How to Stay Motivated:
Four Steps to Navigating a Path to Success in the Professional World
In today’s frenetic, detail-oriented, highly-charged professional landscape, it’s easy to lose sight of the larger picture. Amongst the sea of emails, text messages, memos, and personal obligations that flood day-to-day life, how does one stay the course and remain focussed on a desired, long-term achievement?
Joel Chery is a Senior at a financial services firm. Drawing from his education at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, as well as his 10 plus years of experience as a financial advisor, he has developed a general set of governing principles that, if implemented, will put you on the path to motivational success.
Step One: Set Goals and Visualize Achievement
We must see the bigger picture as to why we work as hard as we do. Each of us has our own reasons — our own vision of the ideal life. That vision must be held onto and cultivated at all costs, for it is the central guiding factor in individual motivation.
Step Two: Break Goals Down into Smaller Steps
“Nothing is particularly hard if you break it up into small, manageable parts,” said Henry Ford, in regard to his ground-breaking innovation of mass production. This sentiment is at the heart of the second component of Joel Chery’s advice. Early in life, as a member of the Worcester Young Businessmen’s Association, Joel Chery was taught to break goals down to their constituent parts and then focus on completing each of these, one task at a time. This tactic is extremely helpful in avoiding a sense of being overwhelmed by the long-term and far-away nature of one’s ultimate goals.
Step Three: Take Setbacks in Stride
Setbacks are a natural and unavoidable part of pursuing long-term goals. The trick is not to fixate on them as obstacles, but rather approach them with a calm countenance and strategize ways of overcoming them. Too often, professionals can be disheartened by temporary stumbling blocks and lose sight of what’s really important. In that event, it is of great value to take a step back and reaffirm one’s original vision. One of the most effective ways to stay motivated is to remember the larger picture. Or, to put it simply: when in doubt, re-visit step one.
Step Four: Delay Gratification (But Not Too Long)
In his time playing varsity football for the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Joel Chery learned a lot about personal sacrifice in order to achieve a larger, desired goal. An athlete must work very hard to maintain a tip-top physical condition in order to better compete, and ultimately, win the big games. All those push-ups and chin-ups, all those hours dedicated to practice are done in the name of victory. At the same time, once a major victory is achieved on the football field, a celebration is not out of line. The professional world is not altogether different from the gridiron, in this sense. In pursuit of the ultimate goal, there will be milestones on the road to the final achievement — much akin to a team clinching a playoff birth. Although not the championship game — or the endgame of professional success — it is well worth celebrating. It pays to allow a for a reward after completing a major step on the way to achieving the vision of one’s ideal life, and it does wonders for morale.
Understanding and implementing these four component steps from businessman Joel Chery will help anyone stay motivated and navigate a path to success in the professional world.
