10 Tips for Financial Motivation

There are a number of tips that I could give you to help your financial motivation. Yet I’m not sure they would be useful without some background.

In this post I want to explore financial motivation and motivation generally a little deeper to understand what you can do to build yours for long term success.

By understanding where it comes from and how you can impact your financial motivation, you will be more likely to succeed.

If I were to rattle off a long list of things you can do to attain financial motivation it is likely you will try them a few times and then forget about them until the next list comes along. Am I right?

So I want to go into motivation itself first and then give you some tips to guide you on your way to financial freedom.

Fear or Freedom

We humans are fairly complex beings, but when you strip it back there are two dominant motives that shape our lives.

The two pathways that dominant our decision making are freedom and fear…

On the one hand, freedom leads us to discover our true self and ambitions, which if we pursue these ambitions can lead us inevitably to independence, growth and happiness.

On the other hand, fear causes us to do some funny things. Fear causes us to avoid challenges or struggles almost exclusively.

When it comes to our ability to grow as a person, almost always it will require you to face challenges and struggles. Fear leads to weakness and conformity, which in some cases will lead to regret.

If you choose to pursue your personal freedom, you will discover your destiny, if you are stuck by fear, you will be faced with your demise.

So freedom and fear can be labelled your motives, and the reason you look at these motives is to determine your motivation. We can feel motivated to move forward or to stand still, to grow or to shrink, to settle or to chase greatness.

The actions you take in life will often be based on whether your internal logic and impulses tend toward fear or freedom. If you lack a strong reason to take action, or your natural instincts or impulses are fearful and risk averse, then you will likely remain where you are currently in life.

However, if you have identified the reasons why you want to move forward and you have some control of your impulses so that you seek freedom, then you are much more likely to advance and grow your life situation.

Tip 1. Control your impulses to seek financial freedom and face your fears

The Meaning of Motivation

The word motivation is derived from motive, which means something that causes a person to act in a certain way or do a certain thing.

Simply, it’s our ‘WHY’…

Everything we do results from either your thoughts, feelings or experiences.

Our mind applies a filter to each of these thoughts, feelings or experiences and chooses a reason or reasons for doing or not doing something.

Your commitment to that choice and reasoning will determine your level of motivation.

That is, if you are completely congruent in your mind with the reason to take action, then you will pursue it in a highly motivated manner.

For example, if you decide that you want to lose 5kgs to be able to compete in the annual marathon in your city that you have held as a life-long dream…

…it is far more likely that you will not only lose the weight, but also complete the marathon.

Compare that however with the scenario where you were convinced to enter the marathon by a friend who really wanted to do it…

…you know you need to lose 5kgs to be able to run more efficiently, but you aren’t that into running long distances.

Who do you think will have a higher motivation to succeed?

A reason to do something is the secret to developing a motivated and independent identity – I think therefore I am and I do.

Motivated people seize opportunity… they choose to take action.

Sometimes successful people will be accused of being lucky. For them it is not luck, it is the fact that they make conscious decisions to act, they choose to use their minds to pursue freedom, which includes financial freedom.

Tip 2. Your reason, your why, is the secret to developing motivation

Generating Motivation

The interesting thing about financial motivation is that it is something that you can generate yourself. The two ingredients that you can use to generate financial motivation are ambition and expectancy…

Ambition is the choice to be, have, do, or experience something greater in your life. As soon as you want something greater for yourself, you generate motivation.

All you have to do is decide what you want, it could be a better job, a bigger home, to get married, to get fit, a happy life or financial freedom.

As soon as you decide, and you don’t have to limit yourself to just one, you create an energy. The higher the desire, the higher the energy level, the greater the motivation you feel.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to try to identify your why and the energy for financial motivation:

• What do I want for myself?
• What goal would be meaningful for me?
• What am I excited about learning?
• What amazing experience do I dream of?
• What job or business will excite me to get out of bed every morning?

Tip 3. Have ambitions

Now you can have all the ambition you can handle, but there is an important additional criteria to succeed and remain motivated…Belief!

My favourite quote, which I recently discovered was not by Walt Disney, and was written slightly differently, is…

“If you can dream it, and believe it, you can achieve it”

If you don’t believe you can achieve your ambitions, if you don’t think financial freedom can be yours, then unfortunately, it is likely that you won’t even try to achieve it.

Successful people conversely believe it will happen, it’s just a matter of when. They have faith in themselves to learn and grow, each step of the way, to make things happen…

If they don’t have the answers, they will find the people who do, and they trust themselves to put in the work required to succeed.

And what happens when you have this expectation, is your mind begins to form beliefs and behaviours required to make your ambitions a reality.

So another great tip for motivation is to focus your mind on seeing your dreams come true, seeing yourself making it happen.

Tip 4. Believe you can achieve

Tip 5. Focus your mind on seeing it happen

Remaining Motivated

You now know that ambition and expectation are what generate financial motivation…

Your question however is likely, but how do I remain motivated?

I know what it is like, you get excited about a project or event, you identify a plan of action, understand the work required and then after that initial excitement is gone, you wonder, how am I going to keep this up?

To remain financially motivated you will need attention and effort…

Attention relates to your ability to manage the distractions of the day that steal your mental focus and hence your financial motivation.

It is not necessarily that you are an ‘unmotivated’ person, but that you are simply distracted, too absentminded to sustain motivation.

You must never take your eyes of your goals, by being distracted by daily tasks or waiting for the right time to begin what you truly want to do…

Success comes to those who have complete dedication and relentless focus on their ambitions and take decisive action to make them happen.

Tip 6. Avoid distractions

Tip 7. Apply effort with dedication

Super Charge Your Financial Motivation

Once you have mastered the actions and dedication required to remain motivated, you might be interested in how you can super charge your financial motivation to another level…

There are two more ingredients that will super charge your motivation.

The first is your attitude, yes it matters…

A positive and enthusiastic pursuit of your dreams and goals is a success characteristic.

I suggest that you will rarely have seen a successful person that has achieved their goals or dreams without a positive attitude…

Sure there may be exceptions, there always is, but historically, success comes to those who are positive and enthusiastic in the pursuit of their freedom, financial or otherwise.

Tip 8. Be positive and enthusiastic

The second super charge ingredient is your environment.

I have written previously about your reference group, and how you are the average of the people you spend the most time with.

So if you want to super charge your financial motivation, be selective with the people you associate… you don’t want to be around people who are going to pull you down, surround yourself with positive and enthusiastic people that will support your pursuit of financial freedom.

Tip 9. Remember the importance of your reference group

Another aspect of environment are the spaces you spend the most time. If they are not conducive to success, then change them as well.

Tip 10. Choose a positive environment

Conclusion

So there you have 10 tips for financial motivation. What I have tried not to do is prescribe how you implement these steps.

You can write goals on lists, create mini goals, attach numbers to your goals, keep them visible at all times and even chart your progress, BUT without a deeper understanding of how to generate, remain and super charge your financial motivation, these types of tips will be useless to you.

Understand your why and apply these tips to keep you motivated for the long haul.

And if you are ready to take it to the next level, you can claim a no cost call with me to gain clarity on your goal and a plan to achieve them. All you have to do is sschedule a time in my calendar and we can make it happen. Just click here to schedule your call.