Everyone wants to achieve financial independence, and there are various ways to accomplish it. However, it can be a long, challenging journey that can often leave you feeling stuck and unmotivated. So, how do you get yourself out of a financial rut and build motivation to keep going?
Here are 15 ways to get motivated to make more money:
- Understand your “why” or financial purpose.
- Write down your specific financial goals.
- Make it easy to make more money.
- Spend time with people who are money-motivated.
- Educate yourself.
- Focus on one goal at a time.
- Improve your money management skills.
- Celebrate your progress.
- Have an accountability partner.
- Monetize your passion.
- Improve your money mindset.
- Join a community of like-minded people.
- Follow people who have reached your financial goals.
- Take a break before you burn out.
- Develop discipline instead of motivation.
In this article, I’ll explain each of these strategies in further detail to help you become more money-motivated and achieve the financial success you’re looking for.
1. Understand Your “Why” or Financial Purpose
Every goal must have a purpose.
There’s no point in having boatloads of money if you don’t know what to do with it. The reason why so many wealthy people often seem miserable is that they don’t have a clear understanding of what they want to achieve with their money. They only see it as a means to fill their bank account.
When you feel content in jobs that pay poorly, you never save enough because you don’t realize what financial independence can give you, and you feel stuck in your life.
But having a clear, defined “why” will keep you focused on your money goals, fuel you with motivation to achieve said goals, and make you feel like your fortune will have a meaning.
Ask yourself the following questions to narrow down your purpose:
- What will financial stability bring me? Is it less debt, more vacations with your family, a private school education for your child, etc.?
- What is it that I always wanted to achieve but couldn’t due to low finances? Maybe a passion project comes to mind or a business you struggled to start in the past.
Answering these crucial questions will get you closer to your financial purpose.
2. Write Down Your Specific Financial Goals
Now that you’ve understood why you want to make more money, it’s time to write down your goals.
Writing your goals helps you visualize them, assess their progress, and track how far you’ve come. It’s also a physical exercise where you sit and think about whether a specific goal is important to you or not.
It also helps to be specific when writing down your goals. For example, don’t say, “I want to be debt-free.” This statement is too vague and will not sufficiently motivate you.
Instead, say, “I want to decrease my debt by $10,000 by the end of 2022.” This is more specific, actionable, and will not overwhelm you.
You might want to read: Reasons to Start Saving more money
Moreover, make sure you write your goals in a place where you can see them all the time, like a post-it note or the front page of your journal. This will remind you of your goals and keep you on track.
However, remember that life changes, and so will your goals. Therefore, you need to constantly evaluate these financial goals to check if they’re still applicable to your life. For example, maybe your goal was to buy a car for cash, but now you realize that you want to invest that money in your new business instead.
3. Make It Easy To Make More Money
You might lose motivation to make more money because you believe it’s too hard, and that’s when overwhelm sets in, and you start to procrastinate.
However, if you take simple steps to make more money, you’ll find that it’s not as difficult as you think, and your motivation will increase.
For example, making more money can be as easy as being brave enough to ask your boss for a raise, starting a side hustle on something you’re passionate about, or creating passive income streams.
Of course, it’s not always going to be easy. However, if you simply take things slowly and stop looking at making money as akin to climbing Mount Everest, you’ll find that it’s not only possible but can be fun and easy too.
Here are some easy ways to generate passive income.
4. Spend Time With People Who Are Money-Motivated
The old saying, “You are who you spend time with” holds true. If you surround yourself with people who complain and do nothing to change their financial situation, you’ll inevitably pick up on their habits.
However, if you spend time with people who are committed to saving money, creating new income streams, and want to achieve financial independence, you’ll start to think like them too.
5. Educate Yourself
When you financially educate yourself, you’ll discover new ways to make money. You’ll also feel a renewed sense of purpose, satisfy your curiosity, increase your self-confidence, and heighten your motivation.
You can learn new skills to make money through books, blogs, YouTube videos, or free online courses. There’s so much information available online that is guaranteed to inspire you on your path to financial success.
For example, if you’re interested in learning more about investing in bitcoin, watch this YouTube video:
6. Focus on One Goal at a Time
We lose motivation when we try to do too many things at once or have unattainable goals.
For example, instead of trying to start a side hustle, and get promoted at work, focus on one of these goals first before moving on to the other. When you try to do everything at once, you feel overwhelmed, and it becomes harder to sustain motivation.
You should also break down each goal into smaller steps, as trying to accomplish a seemingly unattainable goal can also cause overwhelm and fear. It’s hard to imagine “Saving $10,000 by the end of X year”. However, if you break this down into “I’ll cut down my monthly spending by $300 over the next three years,” that seems more achievable, right?
7. Improve Your Money Management Skills
Staying motivated to make more money will be hard if you don’t know how to manage your earnings. You’ll be pumped when you receive a check; however, if you blow it away on something you don’t need, you’ll feel disappointed and less confident in your money management abilities.
However, when you learn how to save and budget, you start to take control of your finances. And when you feel in control of something, you feel motivated to do more of it.
Therefore, improve your money management skills by taking free courses on savings and budgeting, using a savings app, or even downloading a budgeting template.
Here’s a simple budgeting template you can follow:
| Type of Expense | Description | Budgeted Amount | Spent Amount | Notes |
8. Celebrate Your Progress
It’s challenging to stay motivated when you’re only focused on the destination. However, the journey is where life happens, and you must acknowledge each small but significant milestone you reach.
Everyone is motivated by rewards.
So, when you achieve a financial goal or make progress towards one, take a moment to recognize your perseverance and hard work.
For example, if you start a side hustle, track your monthly income in a spreadsheet, and evaluate if you’ve met your desired income goal every three months. If you have, then reward yourself.
Rewarding yourself amplifies your motivation and, therefore, your performance.
9. Have an Accountability Partner
An accountability partner is someone you trust and who’s trying to achieve similar goals as you. Accountability partners differ from a mentee/mentor relationship because you both help each other – the relationship works both ways.
Having an accountability partner will help you stay on track with your goals, as they will support you and keep you motivated. You’ll feel like there’s someone you can count on, and you’ll have a sense of responsibility towards your goals.
10. Monetize Your Passion
It can be hard to retain motivation at a job you find boring. However, if you start a side hustle around your interests, you’ll find it easier to make money and stay motivated in the long term.
Starting a blog is an excellent way to monetize your passion. You create content around a topic you care about and add affiliate links to generate passive income.
Today, it’s easier than ever to turn your passion into a business.
Thousands of people are doing it, and there’s so much information available on the internet.
A blog is just one approach, but there are many others, such as starting a Shopify store, becoming a freelancer, selling printables, etc.
If you create something you love, you’ll never have to force yourself to be motivated.
11. Improve Your Money Mindset
Sometimes we lose motivation to make money because we have a poor relationship with it.
For example, if you grew up in a low-income household, you might believe that making money is hard and out of your reach. However, you’ll need to change this mindset if you want to achieve financial success.
Here are a few ways to change your money mindset:
- Change the way you talk about money. For example, instead of complaining about money struggles to your friends, start talking about ways to increase your income.
- Change the way you think about money. Stop thinking that you don’t deserve to make more money. Instead, believe that you deserve abundance.
- Express gratitude for what you have. When you are grateful for what you have, you allow more abundance to flow into your life.
- Read personal finance books. These books teach you to change your money mindset by learning from others and their experiences.
- Forgive yourself for your financial mistakes. Everyone makes terrible financial choices; however, don’t let this stop you from making more money. Forgive yourself and move on.
- Let go of any childhood conditioning. If you grew up with a negative mindset around money, you’ll likely carry it through adulthood. So, become aware of how your childhood experiences shaped your view of money and let go of them.
Improving your money mindset won’t happen overnight, but it will slowly get easier if you implement these tips.
12. Join a Community of Like-Minded People
Achieving your goals can be a lonely journey, and you lose motivation when you feel nobody else understands you. Therefore, you should be part of a strong, connected group of people on the same financial path as you.
These people will have the same purpose as you – to make more money. And they’ll motivate you with their support, stories, advice, and strategies.
You can look for a community in your city or join a virtual one. There are Facebook groups that will keep you updated on the latest personal finance news, or you can join Reddit communities where people share information on their journeys.
13. Follow People Who Have Reached Your Financial Goals
An incredible way to stay motivated is to follow people who have already achieved the financial success you desire (a mentor).
You can find these mentors online, and their journey and experiences will be a source of motivation for you.
Follow their stories and guidance, and you’ll be reminded that you aren’t alone and that your goals aren’t out of reach.
14. Take a Break Before You Burn Out
There’s no point working 12 hours or hustling until you drop if you never get to enjoy your money. Therefore, you should strive for a balanced lifestyle – with work and adequate rest time.
Taking breaks doesn’t mean you’ve stopped working on your financial goals, it just means you’re recharging yourself to keep going later.
Therefore, don’t feel guilty for taking an extra-long vacation or taking a day off to do nothing. These breaks will re-energize you so you can keep your spirits high and continue working on your goals with renewed motivation.
15. Develop Discipline Instead of Motivation
While being motivated can certainly be helpful, it isn’t always feasible in the long run. Motivation is temporary – it ebbs and flows.
On some days, you’ll feel incredibly motivated to make more money, while on others, you’ll feel low on energy and unmotivated.
This happens because we want to see quick results.
We want to make more money TODAY, using the least amount of effort. However, nothing worth having is ever going to be easy. Therefore, you need to cultivate discipline instead of motivation.
Discipline will keep you going even when the last thing you want to do is make more money. It will curb instant gratification and keep you working consistently on your financial goals.
When you become disciplined, you’ll no longer need motivation to help you get started.
Key Takeaways
Getting motivated to make more money might not happen overnight. It’s a continuous process.
And some of these tips will make it easier:
- Have a clear, defined purpose for why you want to make more money.
- Surround yourself with people on the same path as you or who have achieved the financial goals you want.
- Never stop educating yourself on personal finance.
- Remind yourself that you are allowed to take breaks.
- Become disciplined instead of relying on motivation.
