm feeling anxious or overwhelmed, I'll often use a CBT exercise<\/a> to calm myself down.\u00a0<\/span>Staying positive makes what I\u2019m doing feel so much more manageable and motivates me to work hard and enjoy myself.\r\n\r\n
    \"A<\/a>
    Staying positive!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nHow do you stay self-motivated? Let me know in the comments below!","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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    \nNow that many of us are working from home with minimal supervision and more flexible deadlines, I\u2019m finding it more important than ever to stay self-motivated. Whether it be my summer job, a long-term goal, or just the up-coming school…\n<\/div>
    Continue reading “4 Ways I\u2019m Helping Myself Stay Self-Motivated”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>
    Continue reading “4 Ways I\u2019m Helping Myself Stay Self-Motivated”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":374,"featured_media":41696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7204,1,58,67,68,77],"tags":[78,1906,138,23738,27722,25510,609],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41694"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41702,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41694\/revisions\/41702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}