Happy Monday,
I had a hockey coach once who loved finding new, effective tools for motivating us to go the extra mile in our training.
In session today with one of my clients, I was reminded of this coach and one of his favourite tricks for getting us to train on those days we really didn’t feel like training at all.
He called it ‘The 5-Minute Rule.’ What it was was a brain trick that we could use to jumpstart our motivation. We all have those days where we just don’t want to go the extra mile-when we are procrastinating on something important.
Typically what happens is that we focus on how difficult or painful it is to engage in the important task, and take from me, the motivational expert, there is no worse strategy when it comes to your levels of motivation. What ends up happening is that we battle ourselves internally and usually end up talking ourselves out of it in the end.
In today’s MoMonday Video: The 5-Minute Rule (click here to watch). I show you how 5 minutes can change everything in terms of executing on important tasks.
Try it out yourself this week. Pick a task that is an important contributing factor to one of your big outcome goals and commit to engaging in that task for just 5 minutes a day. Test yourself to pay attention to the internal dialogue as you do. Notice your energy increase as you initiate the task. And note the shift in your motivation levels as you get to and past the 5 minute mark.
A bonus tip is to track your victories throughout the week. Notice how long you were able to sustain motivation and how much you got done. Doing so will help you build confidence as you go.
This is one of my favourite tools for kickstarting my motivation and I promise you that if you commit to practicing using it for the next week, it will become one of your favourites tools too.
Until next time, make every performance count!
-Coach Susan
