Do you feel unmotivated in retirement? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. It’s surprisingly very common to feel this way. But not to worry. This step-by-step guide with powerful tools and tips will help you get your motivation back so you can live a more happy and fulfilling retired life.
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Step 1) Rewire Your Brain With Positive Thinking
When you feel unmotivated, you automatically have a pessimistic view of life. Perhaps, you have reoccurring negative thoughts and have the feeling that you can’t seem to get out of this headspace.
To feel more motivated in retirement, you need to get out of the downward spiral of negative thinking dragging you down and stopping you from all the greatness you can achieve in life. And therefore, you need to interrupt your current train of thoughts and replace them with new, positive ones.
When you consciously replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts, you’re rewiring your brain because your brain is like a muscle. What you train becomes stronger, so you train your mind to become better at positive thinking. And with a more positive mindset, you feel more motivated to do everything you want in your retirement.
But how do you start with positive thinking? Well, the best to help you out is Tony Robbins. He is the master of positive thinking. With his 30-day programs, he helped millions of people worldwide claiming back their personal power. And creating a positive mindset to transform their lives from ordinary to extraordinary. His 30-day Personal Power Coaching Program helps you to become aware of your harmful thoughts, how to eliminate them, and how to replace them with positive thoughts.
Step 2) Overcome Your Fears
Once you’ve become aware of your negative thoughts, you probably discovered some fears and limiting beliefs that are holding you back. Perhaps you also have a lot of self-doubt about your own skills and talents. These are all elements that keep you unmotivated to do anything in your retired life.
Once you know your fears and hurting beliefs, you have two options. Either keep running from them or face them and rise above. The last option is the step to take when you want to get your motivation back in retirement. Because you don’t want to be a prisoner of your own beliefs your whole life, right?
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear” – Jack Canfield
Nothing is more liberating than facing fear and conquering it. You must have experienced this yourself as well. It gives a self-confidence boost that nothing else can. And fuels you with new life energy, while when you stay inactive, it only fuels the fear and keeps you unmotivated.
Conquering your fear is all about conquering self-doubt. Doubt has killed more dreams than failure ever will. So what do you have to lose?
The 30-day program Personal Power from Tony Robbins as I mentioned above, shows you how to discover your limiting beliefs and how to use his famous, proprietary method to overcome them for good. And how to use his erasure technique to remove fear from your life.
Step 3) Discover Your Retirement Dream
When overcoming fear is a work in progress, and you have the intent to face them instead of running away, there comes room for your ultimate retirement dreams and desires.
Sometimes the dream you have is very clear, and there are just a couple of obstacles in the way to getting there. But often, after a 40-year career, we’ve forgotten what our dreams and desires are in life. And that is okay. Your focus was somewhere else; paying the bills, raising children, getting promoted, and planning for retirement. Therefore in retirement, you need to discover (all over again) what you want most in life.
You can look at it as an obstacle to overcome in retirement, or you can see it as one big adventure where you can explore and try out all sorts of things. Finding something you are passionate about is, in most cases, it’s a series of discoveries. It’s a process where you experiment with fun activities and feel how your soul and body react to them. And the first try is always the hardest. Once you’ve started your quest, it’s easier to be motivated to get going. You just have to take the first step.
A great platform to explore all sorts of activities and hobbies is MasterClass. An online streaming platform with MasterClasses from the world’s best in their field. From Gordon Ramsay teaches cooking, Ron Finley teaches gardening, Serena Wiliams teaches tennis, Ron Howard teaches directing, and so many more. Over 100 different classes are accessible with One Membership. Categories from art, cooking, business, and sports to science classes and everything in between. There is a whole world waiting for you to be explored with MasterClass.
Step 4) Set Goals
“You are never too old to set a new goal or dream a new dream” – C.S. Lewis
After you know your dream. It’s time to set goals to achieve that ultimate dream. Because having a goal in life means having a direction in life, a motivation to move forward, and a reason to get up in the morning.
Now the key to goal setting and staying motivated in retirement is to set realistic goals. And by that, I do not mean don’t chase your dreams, but you need a realistic action plan to achieve your dreams. And what Tony Robbins, in his Personal Power Program, will teach you is how to set goals properly. And how you can achieve them.
The key is to break down your goal into smaller steps and create an action plan so that you can work towards your goal every day. A series of small steps will ultimately lead you to your ultimate goal.
“The distance between dreams and reality is action.” – Unknown
Setting a goal makes your retirement dream tangible and more within reach. And a good action plan is the best strategy to get you into action. Once you start working towards a specific goal in life today, it motivates you even more to take the next step tomorrow and the next day after. Get the ball rolling, and you don’t have to worry about staying motivated ever again.
Step 5) Create New Routines And Healthy Habits
Creating a healthy and positive morning routine is crucial to staying motivated in retirement. It creates positive momentum. An act that will lead to future success and goal achievement. Because when you repeat something on a conscious level frequently, it will become nonconscious automatic behavior.
When you retire, you lose many daily routines that come with having a job. It’s a possibility that you may feel unmotivated in retirement because of the lack of daily routines. Therefore creating new routines and healthy habits is important to feel motivated again. It creates a structure in your retirement day, and you’ll have something to hold on to.
According to the book Power of Habit is that making your bed is a “keystone habit”. It’s a small habit and a daily routine that kick-starts a pattern of other good habits during the day. “It is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger skills at sticking with a budget.”
“If you win the morning, you in the day” – Unknown
Getting up, making your bed, exercising, and eating a healthy breakfast is a great routine to have that will set you off for the rest of the day. And keeps you in motivated spirits. Also, the Personal Power Program from Tony Robbins focuses on the power of rituals and repetition. Find out more about this coaching program here.
Step 6) Exercise Daily
Another “keystone habit’ is exercising. When you’ve done a morning exercise, you feel more energized and motivated to conquer the rest of your retirement day. It is not only good for your physical health to exercise, but it’s also an extremely powerful tool to uplift the mind. According to many studies exercising can prevent and curb feelings of depression.
Your brain produces endorphins, dopamine, and adrenaline when you exercise. These are natural pain killers and mood boosters. You feel less anxiety and stress after working out and these hormones help you concentrate better and make you feel more confident. Now you just need the motivation to work out. Because you’ve found the motivation to do a workout or go for a nice nature walk, you’ll directly help yourself be motivated for other activities during the day.
When you need some extra guidance and support to exercise, I can highly recommend using the app Aaptiv. It’s an audio personal trainer app with thousands of workouts and classes for any skill and interest level. It’s like having a personal trainer in your ear that helps you to achieve your goals.
Step 7) Find Your Support Team
Healthy social interactions are extremely important for overall happiness.
The lack of enough social stimulation is one of the big reasons why a lot of retirees struggle with depression and loneliness. When you retire, you lose a lot of daily social moments. So seeking new ways to stay social is one of the keys to a successful and happy retirement.
Having enough social interactions is important for your mental well-being. But it doesn’t help when you only have contact with people that bring you down. That’s why surrounding yourself with positive people that lift you up will help you find your motivation back in retirement.
Therefore seek contact with people that motivate you and fuel you with energy instead of draining you. Find your support team with people that are there for you when you need a listening ear or a pep talk that puts you into action.
Step 8) Stay Focused
After some time, you can fall back on old habits and patterns that are unhealthy for you. Staying focused on the goal helps you stay motivated long-term in retirement. Often it’s hard to stay focused when we don’t get immediate results. To stay motivated, you have to keep the long-term rewards and benefits in mind. Have your eye on the prize.
“Starve your distraction. Feed your focus” – Unknown
Many retirees waste their time with unproductive and unfulfilling activities such as scrolling down social media and watching too much TV. When you can limit the time you spend on distractions, you’ll have more time left on the things that are important to you. When you focus on your goal every day, the chances you’ll stay motivated in retirement are a lot higher.
Step 9) Keep Boosting Your Self-Confidence
Unmotivated people lack self-confidence. So you actively need to boost your self-confidence every day to stay motivated. And that takes work and practice because self-confidence isn’t a switch you turn ON once, and you’re set for the rest of your life.
When you get the Personal Power Coaching Program from Tony Robbins, he’ll teach you the proven formula to condition the mind for success and how to inspire confidence in yourself on a daily basis.
Step 10) Defeat Procrastination
Getting stuff done is hard when you’re not motivated. You’re more likely to avoid tasks, and knowing that you avoid tasks will only make you feel more unmotivated. So it’s time to defeat procrastination. But how to do that? Below are a couple of tips
- Forgive Yourself – according to a study on procrastination is that self-compassion and forgiveness allow you to move past your past procrastination and helps you to get things done in the future. Forgiving yourself that you’ve been unmotivated in retirement perhaps can also help you to be more motivated in the future.
- Pick A Powerful Song – Pick out a song you know that energizes you and makes you feel good and play it whenever you need to do a daunting task. You’re likely to follow through when you’re in a good mood.
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