Stress Management Programme

Session 2: Exercise 2:

Motivating Yourself to Achieve your Goals

 

In order to keep yourself motivated towards achieving the specific goals you have set, you must create specific rewards for every goal you establish, e.g.:

 

• Give yourself one point for every relaxation break you take. When you have accumulated 25 points, buy new clothes or books.

• You can go see the movie you wanted to see in the cinema, after clarifying with your boss some of his/her expectations

• You can call your friend for a chat after you send out that batch of emails to clients.

• After you request a limit on the number of cases you're expected to take, you call a friend/spouse to ask them out for dinner.

• You assign one Euro/Dollar towards a shopping spree or trip away for each stress-producing thought you catch and change (as will be discussed more in the next exercise).

 

There's also a way to motivate you to do the stress-reducing activities that you normally feel too rushed to do. Sometimes a work-related task that you enjoy has no immediate payoff, so you postpone it and focus on tasks that have immediate deadlines.

 

For example, John kept putting off writing a professional article he had outlined two years earlier. Administrative responsibilities swallowed up his time, so he decided to deal with the problem by setting aside half an hour each morning to work on his article before letting himself tackle the demands of the day. He used the motivating power of immediate deadlines to prompt him to accomplish something he found more fun and rewarding. Think about your own goals and enjoyable work activities and see if you can find a similar solution for time management.

 

Write your own specific points and rewards systems down on a piece of paper, and keep these updated. Make sure to keep track of your progress, and keep yourself motivated by rewarding yourself for achieving targets and goals.