Over the last years I have watched really closely what keeps me motivated every day. Factors included:

• grades
• financial-success
• results (e.g. success of a product)

While you should have that “long-term” goal, the problem with these is the following: achieving any of these factors gives you only motivation for this specific area and fulfillment for a specific point in time.

There should be something, related or unrelated to your goals, that gives you motivation along the way. And that is creating momentum. Every day.

I have always struggled with starting a blog. So I set myself a strict-schedule to write one post per week for the next months. Once I wrote the first posts it really started getting easier to write the next one.

And this created a side-effect I never thought of in advance: the created momentum by publishing my posts, comments & emails from readers on my articles motivated me even more to succeed in the other goals I persuade.

The important thing to realize is that this momentum is not directly connected to the other goals I have.

Even if you are totally passionate about your “one-goal” there will be times that are rough regarding this goal. So keeping up the momentum every day, and fueling it by expanding to more areas of your life, will have a tremendous impact on achieving your big-goals.

This creates a domino-effect. Being aware that you can create momentum, you develop a hunger to achieve the other goals you have even faster.

So that’s why it is really important to create momentum in your life. Every single day.

Here are a few examples:

• Blogging

Starting a blog is perfect to create momentum. It is liberating: writing down all the thoughts you had in your head for days or weeks really clears your mind. And it is connecting: find other likeminded people and connect with them.

• Fitness

Fitness has been the No. 1 factor for me to create momentum over the last 10 years. Get started, create a routine for yourself, and improve continously.

• Open-Source

It might be hard to understand why someone would put his free-time into a project and then just give it to people for free. Let me tell you: It is an insanely good feeling to release your software and see people use it.

This is not limited to writing software. Contributing to Wikipedia or other platforms is just as important and fulfilling.

• Breaking down goals in smaller chunks

Breaking down big goals in smaller chunks is really helpful to create short-term goals that fuel your motivation.

You gotta have a long-term goal(s) that you look forward to. Creating the will to reach that goal and constantly fueling the will is going to determine if and how fast you reach your goal.

The following graphic sums this up:

What are examples you use to fuel your motivation? What has been your most promising way to set goals for youself? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments.

Photo-credit: Lioni Faustina, Symbols: thenounproject.com