If you're a human (I hope that you are), I can guarantee that at one point in your life (or many times), you've struggled finding the motivation or the self-discipline necessary to achieve your goals. You've probably hit a bump in the road and your brain automatically started making as many excuses as it could find for you to give up and take the easy way out. And then, you walked away. That was that. "Oh, I'll try again once things settle down" or "That's okay, it wasn't really that important to me anyways" are the things you tell yourself to feel better about letting your hopes and dreams slip away from you so easily.


Well, let me be the one to tell you - it doesn't have to be that way. There is no reason that you can't have everything you've ever wanted. Your determination to achieve your goals is the only thing between who you are today and who you want to be. But when you hit that bump, how do you muster up the resilience to climb over it and keep going? There are several proven methods to improving motivation and self-discipline. In the following paragraphs, I'm going to tell you about 10 of my favorites - the ones that I use time and time again to help me get up every day and push myself to achieve the life of my dreams. Using these tips and tricks, you too can become a master at tackling your goals!

1. Get an Accountability Partner : An accountability partner can be anybody that you trust to hold you accountable for achieving your goals: a friend, coworker, parent, sibling, significant other, or even a total stranger. Find somebody in your life, or online through a network of people trying to achieve a similar goal, that you can explain your goal and process to. Check in with this person weekly, or even daily, to send them updates about your progress. Have them check in with you to make sure you're doing everything you said you would. We are much more likely to follow through with something when we are held accountable for it by somebody else.
2. Make Your Commitment Public : Similar to an accountability partner, publicly announcing our goals helps to hold us accountable; however, public commitment to a goal has an even greater benefit than an accountability partner - a HUGE support network. Post your goals, your plan, and your progress on social media. You will be astounded by the wave of support you'll receive from friends, family, and even those random people from high school that you didn't even know still saw your posts. Who knows, you might even inspire a few of them to start achieving their biggest goals too!
3. Create a Personal Reward System : Rewards and positive feedback are a super simple way to convince your brain that achieving your goals is more valuable than taking the easy road. Set up time-restricted rewards for your goals. For example, say that if you check off all of your goal boxes for a week straight, you give yourself a little treat like a piece of your favorite candy, some time to watch your favorite TV show, or buy yourself that dress you've been eyeing for the last month - any little thing that will reward your brain and body for pushing themselves a little harder than they're used to.
4. Develop Habits to Support Your Goals : Habit is the best form of motivation. Developing healthy habits that support your goals helps to decrease the size of that canyon between you and your goals. For instance, if your goal is to workout every day, developing healthy food habits will make you feel better before, during, and after your workouts. A better attitude and mood surrounding your workouts helps your brain associate positivity with working out, thereby motivating you to workout more often.
5. Support Your Goals with Your Lifestyle : Related to developing healthy habits, it is vital that your lifestyle reflects your goals. If your goal is to lose 20 pounds in 6 months, you can't spend all of your time sitting on the couch watching TV. Be sure to always ask yourself "Is what I am doing going to help me reach my goal?" before you do anything. If the answer is no, then you should limit the amount of time you spend doing that activity, if not eliminate it entirely. The more you shape your lifestyle around the goal you wish to achieve, the more likely you will be to succeed.
6. Participate in Monthly "Challenges" : Tying all of the above bullets together, one of the most fun ways to hold yourself accountable and find motivation is to participate in month-long challenges. Whether a public event, or a personal challenge you set for yourself, short-term challenges help to develop positive habits, create accountability, and typically involve a substantial reward and feeling of achievement at the end. Many people argue that it takes 30 days to create a habit, so what better way to achieve your goals than to make habits out of all of them?
7. Plan and Schedule for Your Goals : If you struggle to "find time" to work towards your goals, I highly recommend that you physically schedule time for them in your day. I work 10-hour days, with nearly 2 hours spent driving to and from work. I know that once I get home from work, I'll be too tired to do anything but eat dinner and go to bed. That's why I wake up early enough to fit in scheduled time for my goals before I even leave for work. Is it fun to wake up earlier than I "have" to? Not really. But do I feel better every day knowing that I'm making progress toward my goals and achieving the life I really want to live? Absolutely - there is no better feeling. So pull out your planner, or alarm, and schedule a specific time every day to work on your goals. Whether its 15 minutes or 3 hours, having scheduled time helps create accountability.
8. Invest in Convenience and Comfortability : If you're setting challenging goals for yourself, there's not sense in making them harder to achieve than they have to be. Whatever excuses you find yourself making, try to think of ways that you can make those excuses invalid. The gym is too far away? Buy some simple home-gym equipment. Candy is too tempting? Get rid of all of the candy in your house. You don't like your workout clothes? Buy new ones that you feel comfortable in. Whatever your excuses may be, I can guarantee that investing in a solution for these excuses is going to be the best thing you've ever done.
9. Track Your Progress : There are several ways to track your progress toward your goals, and all of them are extremely beneficial in staying motivated. One tracking method is a daily check sheet (physically checking off goals that you achieve every day). For diet-tracking, there are apps like MyFitnessPal that help you track what you eat and see how that lines up with your calorie goals. MyFitnessPal also includes a weight-tracking function where you can log how your weight changes over time. Another great tracking method for fitness and health is taking progress pictures, which helps you physically see how your body changes. Sometimes its difficult for us to see our progress because the changes are subtle and gradual. Taking physical, visual data points helps make that progress more of a reality for us.
10. Surround Yourself with Inspiration : The last piece of advice I can offer is to completely surround yourself with positivity, motivation, and visual ques of your goals. And I mean COMPLETELY. Hang signs of motivating quotes, affirmations, and inspiring images all over your house - on the fridge, on every door, on your car dash, on your phone lock screen, on your bathroom mirror. Create a vision board and hang it in your bedroom or office where you can see it every day. Placing gentle visual reminders that you are strong, capable, and full of potential will greatly improve your self-confidence and drive your motivation.

I know that was a TON of information, but these tips are soooo crucial to achieving the success we all so longingly desire. To accomplish our goals, we have to be motivated and self-disciplined. But these characteristics don't come easily or naturally to most people. However, if you are dedicated to making a change in your life, nothing can get in your way. Use any or all of the methods in this post to help you reach your goals and finally attain that unwavering level of motivation you've wanted for so long.

Please share this post with family or friends that could use a little push in the right direction, and leave a comment below to let me know which of these methods you think will help you most in achieving your goals!