by Lydia Vidal. The start of a new year is often associated with the renewal of purposes, objectives, and goals that drive us to improve in various areas of our lives, both personal and professional. However, we often encounter a barrier that seems to hinder our efforts: a lack of motivation.
While it is common to feel determined to make significant changes in January, we don’t always manage to sustain those impulses throughout the year. Why does this happen? A big part of it is that motivation doesn’t solely depend on willpower, but on our sense of competence.
In relation to that new goal, how confident are you in your abilities? On a scale from 1 to 10, what score would you give your success?
Motivation and Competence: Beyond Willpower
One reason why many goals fade quickly is that we tend to rely on sheer willpower, overlooking a fundamental factor: the lack of adequate skills or competencies.
When faced with a challenge, if we don’t feel capable of achieving it, our motivation tends to decrease. This phenomenon is especially evident when trying to improve in areas that require significant learning or adaptation,such as in the professional realm.
Instead of focusing solely on simply "wanting to change," or even on "why change," or pushing ourselves to be more disciplined, the key to sustained motivation lies in developing our competencies.This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have ambitious goals or aspirations; on the contrary, it’s about setting achievable and realistic objectives that allow us to gradually improve in the areas we wish to change.
When we improve our abilities, motivation naturally follows.
Learning as a Process: Professional Gymnastics
The key to maintaining motivation with New Year’s resolutions is changing the way we perceive the learning process. Instead of viewing it as an overwhelming emotional challenge, we can approach it as a form of exercise, where the gradual improvement of our skills leads us, little by little, to feel more competent.
This approach has a direct impact on our motivation: the more confident and capable we feel in a given area, the more motivated we are to continue practicing and improving.
One way to learn like this is through executive coaching, which helps individuals focus their efforts on small, achievable goals, avoiding the frustration that often arises when attempting drastic changes without proper planning. By treating the improvement process as a set of skills that we can develop over time, the feeling of constant progress generates intrinsic motivation that makes it easier to sustain changes in the long term.
For example, if one of your New Year’s goals is to improve productivity at work, instead of just committing to "work more," you could specify what "more" means, how much more, and create a concrete plan to improve time management or task prioritization.
Through coaching, you can discuss new techniques and then practice them consistently. Small advancements accumulate, and over time, they lead to greater confidence and motivation in the chosen area, first, and eventually in other domains and environments.
For that goal, that challenge, that change you want to see in the new year, what competencies are you missing? What do you need to train? What resources do you have to learn them?
