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Yellow Day: Why is it the happiest day of the year? 12 keys to improve mood
Psychology
Despite the times we are living, Yellow Day remains on June 20 as the day in which we feel happiest if we know how to take advantage of the tools we have
For several years now, June 20 has been called #yellowDay, the happiest day of the year. For what reason? Apparently, both psychologists and meteorologists point out this day as the one that we feel the most happiness for several reasons: first of all because of the increase in temperatures and the hours of daylight. Since spring ends and summer begins, you can enjoy high temperatures and days with much more sunlight. Secondly, because of the proximity to the holidays and that the days are “longer” due to the amount of sunlight that we enjoy. Last but not least, the extra summer pay and the intensive working day that is implemented in most companies make us in a better mood, wanting to enjoy our free time and indulge ourselves …
But… do we have the necessary tools to know how to feel good and increase motivation during this day? Are we feeling discouraged and don’t know how to change it, even though social media is inundated with this hashtag?
The experts at the López Ibor Clinic have the keys to discover our tools and improve our motivation and with it our state of mind. Personal motivation is the trigger for our activity, without motivation any activity becomes a routine and a burden. Discover the 12 essential tips to know how to improve motivation. Motivation is the internal state that drives us towards a goal, so it is essential to achieve our goals and allow our personal development. A high motivation will allow us to face the problems and challenges that stand in our way. Staying motivated is not easy, so it is key to discover strategies that can help us improve and maintain our motivation. Take note:
1. Define the goal. How to start a path if we don’t know where we are going? For example: I want to become a more positive person because I am sure of the great benefits of achieving it.
2. The objective must be realistic. A reasonable and realistic goal implies that we are honest with ourselves and measure our strength. If I lean towards an unreasonable and realistic goal, I am likely to be demotivated and abandon the idea because I feel unable to achieve it. For example: preparing to run a marathon in 1 week without ever having done a long-distance race.
3. Positive visualization. This technique is used by elite athletes in the minutes before the test, because it reduces anxiety and increases self-confidence. For example: if I have an English class but I start to feel lazy, I can imagine myself enjoying speaking English and thus getting my motivation to reactivate.
4. Divide the goal into stages and reward yourself for each achievement. If the goal is slow to arrive, we may end up getting tired and abandoning. Therefore, it is essential to have small goals and prizes that serve to strengthen our motivation. For example: If my desire is to finish a 10 km race, I will have to increase the distance traveled each week until I reach the target distance, I will be able to reward myself by telling my friends about my progress or buying new sneakers when I exceed 5 km.
5. Don’t give up in the face of failure. We often tend to extreme thinking. For example: if one day I do not achieve my purpose, I think that I am a failure and I abandon myself telling myself that what has been achieved up to that moment is of no use. Therefore, accepting that failure is part of the process is vital to not giving up.
6. Help yourself with social support. Share with your trusted environment what you want to achieve and show them the progress you are making. This will help us in 2 ways. On the one hand, the impact on our self-esteem that social valuation supposes and on the other, the pressure to which we submit for not wanting to disappoint them. For example: if I have told my friends about my intention to quit smoking and I am showing them my good progress, I will feel stronger to continue.
7 Be patient. Achieving a goal takes time and requires a process that we cannot skip. For example: if my goal is to lose 8 kilos, if I accept that it will take several weeks, I will avoid being disappointed when I have only lost 2 kilos in the first week.
8. Assess progress. Realizing that the effort is paying off and focusing on what we have already accomplished will make it more likely that we will move forward. For example: if I want to learn a language and I am still in the middle of the training, it will not help me to focus on the fact that I am not yet able to carry on a fluent conversation, being much more beneficial to be aware of how I have expanded my vocabulary.
9. Don’t negotiate with you. When motivation falters, we tend to look for an excuse not to carry out what we had in mind. Therefore, when we have set ourselves a goal, we do not have to think if we feel like it or if it scares us. When we have set ourselves a goal we have to do it even if we don’t feel like it or even if it scares us. For example: my goal is to gain fluency while driving and I have a planned route, but I am afraid to take the car because I recently got my license. Probably, I start to think that it is cloudy or that it might rain, so as not to face my fear.
10. Minimize effort. The more effort an activity requires of me, the more likely it is that I will quit. In this sense, you have to organize your habits to favor the possibility of carrying it out. For example: I have decided to stop drinking ice cream. It will be easier if I don’t have ice cream at home.
11. Be aware of the effort that is going to involve you. If we accept that there will be hard times, in which we have to make an extra effort, it will be easier for us to remember that we already had it and move on. For example: when preparing for an opposition I face a particularly difficult issue, I will remember that when I made the decision to oppose I already had it, it will help me to persist in the effort.
12. Never forget why you do all this. If you are not clear about the reasons why you are trying, it is easy that in difficult moments you can give up. For example: I am running a marathon, I have done 30 kilometers, my legs hurt and my only thought is to stop and stop suffering. If at that moment I don’t remember why I’m doing it, I’ll just stop and let my wish slip away.
In addition to all this, there are some mental states such as depressive episodes or the “amotivational syndrome” secondary to the consumption of toxins, which can cause a decrease in motivation, the ability to enjoy or our willpower. In these cases, in addition to all the strategies described, pharmacological intervention may be necessary. Many times to increase self-esteem and improve personal motivation, the help of an expert is necessary, since many motivational problems have their origin in personality disorders that can be treated and improve the predisposition to take on new challenges.