Four Simple Ways to Rebuild Self Belief

Motivation is a tricky beast, it arrives in your life like a new love, arms wide open and full of smiles, it wants to be with you always.
It wakes you up early so you can spend more time with each other, borrows your credit card to buy that 'essential equipment' you will need now you are in a relationship with such an inspired go getter (dumbbells anyone?).

Motivation makes the world look golden, puts a spring in your step. With it, your dreams are within reach, your life so full of promise that you have trouble understanding how you ever thought things were bleak or grey or hard!

Shock news! Your thoughts are NOT always accurate!

Ooops, you've done it now! As if through the simple act of remembering your doubts, a little shine vanishes and you can see the dull underbelly of your ambitions and you wonder how you ever thought you could achieve something so grand.

Motivation is gone and with it all your energy. Why bother with the work? Your ideas were silly anyway. Go back to plodding, go back to business as usual. Go back to grey.

Most successful creative types agree that relying on motivation, or the presence of the 'the muse' to work is a sure fire recipe for failure. Achievement requires routine and discipline and even a little bit of the 'plodding on' that motivation so scorns.

But what if even the act of creating a routine seems impossible once the first heady blush of motivation has past?

'Motivation Mug' from Wordy Design

Can't commit, won't follow through? 

Most of us have been here and it is a leaden and exhausting place to be. Worst of all, is the disappointment of watching your ideas and dreams leave to find someone else to bother. Someone who will commit.

As Elizabeth Gilbert notes in her amazing ode to all things creative 'Big Magic'; complaining and delaying 'scares away creative inspiration, makes it take its' business elsewhere'.

After watching a large number of my ideas wander over the horizon to find a new home, I started to wonder if my problem really was the fickle nature of motivation or, was something else at play here?

Turns out, I had an integrity problem. Commitment apparently, is hard when you know you won't follow through.

What is Integrity Anyway?

In short, Integrity means doing the right thing in a reliable way (or one of many dictionary versions there of). 

But why is this important to motivation?

Have you ever had a friend or a colleague who you knew would not follow through on their words? They are late to pick you up in the morning (or forget altogether), they don't write their part of the report (due today!) and they don't transfer any money into your account to cover the cost of your mutual friends birthday present (even though they, gasp, wrote their name on the card!).

Eventually you stop giving this person things to do. There is no point after all, it won't be done.

Issues with personal integrity are even worse, what happens to your life when you stop giving yourself things to do? 

The answer, precisely nothing, and that is the crux of the problem.

The good, nay best, news is that this state of affairs does not have to be permanent. You are in charge here, not your monkey mind with it's frankly unhelpful and nasty thoughts, you just need to show it who is boss!

Four Proven Methods to Rebuild Belief

1. Little Wins: The key to building your self confidence (and I means this in the most literal way, your confidence in your 'self') is to start micro. Don't pick the biggest and most scary thing to commit to. Don't be the couch potato signing up to twice weekly Beach Battle Body classes. You. Will. Fail. Worse still, by failing you will add another piece of evidence to your Monkeys' bullshit premise that you cannot be trusted to follow through.

Instead, start with something tiny, something your care about, but not a whole lot! I'm talking on the scale of committing to switching out one cup of coffee for a cup of tea, or parking the car at the far end of the work car park instead of as close as you can get it. 

Micro changes! Go easy on yourself and have a win! 

In the end, it is the winning that is important in this case, not the size of the battle.

Tim Ferris, lifestyle guru extraordinaire, nails this concept in  'Tim Ferris's Top 10 Rules' which you can link through to watch on YouTube if you fancy spending some time with your motivation. Tim's example of micro committing, flossing your front three teeth! 

.... Even I could do that. 

2. Measure it: Where you focus flourishes. I love this cliche, because like the best of its kind, it is true. So, muzzle your mind and use simple measures of your success to direct your focus. The more times your brain hears " Wow, that's another day of switching coffee out for tea", as opposed to "There is no point, I won't keep doing it anyway" the closer you are to regaining your sense of self belief.

Don't make your measures of 'perfection' just of 'doing'.

3: Write about it: Jot down a few words each day about your 'winning ways'. Writing something down powers up your recall of that information far past mere 'thinking about it'. You don't have to write a novel, a few dot points will do the trick, placing the knowledge of your recent reliable behaviour firmly into your long term memory bank. 

Frankly, I think that is where is belongs, don't you?

4: Confront your Thoughts: So, you have a few wins under your belt and it's on wards and upwards right? Umm, sometimes unfortunately not. Our old unhelpful beliefs persist well past what is polite, a bit like that party guest who lingers way past everyone else (ignoring the sleep drool that is puddling on the side of your mouth).

What to do? Sometimes attack is the best form of defence, and the practice of Cognitive Behavioural techniques can help you finally shut the door in the face of Mr 'You're not going to do it anyway, so why even try' (his mother must have REALLY hated him).

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is based on the premise that how we think, directly impacts on how we feel and how we act. Seems a bit obvious, no?

This type of therapy can be achieved with a therapist, or, if you would just like to explore the practice, there are a number of amazing books available to help you learn the tools yourself.

I have included a number of these below, please note, these are affiliate links.

Issues with your personal integrity will not disappear over night, like all things worth doing, it will require some effort!
The rewards though? Breathtaking!

Your life in your hands again, not in the grasp of a limiting self belief, that frankly, was never true.

Who needs motivation then? (Me, well sometimes at least).

I would love to hear any tips and tricks you have used, or would recommend to rebuild your personal integrity 'brand'.