How To Stay Motivated In Times Of Challenges

Personal motivation is the key to maintaining success in all aspect of life. Challenges are unavoidable in life. No matter how brilliant, smart or careful we are there are certain challenges we must overcome in order to reach our next level. In-fact they're our stepping stones to a greater height.

As we all know, motive is an impulse that causes a person to act. While motivation is an internal process that causes a person to move toward achieving a goal. Motivation results from our internal and external factors, stimulating our desire and energy to be continually interested and committed to a subject or role in order to attain a goal.

Researchers have proposed theories that tries to explain some aspects of human motivation. Some of these theories include the drive reduction theories and Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory.

• Drive reduction theory , first proposed by Clark Hull in 1943, proposed that the purpose of biological drive is to correct disturbances of homeostasis. 

Homeostasis is the maintenance of a relatively stable state or tendency toward such a state. It can also be described as the ability of a system or living organism to adjust it's internal environment to maintain a stable equilibrium.

• According to Hull, physiological needs result in psychological drives.

These theories suggest that people behave or act in order to reduce needs and maintain a constant physiological state. For example we drink water in order to quench our thirst, we need in order to reduce the need for food.

Motivation are commonly separated into two types: Drives and Motives

Drives: A drive is a very strong need in humans that make us behave in a particular way.

There are five core human drives that can influence human behavior.

They are:

1. Drive to Bond: This is the desire to love, be loved and feel valued in our relationship with others.
2. Drive to Acquire: This is the drive to acquire material and in material things like houses, cars, influence.
3. Drive to Learn: This is the desire to satisfy our curiosity.
4. Drive for Security: This is the drive to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our properties.
5. Drive to Feel: This drive expresses itself in the desire for emotional experiences like pleasure or excitement.

Motives: Motive can simply be described as the underlying reason behind human behavior.

Every thought that we think and acts that we voluntarily engage in can be traced to some definitive motive or a combination of motives. Nobody ever does anything without being motivated to do it.

Ten things to know if you must learn how to motivate yourself and others

When it comes to learning how to motivating yourself or others for any given purpose, you need a clear understanding of these ten basic motives. They are:

1. The desire for recognition and self expression.
2. The desire for material gain
3. The desire for freedom
4. The desire for security
5. The desire for self preservation
6. The emotion of love
7. The emotion of sex
8. The emotion of fear
9. The emotion of anger
10. The emotion of hate

How Do I Stay Motivated Motivated In Times Of Challenges?

Proactively put positive thoughts into your mind: Make a commitment to take charge of your mind and control the kind of thoughts that come in.

ages discovered an extremely powerful principle; 

"Your actions arise from your thoughts and you can choose your thoughts".

Remind yourself of your Goals: You must note that if you start to lose sight of your goals, you may soon become less motivated but if you're always checking to see how much closer you're, very soon you'll get through the entire process. Keeping track of your goals and checking your progress can always keep you motivated.

Be Flexible: Be gentle with yourself, take sometime off and try to have fun. sometimes it's also good to take a look at your past achievements.

Reward Yourself: Don't ever say you've not achieved anything in life. Take a very careful look at your life and you'll discover you've made some achievements. Give yourself some internal rewards. External reward can help you too. Go out and buy yourself some nice stuffs. 

keep learning and focus on how you can grow stronger: Like I always say, no matter the situation we find ourselves there's always something we can learn out of it. We can continuously improve who we are and what we are capable of achieving. personal growth is an unending process.

Have something you are working to accomplish: This can be an important compelling goal but it's very important because it gives you power to focus.

Surround yourself with those who love and care about you: It's important to be around those who love and care about you. Sometimes all we need in times of challenges is someone to show us love, some other times it could just be someone to listen to listen to us and give us some words of encouragement.

Seek counsel from people who have overcome similar challenges: Even the Bible recognizes this fact. I like what the Bible said in Proverbs 15:22 

"Without counsel, purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counselors they are established".

Sometimes all you need might just be some few words of wisdom and encouragement, you are back on track.

Get Inspired by music: It has been discovered that music is the most therapeutic and inspirational form of relaxation. This is because it allows us to completely refresh and clear up our minds. Rhythm  melody and inspiring lyrics can quickly take your mind off stress and worry. Music reminds us that we are not alone. It connects us to others via powerful lyrics.

Remind yourself that your situation is not the worst: The simple truth about this is that no matter what you think you're facing right now, people have gone through similar or even worst situation and even came out stronger. When you know this, you're encouraged and you see no reason to be frustrated.