How Do You Deal with Not Seeing Results and Still Stay Motivated?

This question was sent to me on 7 June 2020.

We need to realise that motivation is a thought issue. The battle to stay motivated is a mental battle. Normally our emotions produce our thoughts, then our thoughts produce our words, then our words produce our actions.

Emotions –> thoughts –> words –> actions.

So, if motivation is in our thought life, and emotions drive our thoughts, then we need to tackle it at the root – our emotions. We need to ask ourselves some very direct questions like: Why am I feeling like this? Where did that thought come from? What just happened to make me think that?

We need to backtrack our thought until we get to the thing that triggered it. Once we find the trigger, then we need to find something to replace it. You see, you can’t just remove an emotion and leave a proverbial “empty hole” there. You need to fill it with something else.

OK. Now let’s get more practical. What if we find that the root is a fear of what might happen? Or maybe we remember past mistakes or failures and think they are going to happen again. Maybe we remember something bad that happened to someone else in a similar situation and think that that will happen to us as well. Stress, apprehension, nervousness – these are all forms of fear. We need to counsel ourselves out of the fear. If you are a born again Christian like me, you’ll know that the Word of God has many promises that you can stand on and trust as Truth. In it you will also find lots of advice on how to overcome challenges. You can fill the “empty hole” with God’s promises. If you don’t know much about the Bible, then find a trusted friend who has a track record of trusting God’s Word and seeing His promises come to pass. They can help you.

Sometimes the apprehension is not fear, but an inner sense that this is not the right path to follow. If you are sensing that, then put on the brakes. Don’t rush or push yourself to do anything until you are sure that it is the right thing to do. Take your time.

What if we backtrack the thought and come out by anger? What should we do now? — Forgive. Fill the “empty hole” with forgiveness. If someone has wronged you, forgive them to set yourself free. When we hold on to anger, then we make emotional decisions instead of calculated, wise decisions. Anger clouds our judgement and stops us from solving problems effectively. We need to get rid of it before we can move forward. See anger as a bad attitude. And a bad attitude is like a flat tyre. You aren’t going anywhere until you change it.

Remember that challenge doesn’t mean you are doing the wrong thing. It’s just part of life. None of us have been promised a bed of roses. When we hit a roadblock in the road, we just have to determine if we need to find a way around the roadblock or if we have to remove the roadblock or if we have to take another route.

The idea of the whole process is to eventually become bigger on the inside than you are on the outside. When that happens you will find yourself not being so easily swayed when the results are slow in coming.