Matt: What’s going on guys? This is Matt and Greg with Project Unbroken. Do us a favor, hit that subscribe button and please share this video with anybody that you think it might help. Today we wanted to talk about five ways to stay motivated. All right? We got 2019 coming up. It’s a big time to start thinking about goals. It’s a big time to think about making changes in your life, and to do that whether you’re coming out of an addiction, or going into a maintenance program, or just coming out of any bad situation in life, you’re not always going to be motivated to make the right decision, make the right choice. Greg and I came up with five different ways, or important things that we feel like we use on regular basis and that we use coming out of our addiction to stay motivated and to reach our goals. Want to start the list off?
Greg: Yeah. So, number one is an ultra-strong reason why, or multiple ultra-strong reasons why. Now, when I started wanting to come off heroin I got really sick of withdrawing and that was the first thing that I got really sick of. I hate withdrawal. You want to get sick now, it just makes me cringe because I remember the withdrawals, so I really, really do not like withdrawal. Most people don’t. Sometimes that’s not enough. So that got me kind of on the path to start kind of where I quit for a little bit and then I’d come back, because I’d forget. You know really quickly we tend to forget why we quit. So you got to remember why you quit as well, but that’s another topic.
Greg: So then the second part for me for the ultra-strong emotion was when I found out my son was on the way. You know at that time I was on methadone and that’s where the kind of ultra-strong emotion came in of love. I was like, “I’m not going to put my son through this. I don’t want him to see me coming off of or being on methadone, going to the clinic.” So that was kind of number two. I hated the withdrawal, I loved my son already. So those were the kind of two big things for me.
Matt: Like Greg said, ultra-strong reason or an ultra-strong emotion is going to be huge for this. Like for me, my biggest reason or emotion or why is I wanted to go back to my old self. I just wanted to feel like I felt before substance abuse and that was a really good motivator for me to … I don’t know, just turn the leaf and start fresh. But you need some sort of deep down reason why that you want this to happen. It’s almost like a North Star for you to follow because you’re going to forget. You’re going to lose the motivation. You need to have that deep reason why it’s going to be important.
Greg: This isn’t something where you can just be like, “Heh, I feel like I’m going to quit. I think I’m done.” We tried that many times, and it never worked.
Matt: Doesn’t work. You got to find a deep reason and that’s going to help steer you in the right direction. When times get tough, or you know your weakness creeps into your life you got to have that why.
Greg: Yeah.
Matt: Number two on the list: expectations.
Greg: Yeah. So, for me expectations is big because I think a lot of people, you know they get the plan in their he’d to quit and they don’t really have expectations, and then they get to a point where maybe it’s a little different. You have some different times come up and they just kind of give in, right? So, your expectations I think kind of falls in line with you can’t expect it to be easy. You know you got to expect some difficult times and be prepared to go through those difficult times.
Matt: And you have to have high expectations for yourself. It was really big for me to envision where I wanted my life to be. Like I now have a seven figure business. I have a home that I really love. My family’s what I want it to be, and these are all things that I looked at in my addiction. I was like, “Yeah, I want those for myself.” I set those expectations for me to get there, and there’s a lot of practices you can do with this, or exercises you can do for this. Dream boards are a really big one. They sound crazy, but it’s really nice to have something visual that you can see whether it’s a dream house, or a car, or a family or situation that you want to be in. Set those up so you can see them on a daily basis. And again, it’s kind of a good reminder; a) of the expectations that you have for yourself, and b) of what you have to gain by sticking to your guns and staying motivated and trying to reach your goals.
Greg: Yeah, another … just a side tip from me that’s worked really well is like for example when I got into exercise I had a vision of where I wanted to be, but also day to day I didn’t look too far ahead to my vision. So, what I mean is like when I’m in bed and I’m laying down, I don’t feel like getting up. I’m not thinking about, “Oh my god, I have so much work to do before I get to where I want to be.” I’m thinking, “Okay, I just got to get out of bed right now.” Okay? So, “I got to get out of bed. I got to get dressed.” I focus my next vision day by day very short-term. I keep my long-term vision in my mind, but my day to day vision is what’s the next step. I just got to get out of bed because if I’m thinking about the workout I’ve got to do while I’m laying in bed I’ll be like, “I don’t want to do that.”
Greg: But once you get up and you get dressed, now it’s like, “All right, I’m just going to get my coffee.” Once I get my coffee in me I’m like, “all right, I just got to get to the gym.” Once I get to the gym I’m fine. So, a big thing that’s helped my success is having that long-term vision in mind, but not thinking about that necessarily as you’re in a time where you don’t want to do something. You think more of the short-term vision in those times.
Matt: I think that brings us right into our next tip for motivation which is progress. What Greg was saying is huge. You need to make sure that you’re counting in all the little stuff that’s going day to day and keeping you on track. Don’t necessarily worry about the big picture a year down the road, two years down the road, three years down the road. You want to have that stuff, that’s dream board stuff right there. You need to give yourself credit for the day to day decisions that you’re checking off every day. So, think about progress. Get a calendar. Every day you stay clean, check it off. Every day you go to the gym, check it off. Every day you eat better, check it off. It’s a brick every day in the wall that you’re just getting stronger in your recovery, you know in your mental state, wellbeing, all that stuff gets better day by day.
Matt: You have to give yourself credit for the little wins and that’s progress. I mean, that’s the stuff. That’s where you start to feel good. When you look back and you’re like, “Damn I made it a week. Damn, I made it a month, Damn, it’s been a year, five years, 10 years.” Then when you look around you you’ll see that your whole life has changed. But if you just focus on the day to day wins, that’s where you really find success.
Greg: Love that. I think you covered that well, so why don’t you take number four as well.
Matt: Gratitude is huge. This is something that I found when I was coming out of my recovery, struggling with some anxiety and depression and you know all the normal things that come along with it, but when I started practicing gratitude my whole frame of mind shifted. So instead of waking up and being like, “I got a court date,” or, “I got to go pick up my prescription.” I have all these negative things on my plate. What I started to do is wake up and I would list out literally write down three things that I was grateful for. That completely shifted my focus from all the negatives in my life to all the positives. Then you start looking at all the things that you have in your corner and you realize you’re okay. You have more than you think you might have. Things aren’t as bad as they may seem.
Matt: This really starts to shift everything into a positive frame and you start making better decisions because of that. You’re not focused on the negative. You’re not operating off of a system of fear, but more of a system of love. You know you got some things in your corner that are going to help you find success.
Greg: Yeah I had the worst day the other day. So my water pressure was really low and I call out the water guy and he’s like checking my water pressure. He’s like, “Dude,” he’s like, “We need to fix this. Like this is about …” My water pressure was off the charts. He’s like, “This could have blown up and exploded and like flooded your house.” So he’s like, “I got some more bad news. Your hot water heater is also leaking. So it was like four or five grand things, to fix. Right? So then he’s like “I got to get out immediately.” So the next morning he comes out and I go out to work at Starbucks. On the way I freaking pop my tire. Brand new tire, was just gotten a week ago. I ran over a piece of a guard rail.
Greg: So I’m driving to the place because it’s stuck in there so I was able to drive and I was going to go get my tire changed. On the way the thing I hear … So the thing falls out. So now I got to freaking call a tow truck. So I’m on the side of the road for two hours calling a tow truck. But I was like, “You know what? I could be so much more … I have a car to drive. You know what I mean? This water bill that I’m about to get for this hot water heater and the pressure thing is going to be four, five grand, but I can afford it.” So always try to look at the positive things. Always be thankful for what you have and that is a … that’s really big to my wife. It’s like, “Man. You’re not in a bad mood?” I was like, “Nah.” I was like, “I’m good. I get to go home to my family.” Yeah it’s an off day. It’s going to happen, but you really got to change your mindset, make sure you’re thankful for what you have.
Greg: You know, like I have my health. I have all my arms and legs. I can see. I can hear. We live in a first world country. Like you got … always look at the positives, and I think that’s part of gratitude as well.
Matt: Absolutely. It’ll just shift your focus. You’ll start seeing that day to day in all the good. You’ll start to ignore the negative stuff in your life because you realize it’s not helping you out at all anyways.
Greg: Yup.
Matt: Number five, daily environment. Now this is one we talk about a lot. This is the scenarios that you find yourself in day to day, who you surround yourself with, what your workspace or just environment. How you clean up, how you organize yourself. It has a lot to do with how your mind works. If you know your desk is all cluttered and messy it just … it gets into your head a little bit and screws you up. If you’re surrounded by negative people you’re going to feed off of that energy, and it’s going to bad. But, on the flip side if you surround yourself with positive people, you have a nice, clean working environment, you take care of your stuff, it just puts your whole mindset into a different zone.
Greg: Yeah, I mean it’s absolutely huge. If you have negative people around you they are going to bring you down. There are some people in my life where I’ve given them advice or they have people they have to deal with. I’m like, “You have to just cut them out as much as you can. Just talk to them through text or you know you got to cut out those type of people as much as you can.” Sometimes we got people in our life that we have to deal with for certain reasons. You just have to limit the communication as much as possible and just talk to your positive people. Be around your positive influences as much as you can.
Matt: Yeah, you have to realize that there is what we call vampires out there that it will just suck the life out of you. I mean it’s just negative, negativity. They’ll drag you down. You’ll feel worse after a five minute conversation with them than you would even think.
Greg: Yup.
Matt: You got to try to surround yourself with positive people, people who are bringing you up, bringing positive energy around. It’s just really important. You know all of us to some extent are just empaths. Meaning, we feed off of the energy that others bring us, and you have to do your best to kind of navigate. Stay away from the negative and keep the whole thing positive.
Greg: Yeah. So those are our five things. We’ve got ultra-strong reason why, your expectations, your progress, your gratitude, and then your environment.
Matt: Stick to it guys. Again, New Year’s right around the corner. We should all have big goals and expectations set out for ourselves. Use these tips to help stay motivated again when times are tough or when you don’t have the motivation that you want. Look back at this list, try to dig in there and see if anything works for you.
Greg: So hope you all enjoyed this video. Make sure you like, comment, share. If there’s anything else you want to see from us let us know. We’re constantly looking for ideas and what people are looking for. So, see you all soon.
Matt: See you guys.
